By Inam Un Nabi
GNS SRINAGAR ;The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) has demanded an impartial forensic probe into all unmarked graves across the Valley to see if there is a link between Kashmir’s disappeared people and bodies found in such graves.
This follows the ‘official’ discovery of 2,156 bodies in unmarked graves in North Kashmir by the J&K Human Rights Commission (SHRC). Activists, who feel this is just the tip of the iceberg, have asked the SHRC to document similar atrocities in the rest of Kashmir too.
Last month, the ADPD issued a statement, “Out of 53 cases we submitted to the SHRC, it has been established that 49 were local civilians. The exhumations at Panchalatan, Ganderbal, Kichama, Macchil have confirmed forensically that forces have been responsible for killing civilians in fake encounters.”
SHRC secretary Tariq Banday hesitates to link Kashmir’s disappeared to bodies found in these graves. “This is presumptuous.”
However, SSP Bashir Ahmad Itoo, who headed SHRC’s investigative team in North Kashmir, thinks otherwise. One cannot rule out a correlation between unidentified graves and ‘disappeared’ people, Itoo tells DNA.
“The police haven’t legally maintained any identification profile of missing persons and unidentified bodies. If the APDP claim that these are the missing people, the government could have rejected it. But in the absence of a proper identification profile, the state has found it impossible to do so. Laws were violated as procedures were brushed aside. The government needs to profile the DNA of unidentified bodies from the NGO’s database now,” he said.
In a letter to the SHRC, Mohammad Ahsan Untoo, chairman, International Forum for Justice, revealed that his organisation had found 37 cases of fake encounters in Lolab, in North Kashmir. Pleading for a probe, Untoo said: “In all the 37 cases... bodies of the victims were buried in unmarked graves, which were later identified by people on their own without any assistance from police or government agency.”
Untoo added, “We think that these unmarked graves contain many victims of the human rights abuses by the state agencies.”
In the South, shepherds have seen skeletons lying in the jungles of Nagbal. “In some cases, unidentified graves have been found inside or next to army camps and police stations,” said Khurram Parvez, programme coordinator, J&K Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS).
In Delina, Baramullah, two skeletons surfaced during work for the construction of a building at the site of an Army camp that shifted base in 2005. A silver tooth on one body identified it as that of one Mansoor Ahmed, whose family claims the Army picked up in 2003. After they filed a missing person’s report, the Army told the police that Ahmed had escaped from custody.
Parvez said more skeletons would emerge if premises of police stations, Army, Special operations Group, STF, CRPF and BSF camps in Kashmir were searched.
NGOs allege that there are 6,500 unidentified bodies buried across J&K including 2,717 in Poonch district and 1,127 in Rajouri.
GNS SRINAGAR ;The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) has demanded an impartial forensic probe into all unmarked graves across the Valley to see if there is a link between Kashmir’s disappeared people and bodies found in such graves.
This follows the ‘official’ discovery of 2,156 bodies in unmarked graves in North Kashmir by the J&K Human Rights Commission (SHRC). Activists, who feel this is just the tip of the iceberg, have asked the SHRC to document similar atrocities in the rest of Kashmir too.
Last month, the ADPD issued a statement, “Out of 53 cases we submitted to the SHRC, it has been established that 49 were local civilians. The exhumations at Panchalatan, Ganderbal, Kichama, Macchil have confirmed forensically that forces have been responsible for killing civilians in fake encounters.”
SHRC secretary Tariq Banday hesitates to link Kashmir’s disappeared to bodies found in these graves. “This is presumptuous.”
However, SSP Bashir Ahmad Itoo, who headed SHRC’s investigative team in North Kashmir, thinks otherwise. One cannot rule out a correlation between unidentified graves and ‘disappeared’ people, Itoo tells DNA.
“The police haven’t legally maintained any identification profile of missing persons and unidentified bodies. If the APDP claim that these are the missing people, the government could have rejected it. But in the absence of a proper identification profile, the state has found it impossible to do so. Laws were violated as procedures were brushed aside. The government needs to profile the DNA of unidentified bodies from the NGO’s database now,” he said.
In a letter to the SHRC, Mohammad Ahsan Untoo, chairman, International Forum for Justice, revealed that his organisation had found 37 cases of fake encounters in Lolab, in North Kashmir. Pleading for a probe, Untoo said: “In all the 37 cases... bodies of the victims were buried in unmarked graves, which were later identified by people on their own without any assistance from police or government agency.”
Untoo added, “We think that these unmarked graves contain many victims of the human rights abuses by the state agencies.”
In the South, shepherds have seen skeletons lying in the jungles of Nagbal. “In some cases, unidentified graves have been found inside or next to army camps and police stations,” said Khurram Parvez, programme coordinator, J&K Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS).
In Delina, Baramullah, two skeletons surfaced during work for the construction of a building at the site of an Army camp that shifted base in 2005. A silver tooth on one body identified it as that of one Mansoor Ahmed, whose family claims the Army picked up in 2003. After they filed a missing person’s report, the Army told the police that Ahmed had escaped from custody.
Parvez said more skeletons would emerge if premises of police stations, Army, Special operations Group, STF, CRPF and BSF camps in Kashmir were searched.
NGOs allege that there are 6,500 unidentified bodies buried across J&K including 2,717 in Poonch district and 1,127 in Rajouri.
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