Kashmir: Fact-finding report accuses Indian Army of committing atrocities, demands inquiry

[Abdullah719]

A fact-finding report released by a team of women activists has made disturbing allegations against the Indian Army deployed in Jammu and Kashmir. The allegations include the “lifting” of 13,000 young boys by Army personnel, and family members being taken away for questioning if curfew is “breached”.

The report was released at the Delhi Press Club Tuesday afternoon by Communist Party of India leader Annie Raja, Kawaljit Kaur and Pankhuri Zaheer of the National Federation of Indian Women, the advocate Poonam Kaushik from the Pragatisheel Mahila Sangathan, and Syeda Hameed of the Muslim Women’s Forum. The five of them visited Kashmir from September 17 to 21.

The team visited Srinagar and several villages in the districts of Shopian, Pulwama and Bandipora. Their report incorporates eyewitness accounts of the restrictions imposed on the people since the Centre’s abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution which granted autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir. The names of the eyewitnesses were changed to protect their identities.

According to the report, in some places, lights must be switched off in homes by 8 pm. “In Bandipora, we saw a young girl who made the mistake of keeping a lamp lit to read for her exam on the chance that her school may open soon,” the report says. “Army men angered by this breach of ‘curfew’, jumped the wall to barge in. Father and son, the only males in the house were taken away for questioning.”

The report quotes a woman from Bandipora: “In a reflex action, my four-year-old places a finger on her lips when she hears a dog bark after dusk. Barking dogs mean an imminent visit by the Army. I can't switch on the phone for light so I can take my little girl to the toilet. Light shows from far and if that happens our men pay with their lives.”

At the press conference, Raja said the abrogation of Article 370 “united the people of Kashmir”. “They now speak in one voice and their sentiment is one. Everyone, irrespective of age or gender, feels that this is the last blow on the dignity and self-respect of the people,” she added. “They cannot forgive and they cannot forget. This is the feeling in all districts. They were so angry but determined to fight back.”

Raja continued: “What I felt is happening in Kashmir is the Indian variant of genocide. There is a human tragedy and that tragedy is because of so many reasons: communication ban and absence of transportation, deaths taking place because of non-availability of timely medical care.”

According to the report, about 13,000 young boys have been “lifted” by the Army during the lockdown. Raja explained, “We met some of the mothers who said their children were picked up by the Army at night and that they were not provided any information about the whereabouts of their children.”

Raja said the Army cannot remain in Kashmir as a “holding power”. “The extent of their atrocity and violence…and them terrorising people, especially young boys and girls, at night…is a dangerous thing,” she said. “It makes all of us think about what is the policy of the government in Kashmir.” She claimed that currently no political party except the Bharatiya Janata Party can organise meetings in Kashmir. “This itself is a violation of democracy and democratic rights of the people,” she argued.

Kaushik said the Kashmir Bar Association’s office was locked when the team visited it. “Lawyers I spoke with said the state is judicially paralysed…that constitutional laws don’t exist here,” she recalled. “The bridge between Kashmir and India, which was built on the basis of Article 370, has been broken.”

Describing what the team saw in the five days it spent in Kashmir, Hameed said, “It was like a cloud of depression that we walked into. The people living there don’t know anything at all about what is going on outside the state. Not the media reports or the protests…it’s like living behind an iron curtain.”

She added, “The forces feel very angry when they see a young Kashmiri boy. Thappad maarna is the new normal.”

The report concludes: “Everywhere we went there were two inexorable sentiments. First, desire for Azadi; they want nothing of either India or Pakistan. The humiliation and torture they have suffered for 70 years has reached a point of no return. Abrogation of 370 some say has snapped the last tie they had with India. Even those people who always stood with the Indian state have been rejected by the government. Since all their leaders have been placed under PSA [Public Safety Act] or under house arrest, the common people have become their own leaders. Their suffering is untold, so is their patience. The second was the mothers’ anguished cries…their children’s lives should not be snuffed out by gun and jackboots.”

To redress the situation, the team demands that:

• All communication lines in Kashmir, including internet and mobile networks, must be immediately restored.
• Articles 370 and 35A must be restored.
• All future decisions about the political future of Jammu and Kashmir must be taken through a process of dialogue with the state’s people.
• All Army personnel must be removed from civilian areas of Jammu and Kashmir.
• A time-bound inquiry committee must be constituted to look into the excesses committed by the Army.

Newslaundry contacted the Indian Army’s spokesperson for comment on the allegations made in the report. The story will be updated if a response is received.

https://newslaundry.com/2019/09/24/...army-of-committing-atrocities-demands-inquiry

 

[Bilal_103]

AlL iS wELl

 

[kk1992]

No one will be shocked.

Radical Hindus are on vengeance to reclaim the land and people they’ve lost 100’s of years ago.

 

[cric_man]

Over 13000 minors taken away without any recourse....
Page out of the Israeli gamebook...

 

[Abdullah719]

‘J&K youth being sent to jails outside State’

Gulzar Ahmad Wagey has not seen his 11-year-old son for 22 days. Mr. Wagey, a shopkeeper in Shopian’s Keegam village, said his son was picked up by security forces in the last week of August from their home. He said he had been coming to the police station every day to know the son’s whereabouts.

“I do not know why he was arrested. Saheb (Superintendent of Police) assured us that he will let me meet him,” said Mr. Wagey as he waited outside the Shopian headquarters. He later said the police had agreed to release his son.

Hundreds waited outside the police station in Shopian to get information about their relatives, friends and neighbours when The Hindu visited the place last week. Most were detained to prevent any kind of violence in the aftermath of August 5 when Home Minister Amit Shah moved two Bills to revoke the special status of J&K under Article 370 and bifurcate and downgrade the State into two Union Territories.

800 in detention
The J&K Director General of Police Dilbag Singh said in an interview to The Hindu that August 5 onwards, around 3,000 cases were reported where young men were picked up and released subsequently in the Kashmir Valley. Around 800 remain in detention and nearly 150 are lodged in jails outside J&K.

Bilal Ahmad, resident of Shopian said that his neighbour Abdul Rauf (50), a government employee was missing for the past 40 days.

“He was picked up from Zainapora. We come here everyday to get information about him but have not succeeded so far. They are sending young men to jails outside the State. In the absence of mobile phones there is no way we can get any information,” Mr. Ahmad said.

Shopian is one of the worst militancy-affected districts in South Kashmir. There are around 225 villages in the district spread over 60,000 hectares of which half is covered by apple orchards. It is the largest producer of apples in J&K.

According to police, last year 42 men from Shopian joined various terrorist groups, while this year only 17 took to militancy. A police officer said that post August 5, only one man joined the terror group.

In the past one year, as many as 20,000 people have signed community bonds to secure the release of 800 young men and boys who were involved in incidents of stone-pelting.

The J&K police have started a unique practice of engaging the community elders, religious teachers and family members to deter the youth from repeating offences like throwing stones at security forces. As per the bond, the community members are made to stand as guarantors for the youth at the local police station for first-time offenders. The bond has no legal sanctity though.

All markets remain shut in Shopian. Muzaffar Ahamd Ganai, a former sarpanch said that residents were not opening shops in protest. “Earlier separatists used to give call for a strike. We are not bothered about them. This hartal [strike] is by the people. We will not resort to any violence but are ready to sacrifice business for our rights,” said Mr. Ganai, adding that this was a civil protest against the Centre’s decision to revoke J&K’s special status.

“We are called terrorists when we go outside the State. Mobile phones are down. We are rotting in our houses. We do not trust any political leader. Leaders like Farooq Abdullah who stood with India have been put in jail,” he added.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/natio...nt-to-jails-outside-state/article29511624.ece

 

[Bewal Express]

All is well according to the supporters of the fascist.

 

[MenInG]

Public protests in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) were once an almost weekly occurrence but two years after New Delhi imposed direct rule on the region, locals say arbitrary arrests and intimidation by security forces wielding batons and snatching phones have left many too scared to voice dissent.

A week before the region's partial autonomy was abolished, and as a massive troop deployment fanned out to help forestall a local backlash, "Rafiq" was one of thousands put in "preventative detention".

He believes he was arrested because in the past he had "protested against injustices".

Freed after a harrowing year behind bars, the 26-year-old -- too frightened to give his real name -- says he is a "broken man".

Echoing accounts from a dozen other Kashmiris told to AFP, he and 30 others were bundled onto a military aircraft to a jail hundreds of miles from his home where they were "abused and intimidated".

"A bright light was kept on all night in my cell for six months... It was hard to imagine that I would come out alive," he said.

He at least was finally released. Activists say that scores of other Kashmiris are languishing in India's notoriously harsh jails.

Mother-of-five Tasleema hasn't seen her husband Gulzar Ahmed Bhat, who used to belong to a separatist group but left in 2016, in two years.

Initially, when police and soldiers raided his home, Bhat was out. So they held his 23-year-old nephew until his uncle turned himself in.

"I almost beg for work to feed my children," a tearful Tasleema said, a young child on her lap.

India has for decades stationed more than half a million soldiers in IIOJK. Its troops are fighting freedom fighters demanding a merger with Pakistan.

Saying it wanted finally to achieve peace, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government scrapped a section of the constitution guaranteeing the territory's partial autonomy in August 2019.

Kashmiris now no longer have a locally elected government and are ruled by a lieutenant governor appointed by New Delhi.

A legislative blitz has seen new laws applied and others scrapped. There are now hardly any senior Kashmiri police officers or bureaucrats in important decision-making positions.

Changes in land ownership rules have sparked accusations of "settler colonialism" aimed at achieving an irreversible demographic shift in the Muslim-majority region.

Neither the Home Ministry in New Delhi nor the government's spokesperson in IIOJK responded to requests for comment from AFP for this article.

Many of the 5,000 officially arrested two years ago -- and scores more since -- were booked under the Public Safety Act, a "preventative detention" law allowing two years' imprisonment without charge or trial.

"In the majority of cases, preventative detention is little more than a tool used... to silence dissent and ensure self-censorship," Juliette Rousselot from the International Federation for Human Rights told AFP.

India has also made sweeping use of vaguely-worded anti-terror legislation -- the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act -- which effectively allows people to be held without trial indefinitely.

Authorities have raided homes, offices and premises of civil society groups, journalists and newspapers, confiscating phones and laptops.

One group raided was the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.

"All the state institutions that are supposed to protect human rights and civil liberties have also been silenced now, made dysfunctional or threatened into capitulation," the group's head Parvez Imroz said.

Local journalists say they are under increased scrutiny. Photographers have been assaulted and foreign reporters are effectively barred from the region.

When shopkeepers attempted a shutdown in protest this month, police smashed locks to force them to open.

Young people say they are questioned and sometimes beaten up at checkpoints if encrypted apps like WhatsApp or Signal are installed on their phones.

Over a dozen government employees have recently been dismissed for "anti-national activities" or social media posts critical of the government.

Last month police were told to reject security clearance for government jobs and passports to those with past involvement in protests, stone-throwing or activities against "security of the state".

Violence has continued. This month a local official from Modi's party was killed along with his wife, while 90 suspected rebels have died in clashes so far this year.

But while there used to be almost weekly protests, which police would often respond to with tear gas and pellet-firing shotguns, now they are fast becoming a thing of the past.

Relatives and even neighbours of those who have protested in the past -- or just suspected of having done so -- are regularly pressed by police to give written promises to ensure they desist.

"I'm now forced to think of my family and relations before opening my mouth to say anything," said one young man, who spent a year in prison and whose father was made to sign one such undertaking.

"It has separated us. Solidarity with each other is no longer possible."

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2316416/in-iiojk-few-now-dare-to-speak-out