AFSPA, Disappearances and Human-Rights Reports
Special laws give security forces in Kashmir sweeping powers and near-immunity, and human-rights groups and the UN document killings, torture and disappearances, which India disputes.
- Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir: Developments in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from June 2016 to April 2018, and General Human Rights Concerns in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2018)
- Update of the Situation of Human Rights in Indian-Administered Kashmir and Pakistan-Administered Kashmir from May 2018 to April 2019 — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2019)
- Denied: Failures in Accountability for Human Rights Violations by Security Force Personnel in Jammu and Kashmir — Amnesty International India, Amnesty International (2015)
- Everyone Lives in Fear: Patterns of Impunity in Jammu and Kashmir — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2006)
- Resisting Occupation in Kashmir — Haley Duschinski, Mona Bhan, Ather Zia and Cynthia Mahmood (eds.), University of Pennsylvania Press (2018)
- Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace — Sumantra Bose, Harvard University Press (2003)
In 1990 India extended the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act to Jammu and Kashmir. It allows soldiers in “disturbed areas” to search, arrest and, in some circumstances, shoot to kill, and bars prosecution without the central government’s permission. Amnesty International reported in 2015 that the government had not granted that permission in any of the cases the state had sought it for. The state’s Public Safety Act allows detention without trial for up to two years.
- Denied: Failures in Accountability for Human Rights Violations by Security Force Personnel in Jammu and Kashmir — Amnesty International India, Amnesty International (2015)
- Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir: Developments in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from June 2016 to April 2018, and General Human Rights Concerns in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2018)
Human-rights groups have documented torture centres, custodial killings and staged “encounters”, such as at Pathribal in 2000, where a federal investigation found that five villagers killed and presented as foreign militants were civilians. Allegations of mass rape by soldiers at Kunan and Poshpora in 1991, which the army denies, remain unresolved. Kashmiri families say thousands of men disappeared after arrest; the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, founded by Parveena Ahangar, has campaigned since 1994. In 2011 the state’s own human-rights commission reported more than 2,000 unidentified bodies in unmarked graves in north Kashmir.
- Everyone Lives in Fear: Patterns of Impunity in Jammu and Kashmir — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2006)
- Denied: Failures in Accountability for Human Rights Violations by Security Force Personnel in Jammu and Kashmir — Amnesty International India, Amnesty International (2015)
- Resisting Occupation in Kashmir — Haley Duschinski, Mona Bhan, Ather Zia and Cynthia Mahmood (eds.), University of Pennsylvania Press (2018)
- Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir: Developments in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from June 2016 to April 2018, and General Human Rights Concerns in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2018)
Militants, too, killed civilians, Pandits, politicians and alleged informers, and the UN reports condemned their abuses. During the 2016 protests, security forces’ use of pellet-firing shotguns injured thousands and blinded many young people, an image that came to define that year.
- Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir: Developments in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from June 2016 to April 2018, and General Human Rights Concerns in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2018)
- Update of the Situation of Human Rights in Indian-Administered Kashmir and Pakistan-Administered Kashmir from May 2018 to April 2019 — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2019)
Thousands of people were killed in custody or staged "encounters", tortured or disappeared, and special laws mean almost no one has been punished. Kashmiris live under collective punishment, from pellet guns that blinded young protesters to long detentions without trial.
- Resisting Occupation in Kashmir — Haley Duschinski, Mona Bhan, Ather Zia and Cynthia Mahmood (eds.), University of Pennsylvania Press (2018)
- Denied: Failures in Accountability for Human Rights Violations by Security Force Personnel in Jammu and Kashmir — Amnesty International India, Amnesty International (2015)
- Everyone Lives in Fear: Patterns of Impunity in Jammu and Kashmir — Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (2006)
The army and police face a Pakistan-backed militancy and need legal protection to operate. Abuses are exceptions, investigated and punished through military and civil courts. India rejected the UN human-rights office's 2018 report as "fallacious", "motivated" and ignoring cross-border terrorism.
- Update of the Situation of Human Rights in Indian-Administered Kashmir and Pakistan-Administered Kashmir from May 2018 to April 2019 — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2019)
- Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War — Victoria Schofield, I.B. Tauris (2000)
The OHCHR's 2018 and 2019 reports found chronic impunity in Indian-administered Kashmir, called for an inquiry and for AFSPA's repeal, and also criticised abuses by armed groups and restrictions on rights in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
- Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir: Developments in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from June 2016 to April 2018, and General Human Rights Concerns in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2018)
- Update of the Situation of Human Rights in Indian-Administered Kashmir and Pakistan-Administered Kashmir from May 2018 to April 2019 — Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations (2019)
Why it matters today
Checkpoints, bunkers, raids and the fear of detention have been part of ordinary life in the valley for more than thirty years. Mothers of the disappeared still gather on the tenth of each month in Srinagar. For many Kashmiris, the lack of accountability is the heart of their alienation; for many soldiers and their families, Kashmir is where comrades died fighting militants.