Weekly update 39: Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from May, 26, 2020 to Jun., 1, 2020
1.
Youth
martyred: May, 5, 2020: In
occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of state terrorism martyred
two Kashmiri youth in Kulgam district, today.The youth were killed during a
cordon and search operation, jointly launched by the personnel of Indian army,
paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force and Indian Police in Damhal Hanjipora
area of the district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/25/indian-troops-martyr-tow-kashmiri-youth-in-iok/
2.
Internet: May, 29, 2020:
In occupied Kashmir, Indian authorities have extended ban on high-speed internet
service in the territory An order
issued by the Home Department of occupied Kashmir said that the gag on Internet
connectivity would continue until further orders. Narendra Modi-led fascist
government in New Delhi had suspended the internet and mobile phone services in
occupied Kashmir on August 05, last year, when it revoked the special status of
the territory and placed it under lockdown. Meanwhile, 48 rights groups from
different parts of the world, including US-based Human Rights Watch in a letter
to the World Health Organisation urged the World Body to impress upon India to
restore internet access in Kashmir. The rights groups informed the WHO that
residents in Jammu and Kashmir were unable to access information about COVID-19
due to the restriction of high-speed internet access. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/28/india-extends-ban-on-high-speed-internet-in-iok/
3. Petition: May, 29, 2020: http://chng.it/rTKQnhPPxc Kindly sign and support
this petition which demands that 4G be immediately restored in Indian Occupied
Kashmir
4.
5.
Rape a weapon of war: May, 30, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, India is using rape and molestation of
women as a weapon of war to suppress the Kashmiris’ struggle for securing their
inalienable right to self-determination. An analytical report issued by the
Research Section of Kashmir Media Service, today, in connection with the
completion of eleven years to the gory incident of Shopian double rape and
murder said that women were the worst victims of Indian state terrorism in
occupied Kashmir. The report maintained that Indian troops had molested 11,204
women since January 1989 till date. Indian men in uniform had abducted
17-year-old Aasiya and her 22-year-old sister-in-law Neelofar after they had
gone to their orchard on this day in 2009, gang-raped and subsequently murdered
them in custody. Their bodies were recovered from a shallow stream in the area
on the next morning. The All Parties Hurriyat Conference spokesman in a
statement issued in Srinagar, today, said that India was victimizing the
Kashmiri women for their active role in the ongoing freedom movement. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/29/india-using-molestation-of-iok-women-as-weapon-of-war/
6.
Youth martyred: May, 30, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of
state terrorism martyred two Kashmiri youth in South Kashmir’s Kulgam district,
today. The troops martyred the youth during a cordon and search operation in
Wanpora area of the district. The troops have sealed all entry and exit points
of the area. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/30/indian-troops-martyr-two-kashmiri-youth-in-kulgam-4/Weekly update 38:
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from May, 19, 2020 to May,
25, 2020
1.
Property Destruction; May, 20, 2020: .People across Kashmir say government
forces are destroying civilian property with
increasing frequency. In recent years, almost every gunfight has led to homes
being turned to rubble. According to official data accessed by IndiaSpend,
in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district alone, at least 105 homes were destroyed
during gunfights between 2015 and March 2018. Eyewitness accounts and videos
shared on social media show the Indian Army setting houses on fire shortly
after tracking down militants. Security officials, however, claim an
announcement is always made after a house where militants are hiding is
besieged, giving them a chance to surrender.The Army has also ransacked entire
neighbourhoods across South Kashmir, where support for militancy runs
high. Wani Mohalla is one such
neighbourhood. “No militant was killed, but our houses were burnt to the
ground,” the shopkeeper said. “The head of the search party said the building
was clear of militants. They still burnt it down. All our cash, gold and
documents are gone with the house.” Residents
of Khudwani say the Army prevented fire tenders from dousing the flames.
Another shopkeeper in his 30s whose home was also burnt down said the local
Army unit’s then commanding officer as well as a senior district police
official watched the buildings burn. “No one heeded our pleas,” he rued. The police eventually allowed firemen access
to the buildings, but the Army was stern. “They warned against dousing fires in
the houses,” the younger shopkeeper said. “They said they would shoot us if we
tried. They allowed the firemen to control fires in our shops, though.” Only a
few rooms were left of his house, where he lived with his parents and a younger
brother. The family is now staying in the house of a neighbour, who was
gracious enough to offer them a floor and without taking rent.The Army, the
younger shopkeeper said, does not distinguish between civilians and rebels.
“Now, all of us are terrorists to them,” he said. “This should not happen. They
should fight with militants. Why do they fight with unarmed civilians like us?
For one militant, they trouble 50 civilian families, damage our property.” As
he rushed to tend customers at his shop, he added, “We are fed up with both
sides.”Three months after his home was destroyed, the older shopkeeper started
rebuilding, only for his plans to be stalled. In July, another gunfight broke
out in Wani Mohalla. This time, the Army did not relent:
they immediately set on fire the house in which the militants were hiding. “It
is now better to shift out of this area,” the shopkeeper said. In Pulwama, the
Army used flamethrowers to burn down a house where the Hizbul Mujahideen
militant Sameer Bhat, alias Sameer Tiger, was hiding. A video seemingly shot
from inside an Army vehicle near the site of the gunfight, which took place in
April, shows Bhat emerging on the roof soon after the fire is lit. He is gunned
down within seconds. An undated video that first started circulating on social
media in June shows soldiers surrounding a two-storeyed Kashmiri house. Soon,
there are explosions in the ground floor and the house collapses in just five
seconds. Panning away from the wreckage, the camera turns to the smiling face
of a soldier. Why are security forces destroying homes in Kashmir? The answer
depends on whom you ask. For villagers, it is a form of punishment. “I feel
they did it so we would not shelter militants again,” the old shopkeeper from
Khudwani said. “But what can we do? We are helpless. We are forced to give them
shelter. Both sides have guns.” All over the Valley, one question repeatedly
crops up regarding gunfights: given that militants lack enough “samaan”, the
colloquial term for arms and ammunition, why can security forces not wait for
their supplies to run out and apprehend them, instead of killing them or
burning down houses? In response, security forces point to a recent change in
the dynamic of gunfights. In
the past, a senior police official said, they preferred room to room searches.
Today, security forces cannot prolong gunfights as protesting crowds around
sites of operations swell the longer they last. Trying to avoid killing
militants in such situations would result in civilian killings. Then, there is
the matter of media attention. The security establishment does not want “spectacles
for the press”, the official said, so they prefer to finish operations
swiftly.Another police official who has supervised several counterinsurgency
operations in recent years, largely agreed. “Material damage is acceptable to
all rather than loss of lives on any side,” he said.He added that the methods
used to expedite operations involve tossing improvised explosive devices inside
houses or planting them close to a wall to “stun or kill” the holed up
militants. Since 2017, after protestors started disrupting operations with
increasing frequency, the Army has been using flamethrowers as well. The
official, however, claimed using explosives and flamethrowers “is not meant to
blow up the house entirely. The damage is collateral.” Such destruction of
homes is not new to the Valley. A retired lieutenant general of the Indian Army
who has served as a commander in Kashmir said destroying houses has always been
part of the counterinsurgency methods “in vogue”. “It is the easiest way to do
it,” he said.The Army, he said, generally avoids confrontations that threaten
the lives of its men. Protocol is not followed each time militants are tracked
down as there usually is not enough time. “In battle you use firepower to avoid
casualties,” he added. “Minimum force for [maximum] effect. And the effect you
want to see produced is one that kills terrorists. It is better to fire a
thousand rounds than let them [militants] kill two of our men, it is better to
bring the house down than lose two men.”Houses are destroyed, he said, because
militants usually do not heed announcements offering them safe passage and an
option to surrender. Has the Army ever considered how such a policy would
affect the civilian population and shape its perception of the Indian
state?“No,” the general replied, and accused the affected homeowners of being
“complicit” for giving shelter to militants. “Where is the question of
outrage?” he asked. “You are complicit.” He said there are “no idealistic
rules” in wars, pointing to a war strategy that has been around “since times
immemorial”. “Why do you bomb cities?” he asked. “To break the will of the
people”.The police official who has supervised counterinsurgency operations in
recent years claimed the Army destroys homes to prevent deaths of security personnel.
“Conflicts within the country are difficult for the Army,” he said. “They are
trained to kill in wars, to eliminate all that moves on the opposite side.” A
raft of international statutes
prohibits the “unnecessary destruction” of property. These include the Geneva
Conventions. While India is a signatory to the four main conventions, which
primarily deal with international armed conflicts, it is yet to sign the
additional protocols. Among
other things, these protocols codify violations in the case of
non-international armed conflicts. In Kashmir, as militancy raged in the 1990s,
residential areas came under fire. The northern town of Sopore, for example,
witnessed repeated burnings. In September 1990, the Border Security Force set
83 houses and 50 shops on fire in the town’s Arampora locality, in retaliation for an
attack on their convoy. On January 6, 1993, they set fire to the town’s main
market, this time to “avenge” the killing of one of their men, killing at least
53 civilians and burning down 300 shops and over 100 houses. In April 1993, The New York Times reported that
Indian security forces had been blamed for arson and killings across Srinagar. Bhat
alleges his house was set ablaze well after the gunfight had ended. The fire
also consumed his sister’s home next door. It is not the destruction of
his home that Bhat regrets so much as the loss of his work. “I know the value
of a mujahid,” he said, using the popular term for militant. “If their
sacrifice is accepted, then all my property isn’t worth even a shoe. The
injustice they died fighting, I think God will accept them.” The destruction of
his work has broken his resolve to write. “I only regret this,” he said, laying
on a sheet on the bare cemented floor of his new home that is still under
construction. “Today, I write a line and then think of all that was lost. It
stops me right there.” Save for a separatist leader who “put a band aid on my
deep wounds” by offering a paltry sum of money, Bhat said, no one has came
forward to help him. “One made a speech here,” he recounted. “Telling people
not to worry because he would rebuild this house. He said he considered it his
own house. Seeing that, the local people did not come to my help. Neither did
[that separatist leader].” Today, Bhat, his wife, two adult sons and a daughter
live in a single-room outhouse that survived the gunfight. His sister’s
family has erected a tin shelter. Bhat and his wife spend most of their days in
the house he is now rebuilding. The outhouse is too hot during the day. “It is
making a lesson out of us,” Bhat said of the destruction of his home. “So that
the next time militants seek shelter anywhere, people would rather be killed by
them than face this.” For ordinary
Kashmiris, to have their homes destroyed is to feel “doomed”, the poet said.
“But for those who know how movements are run, it doesn’t matter,” he added. “When
so many people have died, what is a house worth?”The responsibility for
supporting such families, Bhat argued, should lie with the Hurriyat leaders,
“who claim to run the tehreek”, or the Azadi movement. People whose homes are
destroyed during gunfights are eligible for compensation. After a claim is
made, the district administrations seeks a police report on whether the owner
harboured militants willingly or under duress. Bhat said he has applied for
compensation but there has been no progress on his claim. He suspects his vocal
support for the separatist movement has led to an unfavourable report from the
police. But the
counterinsurgency official claimed the police give favourable reports in most
cases. This is done on “humanitarian basis” so that the homeowners do not
suffer any further, he added. But the process is long and the money given,
often years later, is generally a fraction of the losses suffered. Moreover,
the process can only start if a homeowner files a claim. Not all do. Waheed
Khan’s home in Anantnag town was damaged during a gunfight in July, but he did
not even consider seeking compensation. “We know they will not compensate us,
so why should I humiliate myself?” Khan said, sitting in his shop in the ground
floor of his home. The windows in the upper floors are still broken, the walls
riddled with bullet marks. “They will call us anti-national, so why should we
approach them? What can we tell them?”Khan’s brother, Tariq Khan, ran away to
join the militancy soon after the gunfight. Gunfights across Kashmir follow
the same routine: homes reduced to rubble, vast funerals for militants, people
thronging the sites of the gunfights. People regularly travel to such places
from distant villages. In local folklore, the wrecked buildings mark the sites
where militants achieved “martyrdom”.A young villager from Pulwama said going
to such sites was like “visiting a shrine”. “There are stories and anecdotes,
and martyrs linked to an encounter site,” he said. The visitors trace bullet holes in the rooms and follow the
slain militants’ footsteps, trying to imagine the scene of their death. The day
after Sameer Tiger was killed in Drubgam village, the visitors struggled to
climb a narrow staircase to the spot on the roof where his blood was still
visible. Unsurprisingly, the destruction of homes and the displacement of
families invariably fuels anger. “There is a feeling of deliberate
victimisation,” said the young man from Pulwama. “We see what the hundreds of
soldiers do to kill two people holed up in a house, the hatred for Army only
increases.” https://scroll.in/bulletins/272/the-best-of-eco-india-and-a-brand-new-season
2.
Youth killed: May, 21, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, a 12-year-old boy, who was injured
yesterday at the site of an encounter that took place between the mujahedeen
and Indian troops in Srinagar, succumbed to his injuries, today.
The boy identified as Basim Aijaz son of Aijaz Ahmad of Chota Bazar Karan Nagar
was injured yesterday along with three other persons at Nawakadal encounter
site in Srinagar on late Tuesday when a house which was earlier blasted by the
Indian troops got collapsed. Basim Aijaz died today at Srinagar’s SMHS Hospital
where he was undergoing treatment. As the news of boy’s death spread, people
took to the streets at Karan Nagar and Eidgah areas of Srinagar and started
protesting against the killing. Clashes also erupted between the protesting
youth and Indian troops in these areas. Protests and clashes were going on when
this report was being filed. Pertinently, two mujahideen including top
commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, Junaid Sehrai, were martyred by the troops at
the site. The troops also destroyed over a dozen houses in the area. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/20/srinagar-boy-injured-at-encounter-site-succumbs/
3.
OIC: May, 21, 2020: The
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has denounced India’s new domicile
law for occupied Kashmir, calling it a violation of UN Security Council
resolutions.The OIC in a statement said, “The General Secretariat of the
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has been following with deep concern the unilateral
actions of 5 August 2019 and subsequent measures to alter the demographics of
and undermine the rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir”. Reaffirming the
importance of complying with international law and UNSC resolutions, the OIC
termed the Domicile Certificate (Procedure) Rules 2020’ as baseless, running
counter to international laws.The Islamic organization also urged the
international community to gear up its efforts to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir
dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and as
per the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/20/oic-condemns-new-domicile-law-in-iok/
4.
Schools: May23, 2020: Ulfa
Rafiq’s school is walking distance from her home in the Hawal area of
Srinagar’s old city. But since August 5 last year, she has only attended
classes for 11 days.As the Centre stripped Jammu and Kashmir of special status
and divided it into two Union Territories on August 5, a complete lockdown and
communications blockade was imposed on the Valley. Schools would remain shut
for months, despite the government announcing that they had reopened. The
schools that opened saw scant attendance, as parents were afraid to send their
children out amid the communications blackout and the constant arrests. Within
months of the August 5 lockdown, the government announced a two-and-a-half-month
long winter vacation, from December 10 to February 22. On February 25, Rafiq
went to her school for the first time since August 5. But on March 11, the
administration ordered the closure of all educational institutions. The Valley
was entering a second lockdown, this time to contain the coronavirus.
5. “We
were yet to settle down and go back to normal school life when another shutdown
was announced,” said Rafiq, a Class 10 student. “But we thought it’ll be over
soon.”
6. Like
more than a million other students in the Valley, Rafiq has known little formal
schooling since August 5 last year. She breaks into a smile when she recalls
last year’s final exams. “In November, we went to school where we were given
study material, question papers and answer sheets,” she said. “We were asked to
write exams at home and submit the answer sheets after a week. You can only
imagine how easy it would have been. We just consulted our study material on
our own and then wrote answers. Was it really an exam?”Across the country,
schools have taken classes online for those students who have access to the
internet. In Kashmir, this is complicated by the ban on 4G internet imposed on
August 5 and defended by the government as being necessary for security
purposes. After a complete ban on mobile internet for close to six months, the
administration restored 2G mobile internet and fixed line internet services in
the Valley. But few internet users have fixed line services and 2G mobile
internet is inadequate to the demands of online learning. “Our school announced
online classes several weeks ago but the lack of high-speed internet makes it
hectic,” said Rafiq, who relies on 2G mobile internet to attend online classes
through the Zoom video-conferencing app and receive lectures through WhatsApp
voice notes. “Most of the time, the connection gets lost and we have to reenter
the session. The video quality is very poor.”
The private schools’ association, along with a group of media
professionals and doctors, filed a plea in the Supreme Court challenging the
internet curbs. “Our contention was to allow us to have online schooling so
that we can close schools,” said Var. “Who knows how long this pandemic will
continue? But they are making a mockery of things.” The Supreme Court, which heard
the petition on May 11, refused to pass an order to restore 4G internet,
leaving the decision to a special committee,
led by the Union home secretary. Schools in the Valley are making the best of
limited resources. In North Kashmir’s Kupwara district, Sajad Ahmad
painstakingly records and sends video lectures on WhatsApp. It takes him at
least an hour and a half to record a 15 minute lecture. On average, he teaches
three to four classes a day.“All of our online schooling relies on WhatsApp,”
he explained. “I have to first shoot the lectures myself and then upload them
on WhatsApp. Every day, I send two to three videos to the different classes I
teach. After the classes, I send and receive assignments from the students from
WhatsApp only.” Sending a
video lecture on 2G internet means having to monitor it constantly to ensure it
gets uploaded. “Once it’s sent, it takes my students the same amount of time to
download the video lecture,” said 33-year-old Ahmad.There is an added anxiety –
Ahmad has not been paid his monthly salary of Rs 5,000 since the lockdown began
in March, he says. “I have to feed my family and parents and I am expecting a
baby soon,” he said. “All these months, we have been buying essentials from a
village grocery shop on credit. Recently, I borrowed Rs 1000 from my friend to
purchase a gas cylinder,” said Ahmad. Schools in Srinagar have fared a little
better, with teachers holding online classes on Zoom. But even this process is
hobbled by the fact that most students have only 2G internet. “Our teachers are
giving online classes to kids and the classes are monitored online by
supervisors to ensure quality and understanding,” said Mohammad Yousuf Wani,
chairman of the Green Valley Educational Institute, an English-medium school in
Srinagar. With online classes set up, they might be able to cover the syllabus,
Wani believes. “We will be in the process of holding online examinations soon,”
he added. The only time she has been to school since August 5 last year was in
November, when she collected study material and question papers to be answered
at home. Now with 2G internet, she has entered a new routine during the
Covid-19 lockdown. At 11.15 am, she logs
in to Zoom for three half-an-hour long classes. She is joined by 90 other
students. “After attending classes, I finish my assignments,” she said. “These
days, I am preparing for online examinations scheduled from next week In Kashmir, however, the strain of the
Covid-19 lockdown comes on top of decades of mental health problems caused by
the armed conflict. According to a Doctors Without Borders
study in 2016, 45% of the population in Kashmir wee experiencing “mental
distress.” “If half of the population has such a condition, how will they cope
with the mental health care of their kids?” asked Khan. “Parenting will also be
affected by the loss of livelihoods and jobs due to the shutdown.” https://scroll.in/article/962295/in-kashmir-school-children-have-barely-gone-to-classes-for-nine-months
7. Fatalities: May,
25, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, two more
civilians wounded at Nawakadal encounter site in Srinagar last week succumbed
to their injuries, today. With these two deaths the toll of civilians who died
of the injuries suffered at the site has mounted to three. The Indian troops
had killed top mujahid commander Junaid Sehrai and his associate in Nawa Kadal
area of Srinagar on Tuesday (May 19). The troops later blasted many houses at
the encounter site resulting in a fire that also damaged scores of surrounding
homes. Several people were injured when a partially damaged house collapsed
after the encounter ended. First a 55 year old man identified as Manzoor
Ahmad Khan a resident of Hawal, Srinagar, who was injured in the
house collapse at the encounter site, succumbed at SMHS Hospital on Sunday
morning, the health officials said. Barely a few hours later, one more injured
youth identified as Fayaz Ahmad Bhat, 35, of Jamalatta, Nawa Kadal, also
breathed his last at the same hospital. Earlier, a 12-year-old boy, Basim
Aijaz, who was also injured at the same spot on Tuesday, succumbed
to his injuries at the same hospital on Wednesday. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/24/2-more-hurt-at-nawakadal-encounter-site-succumb-toll-reaches-3/
1. HR crimes: May, 11,2020: Kashmiris under Indian occupation should prepare video logs, witness
statements, photos, diaries and record the all the war crimes, crimes against
humanity and atrocities committed by the Indian army and security officers.
This will be used in the future ICC war crimes trials, and they will be brought
to justice even after their retirement with international arrest warrants. They
will be arrested at international airports while travelling abroad. They should
send all the evidence to the UN and ICC’s official email addresses, social
media platforms and other apps. It is time that all the occupied, oppressed and
abused groups in India join hands and start a joint struggle against
Nazi-fascist BJP and RSS terrorism. India has over 900,000 military force
deployed in occupied Kashmir and become the highest militarised zone in the
world. Any brave commander should be thinking where the hell, I am going to
find space to bury them all? For Prime Minister Imran Khan it is time to stand
up for action with all the ‘humanly possible resources’ to support the occupied
Kashmiris facing genocide. It is time to call the United Nations and
International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate war crimes and crimes against
humanity committed by the Indian Armed Forces on the orders of BJP leadership
and Prime Minister Modi. Covid19 Pandemic has exposed many things like that:
‘US cannot save the world as they show in Hollywood movies and Indians cannot
achieve in occupied Kashmir what they show in the Bollywood movies. As Pakistan
Air Force can go inside their camps at 9 am broad day light and hit all the
targets as they did successfully on 27 February 2019 in held Kashmir. At the
same time Pakistani media should declare ‘unilateral declaration of
independence’ from their foreign paymasters and others should be shut down as
no one can tolerate this treachery. Indian Prime Minister Modi’s love for guns,
madness and criminal behavior has led both countries India and Pakistan at the
verge of war between two nuclear states. The so called 350 KG Pulwama terrorist
attack was very indigenous or seemingly self-inflicted which lead to the
damaging the moral as soldiers refused to go by road and now, they are being
airlifted. 11/05/2020 Indian Army Committing Genocide in Occupied Kashmir – UN
& International Criminal Court (ICC) must Investigate War Crimes | The L…
thelondonpost.net/indian-army-committing-genocide-in-occupied-kashmir-un-international-criminal-court-icc-must-investigate-war-crimes/?fbclid=IwAR…
3/7 There are 64 terrorist organizations listed on Indian Government list among
them only 4 are linked with Muslims and Kashmir rest are indigenous separatist
movements with manpower, explosives and ideology to support their cause. All it
requires is a fully functioning ATM machines and long arms of support. Modi
worshipping guns cannot be a man of peace? The madness of Modi has already
damaged India and its reputation as a secular state. It is now a state run by
the Hindu racist Brahmins where they have no space for Sikhs, Christians and
Muslims as all the minorities are a victim and target. 11/05/2020 Indian Army
Committing Genocide in Occupied Kashmir – UN & International Criminal Court
(ICC) must Investigate War Crimes | The L…
thelondonpost.net/indian-army-committing-genocide-in-occupied-kashmir-un-international-criminal-court-icc-must-investigate-war-crimes/?fbclid=IwAR…
4/7 “The Indian High Commissioner to London, H.E Renandra Sen got upset with my
question at London School of Economics in a seminar about ‘India emerging
power’. “I merely asked him how you can play a role at international stage when
you (India) had three wars with Pakistan, one with China, border dispute with
Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal. The only country you have good relations is
Mauritius.” His reply was, ‘this is not a fair question’. Professor Gautam Sen
was hosting the program in the packed auditorium of LSE. India is dying and
drowning in occupied Kashmir and now after months curfew it will have a
trickle-down effect all over. This might lead to break up of India into small states
as long before the arrival of Muslim Mughals who consolidated and united whole
of India into one rich super state. Non-racist Muslims rulers made India rich,
prosperous and powerful. India has no history of Hindu – Muslim riots. The
first riot happened during the British occupation of India wrote former police
chief of Mahrahrata (Mumbai), S M Mushrif, in his bestseller book – ‘Who Killed
Karkare? – The Real Face of Terrorism in India’. The Indian media has become a
mouthpiece of this racist rule of the BJP-RSS racist government. 11/05/2020
Indian Army Committing Genocide in Occupied Kashmir – UN & International
Criminal Court (ICC) must Investigate War Crimes | The L…
thelondonpost.net/indian-army-committing-genocide-in-occupied-kashmir-un-international-criminal-court-icc-must-investigate-war-crimes/?fbclid=IwAR…
5/7 If Indians were wise, they would have let Kashmiris have their ‘UN
recognised right of selfdetermination’ and have excellent relations with
Pakistan, China and Bangladesh. But Indian Brahmins ‘white supremacist’, ‘Arian
mentality’ lead them to in the lap of European arms dealers who obviously don’t
want this matter to be resolved? They would like more states in India. All the
arms contracts in India are full of corruption from Bofors Guns by Rajiv Gandhi
to French Rafael fighter Jets by Prime Minister Modi. The India Today reported,
“Bofors: Perhaps the scam most widely remembered in popular memory. Thanks to
it Rajiv Gandhi lost the 1989 general elections. The scam was to do with a
$1.4-billion howitzer deal between Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors and the
Indian government signed in 1986. It was alleged that the Swedish company paid
nearly $9 million to politicians, Congress leaders and bureaucrats. The case is
still alive in the Supreme Court.”
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/from-rafale-to-bofors-dubious-defence-deals-thatrocked-india-1451287-2019-02-08
The occupying Indian Army is officially assessed by the US as 68% obsolete and
unable to fight. The New York Times wrote: “And 68 percent of the (Indian)
army’s equipment is so old, it is officially considered “vintage.” The Indian
army with its Israeli – Nazi mindset advisors using same tactics what they are
doing in Palestine, but it will fail eventually as Kashmir is not Palestine.
The only way forward for the Kashmiris would be to follow the Afghan model of
resistance against invasion and occupation. As Kashmiris have every legal right
to resist by using all available means including armed resistance under the UN
Charter. Afghans never protested outside the US or NATO embassies after 2001 US
invasion and Soviet invasion of 1979? I sincerely believe that: ‘some sane
people in India have this view that current escalations have everything to sell
the arms to poverty stricken, naked and hungry Indians whose BMI (Body Measure
Index) is close to a poverty stricken African due to lack of toilet facilities
and water born diseases’. Every morning over 350 million sit on both sides of
railways tracks to defecate themselves due to lack of toilet facilities.
However, Prime Ministers Modi sent space craft to the moon or shooting a
satellite in the space to further make mess in the sky. 11/05/2020 Indian Army
Committing Genocide in Occupied Kashmir – UN & International Criminal Court
(ICC) must Investigate War Crimes | The L…
thelondonpost.net/indian-army-committing-genocide-in-occupied-kashmir-un-international-criminal-court-icc-must-investigate-war-crimes/?fbclid=IwAR…
6/7 Since February 2019, after the failed Indian air attacks on Pakistani territory,
US and Israeli press was too quick to publish assessments about the lack of
professionalism and use of obsolete arms by the Indian forces. The New York
Times reported on 5 March 2019, “After India Loses Dogfight to Pakistan,
Questions Arise About Its ‘Vintage’ Military”, which seems to be absolutely
true after the recent display modern Chinese weaponry with hyper-sonic
technology at China National Day military parade in October 2019. The New York
Times wrote: “It was an inauspicious moment for a military the United States is
banking on to help keep an expanding China in check. An Indian Air Force pilot
found himself in a dogfight last week with a warplane from the Pakistani Air
Force, and ended up a prisoner behind enemy lines for a brief time. The pilot
(wing commander Abhinandan) made it home in one piece, however bruised and
shaken, but the plane, an aging Soviet-era MiG-21, was less lucky. The aerial
clash, the first by the South Asian rivals in nearly five decades, was a rare
test for the Indian military — and it left observers a bit dumbfounded. While
the challenges faced by the India’s armed forces are no secret, its loss of a
plane last week to a country whose military is about half the size and receives
a quarter of the funding was still telling. The New York Times further wrote,
“India’s armed forces are in alarming shape. If intense warfare broke out
tomorrow, India could supply its troops with only 10 days of ammunition,
according to government estimates. And 68 percent of the army’s equipment is so
old, it is officially considered “vintage.” “Our troops lack modern equipment,
but they have to conduct 21st-century military operations,” said Gaurav Gogoi,
a lawmaker and member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defense.
American officials tasked with strengthening the alliance talk about their
mission with frustration: a swollen bureaucracy makes arms sales and joint
training exercises cumbersome; th 11/05/2020 Indian Army Committing Genocide in
Occupied Kashmir – UN & International Criminal Court (ICC) must Investigate
War Crimes | The L…
thelondonpost.net/indian-army-committing-genocide-in-occupied-kashmir-un-international-criminal-court-icc-must-investigate-war-crimes/?fbclid=IwAR…
7/7 WP Facebook Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com Indian forces are
vastly underfunded; and the country’s navy, army and air force tend to compete
rather than work together. Whatever the problems, the United States is
determined to make the country a key ally in the coming years to hedge against
China’s growing regional ambition.” While keeping in view the Chinese troops
deployment and preparation in Ladakh and rest of the Indian-China border ‘it
will be impossible for the Indian army to resist and fight with its 68% vintage
army and obsolete weapons’. As for occupied Kashmir the Indian army have no
choice but to leave. Kashmiris have already sacrificed over 100,000 people but
now they to have decide either to give their lives for freedom or take the
Indians with them? (Dr Shahid Qureshi is senior analyst with BBC and chief
editor of The London Post. He writes on security, terrorism and foreign policy.
He also appears as analyst on AlJazeera, Press TV, MBC, Kazak TV (Kazakhstan),
LBC Radio London. He was also international election observer for Azerbaijan 2020,
April 2018, Kazakhstan 2015, 2016, 2019 and Pakistan 2002. He has written a
famous book “War on Terror and Siege of Pakistan” published in 2009. At
Government College Lahore he wrote his MA thesis on ‘Political Thought of Imam
Khomeini’ and visited Tehran University. He is PhD in ‘Political Psychology’
and studied Law at a British University. He also speaks at Cambridge
University. He is a visiting Professor at Hebe University in China http://thelondonpost.net/indian-army-committing-genocide-in-occupied-kashmir-un-international-criminal-court-icc-must-investigate-war-crimes/?fbclid=IwAR1ZWGDDGqZ27ojm5_8T96jUh1KMaZBBaoViFpp4_2AHJFNbSe0rlzcSiCk
2.
LoC: May, 11, 2020; A private schoolteacher was killed in Poonch district
of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) during heavy Indian shelling from across the
Line of Control (LoC) on Saturday evening, raising the number of such deaths in
the ongoing year to seven, ofhcials said on Sunday. Rashid Naeem Khan, deputy
inspector generalof (DIG) police in Poonch, told Dawn by telephone that Indian
troops shelled Abbaspur sector, using light and heavy arms and targeting
civilian population.One of the shells landed in the kitchen of a house in Polas
Kakota village at about 6.45pm where Shazia Bibi, 22, wife of Usman Hafeez, was
preparing meals for Iftar, he said.`Splinters from the shell pierced through
her body, leaving her dead on the spot,` he added. https://epaper.dawn.com/DetailImage.php?StoryImage=11_05_2020_001_002
3.
Troops vandalize property : May, 13, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops and police went
berserk, vandalized public property and arrested people randomly in a village
in Budgam district. For the last three days the occupational troops and police
personnel have been appearing in Nasrullah Pora village of the district and
running amok damaging public property, beating locals and arresting people
before leaving the village. Some reports say that the troops and police
personnel have looted 27 shops including hardware stores and gas cylinders,
damaged 162 vehicles and 42 houses as well as breaking window panes of nearly
800 homes in the village in last three days. The villagers said that the forces
either looted or destroyed their valuable possessions including cash,
electronic appliances, furniture, cooking gas cylinders, and jewellery during
the raids. Indian forces’ vandalism have forced people to migrate to other
villages. A villager said that forces personnel arrested people randomly during
night, adding even elderly people were not spared and arrested.“The forces
damaged parked vehicles, shops and gates of the house. They barged into the
houses and damaged my JCB, LeD TV, washing machine, refrigerator, Maruti Alto
and other things. They spared only a few households and created havoc in almost
every home,” another resident of the village said. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/12/indian-troops-resort-to-vandalism-in-iok-village/
4.
Youth arrested: May, 13, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian police arrested four Kashmiri youth in
south Kashmir’s Pulwama district, today.The police arrested the youth
identified as Shabbir Ahmed Parray, Sheeraz Ahmed Dar, Shafat Ahmed Mir and
Ishfaq Ahmed Shah from Awantipora area of the district.All the youth are
residents of Bathen area of Khrew. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/12/indian-police-arrest-four-youth-in-pulwama-2/
5. Youth
mattered: May, 13, 2020: In occupied
Kashmir, Indian troops shot at and martyred a civilian in Budgam district,
today. The civilian was killed after Indian paramilitary Central Reserve Police
Force (CRPF) fired on his vehicle near Kawoosa Khalisa in Narbal area of the
district.The bullets hit him in chest and he was shifted to SHMS hospital,
Srinagar, where doctors declared him as brought dead https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/13/indian-troops-martyr-one-kashmiri-youth-in-budgam/
6. Deliberate killing; May, 14, 2020: The US daily, New York
Times, quoting family sources of the youth, Merajuddin, martyred by Indian
forces in Badgam district, today, denied the police account saying the victim
did not drive through any checkpoints; instead Indian soldiers first stopped
him and then shot him dead.The newspaper in its report particularly mentioned
the narrative of the youth’s father Ghulam Nabi Shah to counter the police
version that he was killed when his car didn’t stop despite warning shots. As
the troops moved in to stop the villagers from marching, hundreds threw stones
at the troops, who fired shotgun pellets and tear gas to quell the protests,
the newspaper added. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/13/anti-india-protests-held-in-badgam/
7.
USCIRF: May, 15, 2020: The US Commission for International Religious
Freedom (USCIRF) on Thursday noted with concern reports that the Indian
government is arresting Muslim activists during the Covid-19 crisis who
protested against the country's contentious CAA."At this time, India
should be releasing prisoners of conscience, not targeting those practising
their democratic right to protest," the USCIRF, which is a bipartisan
agency of the federal government, said in a tweet. It specifically mentioned
the arrest of Safoora Zargar, a pregnant activist who was arrested in
connection with the communal violence that flared up in Delhi in February over
the CAA. In a second tweet, the USCIRF noted that in its annual report
for 2020, the commission had recommended that India be
designated a Country of Particular Concern for its "systematic, ongoing,
and egregious violations of religious freedom" during
2019."Unfortunately, this negative trend has continued into 2020,"
the US agency said. https://www.dawn.com/news/1557104/us-commission-expresses-concern-over-indias-arrest-of-muslim-activists-during-covid-19-crisis
8.
UK
Parliamentarian: May, 17, 2020:Judith Cummins, Member of UK Parliament from the Labour Party,
has expressed serious concern over the human rights abuses in occupied Kashmir,
particularly since August, last year, when India revoked the special status of
the territory. Judith Cummins in a statement issued in London said, “I firmly
believe that we must redouble our efforts towards securing a safe and peaceful
future for Kashmir. The United Kingdom must play its part in achieving this. I
have said before that I believe the British Government must play an active role
within the international community in securing a peaceful solution through
facilitating genuine dialogue between India and Pakistan. In this respect, I do
not believe that Kashmir is solely a bilateral issue between India and
Pakistan.” The MP said she also fully backs the Kashmiris’ right to
self-determination as mandated by the UN Security Council resolutions. I will
support all peaceful and diplomatic efforts to facilitate this right to
self-determination, she added. Judith Cummins said she wrote to the Foreign
Secretary on the 8th August 2019 to raise the Kashmir issue. “I firmly believe
that Labour must stand against human rights abuses wherever they occur and in
the case of Kashmir we must be vocal in our support for those suffering,” she
said. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/16/uk-mp-expresses-concern-over-hr-abuses-by-indian-troops-in-iok/
9.
Youth
martyred: May, 18, 2020:In occupied
Kashmir, Indian troops martyred two
Kashmiri youth during a cordon and search operation in Doda district of Jammu
region, today. Indian Army claimed that the youth were killed during an
encounter with the troops in Gundana area of Doda town. An Indian soldier was
also killed in an attack during the operation in the same area. In another
incident, an Indian policeman was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Yaripora
area of Kulgam district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/17/two-youth-martyred-indian-soldier-killed-in-iok/
1.
Naseer
Ahmed: May, 6, 2020: Nasser
Ahmad wani S/o Mohd Hussain wani of Dompora village ,Rajpora Pulwama- Kashmir
.The Family alleges that he was picked up by The Army RR on November 29 ,2019
,That was the last time he was seen by his family ,After his detention his
family went to Army camp and police station but the concerned Authority
neglected them and told we left him but his family never received his minor
son. They Approached to DC Pulwama but there was no response. The Naseer is
sole bread earner for the family he has ailling father and 2 sisters .Her
mother is suffering from depression and stress ,They are appealing the LG Mr
Murmu sir plz show our son once we don't know whether he is dead or alive, plz
if he is any jail of Kashmir or India plz show us once ,we will sell all our
property to get him back, plz give us our child back he is innocent ! They are
requesting to High Court also plz set the enquiry on this matter ,# News.click
Mr Kamran yousuf has already covered this story but there was no response
2. Canada reacts: May, 7, 2020: Soon
after several Indian nationals living in Arab countries were fired from their
jobs for displaying and portraying Islamophobia through social media, Canada
has also removed an Islamophobe from his job and terminating his contract with
one of the leading real estate companies in the Nort The
Islamophobe identified as Ravi Hooda was a member of ‘School Council Chair’ in
Peel District School in Brampton. Several Toronto municipalities granted
permissions to local mosques to call for prayer (azaan) on loudspeakers during
Ramzan. On the other hand the move by
Toronto municipalities was not accepted by Ravi Hooda and he posted a tirade
mocking Muslims and their faith. He
wrote, “What’s next? Separate lanes for camel & goat riders, allowing
slaughter of animals at home in the name of sacrifice, bylaw requiring all
women to cover themselves from head to toe in tents to appease the piece fools
for votes.” Canada which is globally known for its liberal approach received
shockwaves by Hooda’s remarks. Peel District School Board in
Brampton announced that it had removed Hooda as ‘School Council Chair’ and
investigation was underway against him https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/international/indian-expat-in-canada-losses-his-job-for-islamophobic-views
3.
4.
7.
1.
LoC Violation: Apr., 28, 2020: Pakistan on Monday summoned the head of Indian High Commission in
Islamabad to lodge a strong protest over the latest ceasefire violations by
Indian troops along the Line of control (LoC), leaving a woman martyred
and eight-year old inured. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said
Indian troops initiated unprovoked ceasefire violations in Jandrot and
Khuiratta sectors along LoC deliberately targeting civilian population on
Monday morning. “Due to indiscriminate fire of automatics and rockets, a
36 years old woman, Yasmeen, resident of
village Red embraced shahadat [martyrdom] while an 8 years old
innocent girl, Adeeba Zaheer, resident of village Mohra Chattar sustained
serious injuries. [The] injured child has been evacuated and being provided
with medical care,” the military’s media wing said. “The Indian occupation
forces this year, India has committed
882 ceasefire violations,” according to the FO.
. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2208281/1-pakistan-summons-indian-diplomat-lodge-protest-ceasefire-violation-along-loc/
2.
Youth martyred: Apr., 28, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops martyred three more Kashmiri youth in Kulgam
district,today, taking the total number of youth martyred by the
troops to 7 in less than 24 hours.The youth were killed by the troops during a
cordon and search operation at Lower Munda in Qazingund area of the district. On Sunday, the troops martyred four youth at
Asthal in Kulgam district. The latest killings have raised the
number of deaths to 16 since Wednesday. Earlier, Indian troops
martyred three Kashmiri youth in Awantipora area of Pulwama district on
Saturday, two youth at Arwani in Islamabad district on Thursday and four others
in Melhora area of Shopian district on Wednesday. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/27/indian-troops-martyr-one-more-kashmiri-youtn-in-iok/
3.
UN: Apr., 28, 2020: The
United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression has said
that
limitations imposed by the authorities on internet in occupied Kashmir have
made access to basic information difficult for healthcare professionals. David
Kaye, UN rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, in his report
“Disease pandemics and the freedom of opinion and expression”, has expressed
concern over internet restrictions in Kashmir. It has been reported by
healthcare professionals in Kashmir that the limitations imposed by the
government have made access to basic information difficult to obtain, reads the
report. The report is being submitted to Human Rights Council’s 44th session
scheduled from June 15 to July 3, 2020. According to the report, the
continuation of restrictions on internet has been troubling, amid outbreak of
COVID-19. “In the context of the pandemic, it has been especially troubling to
observe the continuation of several instances of Internet shutdowns. The most prominent
has been the long-term disruption that the Government of India has imposed on
Kashmir,” reads the report. Referring to UN experts’ statement in August 2019,
the report states that the government imposed what several mandate holders
found to be “a form of collective punishment of the people of Kashmir, without
even a pretext of a precipitating offence”.“Early in 2020 the
Supreme Court of India found that the Government must periodically justify its
continuing actions in Kashmir, but even as of this writing, reporting suggests
that people in Kashmir are only able to access limited Internet sites and with
extremely limited speeds,” the report states. On August 22, 2019, a group
of five United Nations human rights experts had issued a joint statement asking
the Indian government to end the crackdown on freedom of expression, access to
information and peaceful protests in Kashmir.
https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/27/internet-restrictions-in-iok-figure-in-un-rapporteurs-report/
4.
Domicile:
Apr., 29, 2020:
India in violation of all international norms and UN-recognized disputed status
of Jammu and Kashmir has granted domicile status to more than
three hundred thousand (300,000) non-residents, all Hindus, in occupied
Kashmir. News reports emanating from the occupied territory have
revealed that since the new domicile law has been introduced by the Indian
government for occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the people fear that more than 800,000
Indian soldiers and over 600,000 migrant labourers present in the territory may
also be granted the domicile status in the days to come. Kashmiri
masses have a strong feeling that the people in power in New Delhi are working
on an agenda of changing the demography of Jammu and Kashmir, rendering the
territory into “Another Palestine in the making”. The efforts in this regard
have been doubled since India abrogated Articles 370 and 35-A on August 5, last
year, the reports said. As part of the sinister move, the Indian government has
also renamed the Jammu & Kashmir Property Rights to Slum Dwellers Act by
deleting references to “permanent residents.” This has also made it easy for
non-local slum dwellers to acquire property rights in the disputed territory.
However, those who closely watch the Indian moves in occupied Kashmir believe
that these developments of severe political magnitude and consequences will not
go unnoticed. There is a strong resentment among Kashmiri people against the
India’s sinister designs. When and how anti-India sentiments explode into a
full-scale uprising is only a matter of days. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/28/india-grants-300000-non-residents-domicile-status-in-iok/
5.
Youth martyred: Apr., 29, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of
state terrorism martyred two more Kashmiri youth, today. The troops martyred
the youth during a cordon and search operation at Melhora in Zainapora area of
Shopian district. The operation continued till last reports came in.The killing
of the youth triggered massive anti-India demonstrations in the area. Indian troops
fired pellets and teargas shells to disperse the protesters, triggering clashes
between the demonstrators and Indian forces’ personnel. One youth suffered
pellet injuries and was shifted to SMHS hospital in Srinagar for treatment. It
is to mention here that the troops have martyred 10 youth in different areas of
occupied Kashmir since Saturday. During cordon and search operations, the
troops killed three youth at Lower Munda in Qazingund area of Kulgam district,
yesterday, four youth at Asthal in Kulgam district on Sunday and three others
in Awantipora area of Pulwama district on Saturday.The latest killings have
raised the number of martyred youth to 19 since last Wednesday. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/28/indian-troops-martyr-two-more-youth-in-iok-12/
6.
Youth martyred: Apr., 30, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops martyred one more
Kashmiri youth in Shopian district, today, taking the toll to three in the past
24 hours. The body of the martyred youth was recovered from the debris of a
house destroyed by the troops during the ongoing cordon and search operation at
Melhora in Zainapora area of the district. Two youth were killed by the troops
during the operation yesterday evening in the same area. An Army officer and a soldier were injured
during the encounter.The killing of the youth triggered massive anti-India
protests in the area. Indian troops and police fired bullets, pellets and
teargas shells on the protesters, triggering clashes between the protesters and
the forces’ personnel. Several people suffered pellet injuries and were shifted
to different hospitals for treatment. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/29/indian-troops-martyr-one-more-youth-in-shopian-toll-rises-to-3/
7.
Youth martyred: May, 3, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, a colonel, Major
rank officer and incharge of Special Police Group have been killed in an
ongoing gunfight in Chanjmulla area of north Kashmir’s Handwara. It is also
reported that one youth has been martyred. The dead bodies have not been
recovered so far. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/02/two-youth-martyred-in-handwara/
8.
Youth martyred: May, 3, 2020: In
occupied Kashmir, Indian martyred two Kashmiri youth during a cordon and search
operation in Dangerpora area of Pulwama district, today. The troops also
destroyed a residential house by using explosive material. People took to
streets and staged forceful anti-India demonstrations in the area. They raised
high-pitched pro-freedom and anti-India slogans. Indian police and troops fired
pellets and teargas shells to disperse the protesters. Dozens of youth were
injured, some of them critically, in the brutal actions of the forces’
personnel. The troops have also launched a similar operation in Chanjmulla area
of Kupwara district. Illegally detained Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Islami
Tanzeem-e-Azadi, Abdul Samad Inqilabi, in a statement issued in Srinagar paid
rich tributes to the martyred Kashmiri youth.
. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/02/2-youth-martyred-protesters-injured-in-pulwama/
9.
1. Journalist
booked: Apr., 22, 2020:
In occupied Kashmir, Indian police registered a case, today, against senior
journalist and political commentator, Gowhar Geelani, for his
posts and writings on social media. The Indian police in a handout said that
Cyber Police Station Kashmir Zone, Srinagar, received information through
reliable sources that an individual namely “Gowher Geelani” is indulging in
unlawful activities through his posts and writings on social media
platforms. The Indian authorities have
already registered cases against two noted Kashmiri journalists, Peerzada Ashiq and female
photojournalist Masarrat Zahra under serious charges. They were booked
for uploading some Kashmir-related photographs and covering the viewpoint of
the Kashmiri martyrs’ families. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/21/indian-police-book-senior-journalist-gowhar-geelani/
2.
Youth martyred: Apr., 23, 2020: In
occupied Kashmir, Indian troops
martyred four Kashmiri youth in Shopian district, today. The youth were
killed during a cordon and search operation which was launched by the troops on
Tuesday in Melhora area of the district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/22/indian-troops-martyr-two-kashmiri-youth-in-iok/
3.
Ambedkar and Kashmir:
Apr., 23, 2020: On April 15, 2020, in a continuing agenda of unfettered
appropriation, an opinion piece titled ‘Ambedkar
saw J&K’s special status as detrimental to national unity’ was published by Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, a
two-time MP from Bikaner and Union minister of state for parliamentary affairs.
The article was a repetition of the arguments that the Bharatiya Janata Party
MP had used in a previous article published on August 20, 2019, under the
heading “BR
Ambedkar opposed the special status for J&K.” These arguments made in the latter article have
been debunked
many times for a wilful misreading of history,
selective presentation of Ambedkar’s statements on Kashmir and most of all an appropriation of Dr B.R.
Ambedkar to suit a myopic agenda of majoritarian politics.In order to support
his opinion that Ambedkar was in opposition to Article 370, Meghwal relies on a
purported conversation with Sheikh Abdullah where Ambedkar allegedly said, “you
want India to defend Kashmir, feed its people, and give Kashmiris equal rights
all over India. But you want to deny India all rights in Kashmir…”
Unsurprisingly, the earliest use of this statement can
be found in an editorial in
Tarun Bharat, a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) mouthpiece, dated 1991
citing a speech of Balraj Madhok, a Jammu-based RSS veteran, who attributed
these lines to Ambedkar, four decades after his death. Madhok spent
his lifetime campaigning
against Article 370. There is no archival evidence to establish that Ambedkar
ever had this conversation. Further, an assessment of the recorded positions of
Ambedkar indicate a position very different from one stated by Balraj Madhok.
It is well
recorded that in 1951,
Ambedkar was concerned about Kashmir’s Hindu and Buddhist minority and had
opined that the Muslim majority part of Kashmir should be left to decide their
future on their own. Ambedkar resigned from the position of Union law minister
and gave five reasons for doing so. The third reason clearly displays his
dissatisfaction with India’s policy on Kashmir. In a statement
in explanation of his resignation from Cabinet (October 10, 1951) available in Babasaheb
Ambedkar Writings and Speeches (BAWS), Vol.
14 (2), page 1317, he
says: “….We are really not concerned with the Muslim part of Kashmir. It is a
matter between the Muslims of Kashmir and Pakistan. They may decide the
issue as they like. Or if you like, divide it into three parts; the Cease-fire
zone, the Valley and the Jammu-Ladakh Region and have a plebiscite only in the
Valley.” This position is reiterated in the Election Manifesto of the Scheduled
Caste Federation (available inBAWS
Vol 17(1) page 396): “On the
Kashmir issue, the policy adopted by the Congress Government is not acceptable
to the Scheduled Castes Federation…. Kashmir to be partitioned– the Muslim area
to go to Pakistan (subject to the wishes of the Kashmiris living in the Valley)
and the non-Muslim area consisting of Jammu and Ladakh to come to India.” The
same position is observed in an
interview, October 27, 1951,
available in BAWS
Vol 17(2): “I fear that a
plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir may go against India. In order to save Hindu
and Buddhist population of Jammu and Ladakh, from going to Pakistan, in such an
eventuality, there should be zonal plebiscite in Jammu, Ladakh, and Kashmir.”
Today, the upkeep of India’s army in Kashmir costs six crore rupees per day.
During the budget 1952-53
General Discussion, while criticising
the expenditure on the Indian Army due to engagement in Kashmir, Ambedkar said
it was a needless drain on India’s exchequer: “The question of plebiscite is in
no way new in the history of the world… After the First World War, I certainly
remember there were two questions to be settled by plebiscite… which we can
usefully carry into the Kashmir dispute and have the matter settled quickly so
that we can release Rs. 50 crores from the Defence Budget and utilise it for the
benefit of our people”. During the same discussion, Ambedkar said “Out of 350
crores of rupees of revenue we raise annually, we spend about Rs. 180 crores of
rupees on the Army. It is a colossal expenditure which has hardly any
parallel.” Ambedkar reiterated his support for a plebiscite in Kashmir,
stressing that India could learn from “the line of action taken by the League
of Nations with regard to the plebiscite in Upper Silesia and Alsace-Lorraine”.
The peculiarity of Indian politics is that despite Ambedkar’s clear positions
on Kashmir, it is surprising that even Dalit political leaders like
Mayawati, former chief
minister of Uttar Pradesh and national president of the Bahujan Samaj Party,
have supported the scrapping of Article 370 while relying on a position of
Ambedkar that does not exist in recorded text and history. A concerted effort
is being made to obfuscate the ulterior motives behind the de facto annexation
of Kashmir. Statements are thrown around either with no contextual
understanding or as outright falsehoods meant to validate their
unconstitutional moves at the altar of the father of India’s constitution. . https://thewire.in/politics/jammu-kashmir-ambedkar-article-370
4.
Bodies denied; Apr. 24, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, in order to prevent large funeral
processions, Indian authorities under a new brutal policy are denying the bodies of the
martyred youth to their families for proper burial as per the Islamic rituals
and norms. The authorities while pursuing the new wicked policy
took the possession of the bodies of four youth who were martyred by Indian
troops during a cordon and search operation in Melhora-Zainapora area of
Shopian district, yesterday. Indian Army took the bodies of the martyred youth
to Gantbal area of Ganderbal district and buried them without funeral and other
religious rites. It is to mention here that many graveyards are
under control of the Indian Army where troops bury the youth killed during
custody or in fake encounters. As per local rights bodies, there are over six
thousand Kashmiri youth, who were killed in custody and were later buried in
unmarked graves in these graveyards. The families of the martyred
youth have demanded the dead bodies to accord them proper burial after
performing religious rites. Pertinently, last week, the
occupation authorities also did not hand over the bodies of two youth who were
killed by the troops in Shopian. They were buried at Gantmulla in Uri area of
the Baramulla district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/23/troops-deny-martyred-youths-bodies-to-their-families-in-iok/
5.
Human Rights and India:
Apr., 24, 2020: 12 Kashmiri students were assaulted in Dehradun by Hindu extremist groups calling all
Kashmiris as ‘traitors’. In the days and weeks that followed, Kashmiri
civilians have been under attack on a regular basis in so many parts of India,
including most
recently in Lucknow. It
is common knowledge in the international arena that India has a dismal track
record in human rights. The last five years under the “Hindu nationalist”
regime has seen an unprecedented increase in human rights violations.
Officially reported atrocities on Dalits has increased eight fold in the last
five years, compared to the preceding five years.
The
vast majority of the nearly 200,000 reported crimes are extreme in nature –
murders, rapes and the like.Beef-related lynchings, which led to over 25 deaths
in the last four years, shocked the world
The minister of state for home affairs himself disclosed that in 2017 alone there were 822 communal “incidents”
resulting in 111 deaths. There has been an alarming number of
attacks and even murders of journalists, the most visible one being the tragic
killing of Gauri Lankesh in September 2017. UP
chief minister Yogi Adityanath alone breaking all records; within nine months of taking
power, 1,038 encounters were carried out in Uttar Pradesh resulting in 32
deaths. What is appalling is the level of impunity that powerful
leaders and corporates enjoy. In the most sensitive cases, witnesses regularly
turn hostile or go mysteriously missing. All of this is on top of the
on-going reality of a criminal justice system that has almost half a million
people languishing in our prisons for years, sometimes decades, for petty
crimes, stuck there because they cannot afford bail, despite a Supreme Court
order to the contrary. Most of these people are poor Dalits, Muslims and
backward castes as one would expect. Violations of
women’s rights abound and even this is increasingly being justified in the name
of religion, like the entry of women into Sabarimala temple. Fast forward
to the last five years and two successive UN human rights chiefs have called out India’s human
rights abuses in the last two years. I don’t recall this happening in
the history of independent India. When Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid chided India for serious human
rights violations in Kashmir in June 2018, the Indian establishment was
livid and dismissed it as the baseless and illegitimate rant of an outgoing
“Muslim” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights But on March 6, 2019, High
Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, the soft spoken ex-President of Chile, while
presenting her annual report to the UN Human Rights Council, warned India about the growing
reports she
has been receiving of attacks on minorities, Dalits and adivasis. She also took
the unusual step of expressing concern that this divisiveness was being
fomented to meet political ends.. https://thewire.in/rights/india-human-rights-record-since-2014
6.
Youth martyred: Apr., 25, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops martyred two youth in
Islamabad district, today evening. The youth were killed during an operation in
Kharpora area of Arwini in the district. Indian police claimed that the slain
youth were militants who were killed during a shootout while trying to escape
in a car after abducting a policeman from the area. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/24/indian-troops-martyr-two-youth-in-iok-19/
7.
Youth martyred; Apr., 26, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of
state terrorism martyred three Kashmiri youth in Pulwama district, today,
taking the number of slain youth to nine since Wednesday. The troops martyred
the three youth during a cordon and search operation at Goripora in Awantipora
area of Pulwama district, today morning. During similar operations, the troops
killed two youth at Arwani in Islamabad district, yesterday, and four others in
Melhora area of Shopian district on Wednesday.
. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/25/indian-troops-martyr-nine-youth-in-four-days-in-iok/
8.
Youth martyred: Apr., 27, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of
state terrorism martyred two Kashmiri youth in Kulgam district, today, taking the number of slain youth to 13
since Wednesday. The troops martyred the four youth during a cordon and
search operation at Asthal in Kulgam district this evening. The operation
continued till last reports came in. Earlier, Indian troops had martyred three
Kashmiri youth in Pulwama district yesterday and two in Arwani area of
Islamabad district on Friday. The troops had martyred four youth during a
similar operation in Melhora area of Shopian district on Wednesday. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/26/two-more-youth-martyred-in-iok-toll-rises-to-11-since-wednesday/
9.
1. Protest:
Apr., 16, 2020:
In occupied Kashmir, the forcible occupation of farmers’ land by Indian troops
in Soibugh area of Badgam district prompted the locals to come out of their
houses and stage protest against the Indian army’s brutal act. The troops
captured the land and set up an army camp in the area. Annoyed by the Indian
army’s move, the locals defied restrictions and lockdown, came out of their
houses and pelted stones on the troops. The troops fired bullets and teargas
shells on the protesters. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/15/indian-troops-face-stone-pelting-over-capture-of-farmers-land/
2. Apple
farmers: Apr., 16, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, apple growers and
traders are forced to pay for cold storages but are earning nothing as all
markets and transport are shut because of the lockdown imposed to prevent
spread of coronavirus. As many as one lakh tonnes of apple are lying in cold
storages in Pulwama, Shopian, and other areas of occupied Kashmir. The traders
say that there was a huge demand for the apples but it all vanished overnight
due to the lockdown. The apple industry in occupied Kashmir had already
suffered heavy losses, last year, due to the prolonged lockdown imposed by the
Modi government after abrogating the special status of the territory. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/15/iok-apple-industry-going-through-worst-phase/
3.
1992 Documentary; Apr.,16, 2020:
Documentary of human rights c violations in
Indian Occupied Kashmir, n rape, extra judicial killings, arson , involvement f
Indian Armed Forces in gross human rights violations https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=811090262614405&id=608649652858468
4.
Youth
martyred: Apr., 17, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of
state terrorism martyred two Kashmiri ( Shoib Lone Arshad, Mursi Bhai) , youth in Shopian district, today. According
to Kashmir Media Service, the troops martyred the youth during a cordon and
search operation in Dairoo Keegam area of the district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/17/indian-troops-martyr-one-kashmiri-youth-in-shopian-4/,
Youth martyred:
Apr., 18, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops martyred four Kashmiri youth in Shopian and
Kishtwar districts, today.The troops martyred two youth each during cordon and
search operations at Dairoo Keegam in Shopian and in Dachan area of Kishtwar.
The operations in both the areas continued till last reports came in. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/17/indian-troops-martyr-4-youth-in-occupied-kashmir/
5. Youth
mistreated: Apr., 18, 2020:
Thus is how Indian security Forces treat Kashmiris and in the process
have alienated the Kashmiri youth to a point if no return. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2575012629419838&id=2318465695074534
6.
Kashmiri workers
attached: Apr., 18, 2020:
Three Kashmiri labourers attacked in Barot village in the Mandi district of
Himachal Pradesh on Saturday by a group of unidentified locals apparently
fearful of the coronavirus are anxious to return home as they continue to fear
for their safety.The three Kashmiri labourers – among a group of nine Gujjars
from Banihal who had come to Barot to work on a transmission tower in November
– claimed that they were subjected to an unprovoked attack at their place of
residence. The assailants also hurled obscenities and warned them to leave the
place or bear the consequences, claimed 60-year-old Abdullah. Even after
attacking the labourers with cricket bats, the men allegedly followed them to
the government hospital and threatened them while calling them “aatankwadi
(terrorists)”. “They hate us because we are Muslims,” said Bahaardeen Naik, a
32-year-old victim, who sustained injuries in his arm. Abdullah, who was
severely beaten, is bedridden as a result. “I cannot work now, I feel like I am
crippled,” he said, speaking to The Wire. On April 11, at around 10:30
pm, Naik and eight other workers were sleeping in two separate rooms when the
men broke into their house and attacked them. “They started thrashing us
without telling us the reason,” Naik said. “I tried to escape and ran out
crying for help, while others were struggling to get rid of them,” he said. Joy
Choudhary, a digital marketing consultant, who lives half a kilometre away from
the labourers, was the first person to come to their rescue after Naik narrated
the whole incident to him. “I saw his right hand severely injured when he ran
for help towards my place,” said Choudhary. After that Choudhary, with the help
of another friend, reached the place of the incident and saw the labourers
lying on the road with injuries on different parts on their bodies. “We then
took them to the hospital,” .“The premises where the labourers were residing is
adjacent to the Durga Mata Mandir. Some people already had issues about the
labourers living there,” said Chaudhary. “They are Muslims and their passage is
through the temple, so the locals were troubled by that. They thought they [the
labourers] were polluting the place and there is already a campaign in the
media about it as well,” he said. Advocate Deshraj, a lawyer who lives near
Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, however, said that the attack against the labourers
was communal in nature as the locals felt that Muslims are responsible for
spreading the coronavirus. “It is a result of the hate campaign which is
creating a communal divide between two communities,” he said. “There is no
other reason,” he said. “The police are calling it an altercation, which is not
the case.” “We have not seen such cases from here before this, but what is
being circulated on social media and also by certain sections of the media, has
made a target out of these laborers right now,” he said. “People here have also
circulated posters about not providing rooms to Muslims on the grounds that
they are responsible for spreading the coronavirus,” he added. The accused got
bail within 24 hours of the incident. https://thewire.in/communalism/himachal-pradesh-kashmiri-labourers-attacked
7.
8.
Kashmir from Apr., 7, 2020 to Apr.,
13, 2020
1.
COVID
19; Apr., 8, 2020: The Chairman of Kashmir
Council Europe (KCEU), Ali Raza Syed, has urged the higher authorities of
European Union (EU) to pay special attention on the severe situation of human
rights in occupied Kashmir. In this connection, Ali Raza
Syed has dispatched a letter to the President of European Council, Mr Charles
Michel; President of the European Commission, Ms Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen;
and High Representative of EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Mr Josep
Borrell Fontelles. Ali Raza Syed in the letter
wrote, “With extreme regret on suffering of the whole world from coronavirus, I
want to draw your attention towards the critical situation of human rights in
Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).” The pandemic of coronavirus has increased the
miseries of the people of Indian occupied Kashmir who were already facing
hardships due to curfew imposed by the India for the last eight months, the
letter added. In his memo the KCEU Chairman
further stated that the people of occupied Kashmir are witnessing a constant
siege for last several months and thousands of political workers are in prisons
as the Indian government annulled special status of Kashmir and took this
disputed territory in its direct control since August 2019. The
letter maintained that now under the garb of the coronavirus pandemic, the
Indian authorities are controlling information about the widespread of the
disease in the disputed territory. It said, information received from the
independent sources revealed that number of the infected people from
coronavirus is increasing day by day in the territory but medical staffs have
been asked not to share this information to the media. “Due
to the less access to the internet, the activities on the social media are very
limited and regular media outlets in the region are also restricted. Less
freedom of expression and restrictions on free media, exchange of accurate
information related to coronavirus crisis is very hard,” the letter further
said. However, the independent sources from IOK said, there is a shortage of medicine for the masses and a lack of basic
facilities and protective gears for frontline health workers, doctors and
paramedics, who can ensure safety of the people from this dangerous virus, it
further maintained. About India illegal
activities in emerging situation of coronavirus, Ali Raza Syed further said, I
want to inform that situation of the human rights in IOK has been more
difficult since the outbreak of the coronavirus. The letter said that in a
recent move by exploiting the situation created by the coronavirus, India
introduced new domicile rules in Jammu and Kashmir in order to settle the
non-Kashmiris and change demography of the disputed territory. It
is gross desecration of international law and a clear violation of the UN
resolutions that called for holding of plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, the
letter said. Ali Raza wrote that there was
a need of special attention of EU on current human rights situation of occupied
Kashmir. The EU should stop India from attempting to change demography of
the disputed region, he added.
https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/07/kceu-draws-eus-attention-towards-grim-hr-situation-in-iok/
2. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/kashmir-top-leader-seeks-intl-aid-facing-domicile-law/1794676
3.
UN and Kashmir: Apr., 8, 2020: The United
Nations and six other global rights bodies have expressed serious concern about
the plight of the Kashmiri detainees languishing in different jails of the
territory and India. UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres’ Spokesperson,
Stephane Dujarric told reporters in Washington that the UN Secretary General
believes that any political solution must take into consideration the issue of
human rights. He said that already on March 25, the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights Michelle Bachelet also called on the international community to
protect prisoners from the pandemic by releasing vulnerable ones.
Six
international human rights organizations in a recent joint statement in Geneva
have already said, the fate of hundreds of arbitrarily detained Kashmiri
prisoners hangs in the balance as the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus
in India passes the 4,000 mark. These organizations include Amnesty
International, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, the World
Alliance for Citizen Participation, International Commissions of Jurists,
International Federation for Human Rights and World Organization Against
Torture. They stressed that under international law, India had an
obligation to ensure the physical and mental health and well-being of inmates.
The global human rights watchdogs expressed the apprehension that various state
governments in India had begun releasing detainees, but there was a concern
that hundreds of Kashmiri youth, journalists, political leaders, human right
defenders and others arbitrarily arrested would not be among those benefiting
from the measure. The statement said, as entire India is in a lockdown and a
ban on prison visits for the duration of the outbreak imposed, inmates are more
isolated from the outside world than ever. They added that the phenomenon was
even more alarming in view of the huge number of custodial deaths due to
torture and ill-treatment in Indian prisons. . https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/07/un-rights-bodies-show-concern-about-iok-detainees/
4.
Youth martyred: Apr., 8, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops martyred one Kashmiri youth in
Sopore town of Baramulla district, today. The youth was martyred by the troops
during a violent cordon and search operation at Gulababad Arampora area of the
town. The troops also destroyed a residential house in the area. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/08/indian-troops-launch-violent-caso-in-sopore-town/
5.
LoC Violations: Apr., 13, 2020: A four-year-old boy was killed and four other civilians were injured
by Indian shelling from across the Line of Control (LoC) on
Sunday, officials said. The four-year-old victim, Hussain Mir, was killed in Bantil
village when the Indian forces started shelling earlier today. "The
innocent boy was hit by shrapnel from a mortar shell in the first bout of
shelling while he was standing in the courtyard of their house. He died on the
spot," Shahid said.Bantil is part of revenue village Tehjiyan and five
kilometres away from Dudhnial. Both Tehjiyan and Dudhnial had suffered damages
from Indian shelling on Friday as well. In Rakhchikri sector, two men, aged 26
years and 70 years respectively, were injured from Indian shelling . Meanwhile,
in Poonch district, a 14-year-old boy was critically injured after shelling
started in the area at about 6:30pm Early in the morning, a 50-year-old woman
was injured in Gaahi Barhu village of Samahni sector in the southernmost Bhimber
district The Nakyal sector of Kotli district was also being “indiscriminately”
shelled by Indian troops, residents said, adding that there were no reports
about casualties.“Indian army is targeting Mohra Dharoti, Balakot, Nara Lanjot
and other adjoining villages. As I speak to you, I can hear the thunder of
mortars and artillery,” Abdul Qayyum Tahir, a Nakyal-based journalist told Dawn
by telephone.“We will be able to ascertain losses only when the shelling
stops,” he added. The number of people killed by Indian shelling in the year 2020 has
increased to three while 54 civilians have been injured, out of whom 38 are men
and 16 women. Unprovoked, indiscriminate and unrelenting ceasefire
violations by Indian Army were not only causing civilian casualties and damages
but also disturbing our efforts to contain Covid-19 in areas along the restive
ceasefire line [LoC]. Earlier today, the Inter-Services Public Relations had
said that two civilians were injured from "unprovoked
ceasefire violation" by Indian forces during the night. On Friday, six
civilians were injured after Indian troops resorted to unprovoked firing in
various sectors near the LoC, the ISPR had said. https://www.dawn.com/news/1548651/4-year-old-boy-killed-near-loc-from-indian-shelling-officials-say
6.
Arrests: Apr., 13, 2020: in occupied
Kashmir, since the world is coping with the coronavirus pandemic, India while
stepping up its state terrorism arrested more than 50 civilians during
nocturnal raids in Sopore area of Baramulla district to suppress the freedom
movement.Raids are being conducted by the police particularly against the youth
across the territory on the pretext of anti-corona drive. The relatives of the
detained youth while talking to the media said the coronavirus has become a new
tool in the hands of the occupational authorities to persecute the innocent Kashmiris.
. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/12/over-50-people-arrested-in-iok/
1.
Martyrs
remembered: March 31. 2020: : In occupied Kashmir, the
Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference Chairman, Shabbir Ahmed Dar, Tehreek
Muzahamat Chairman Bilal Ahmed Siddiqui, acting Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir
Liberation Front Abdul Hameed Butt and other Hurriyat leaders and organizations
have paid glowing tributes to Ashfaq Majid Wani, Dr Abdul Ahad Guru,
Shabbir Ahmad Siddiqui and Jaleel Ahmed Andrabi on their martyrdom
anniversaries. Shabbir Ahmad Dar in a
statement issued in Srinagar said, these Kashmiri martyrs were great sons of
soil who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of Jammu and Kashmir from
Indian subjugation. He said these great martyrs always advocated the just
settlement of the Kashmir dispute and never hesitated in calling a spade a
spade. “Ashfaq Majeed Wani was a born freedom fighter with leadership
qualities, who always led from the front,” he said. Shabbir
Dar said martyrs Abdul Ahad Guroo and Jaleel Ahmad Andrabi always championed
human and political rights of the Kashmiri people and they never shied away in
highlighting the heinous crimes against humanity in Kashmir. Shabir Ahmad
Siddiqui and his associates were killed under a conspiracy in Hazratbal shrine,
Srinagar. He said that the mission of these martyrs would be taken to its
logical conclusion, against all odds.Tehreek Muzahamat Chairman Bilal Ahmed
Sidiqui in his statement said that the martyrs would always be remembered. He
said martyrs Jaleel Andrabi, Ashfaq Majeed Wani, Dr Abdul Ahad Guru and Shabbir
Ahmed Siddiqui would always act as an inspirational force for the Kashmiri
people. .It is worth mentioning here that Indian
troops had killed Ashfaq Majeed Wani in March 1990, Jaleel Andrabi and Shabbir
Siddiqui in March 1996 and Dr Abdul Ahad Guru in April 1992 in different areas
of the occupied territory. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/30/glowing-tributes-to-martyrs-ashfaq-guru-siddiqui-and-andrabi/
2.
Detentions: Mar., 31, 2020: While the
prisoners are being released worldwide to protect them from the rising cases of
coronavirus, the Indian authorities in occupied Kashmir arrested 627 people
in the name of preventive measures. Director-General of Police
Dilbagh Singh in a statement issued in Srinagar confirmed that the police had
so far arrested 627 people while cases were registered against 373 people. He said
more than 100 shops were sealed while 490 vehicles were taken into custody for
violation of the lockdown. It is worth mentioning here that the occupation
authorities have imposed curfew-like restrictions in Srinagar and all district
and tehsil headquarters in the territory in the name of preventive measures
against the coronavirus, further compounding the miseries of the Kashmiri
people. Indian forces are widely harassing Kashmiris in the name of security
measures. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/30/world-releasing-detainees-while-india-arrest-627-more-in-iok/
3.
March cost: April, 1, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops
martyred nine (9) Kashmiris during the last month of March, one woman
was rendered widowed due to the killing of her husband by the troops. During
the period, at least seven (7) people were injured in the use of brute force on
peaceful protesters by Indian police and troops. Indian police and paramilitary
personnel arrested eight hundred and six (806) people including Hurriyat
activists and youth during three hundred and ninety four (394) cordon and
search operations in different areas of the territory. The troops also destroyed
two (2) residential houses in the month. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/01/indian-troops-martyr-nine-kashmiris-in-march/
4.
COVID 19 and IOK: Apr., 4, 4040: Soon after the first patient
of COVID-19 – a 67-year-old woman who had recently travelled to Saudi Arabia —
tested positive on March 18, a team of health professionals and volunteers
were sent to Khanyar to sanitise the area. They were also tasked with tracing
the people the woman may have had contact with. Meanwhile, police personnel
began patrolling in their jeeps. With speakers, they warned people to stay
indoor. On March 22, another patient surfaced. Four days later, the 65-year-old
man died.The third patient had lied about his travel history. The fourth one is
just 22 years old.Now, 70 people have tested positive, including a 10-year-old
from Eidgah Srinagar. Jammu and Kashmir are faced with the same challenge as
the rest of the world, yet the dearth of infrastructure and
manpower in the healthcare sector here makes the task more challenging.As
the whole Valley is in a lockdown, memories are strong of another unprecedented
lockdown, imposed after the former state was stripped of its special status and
bifurcated into two Union Territories on August 5. To ensure the efficiency of
lockdown, authorities have been taking the hardliner approach that they have
taken since August 5. People have reported having been beaten
up by policemen even after furnishing a magisterial permit.
Tawseef, an engineering student from South Kashmir, had to see his ailing aunt
in Srinagar. The district magistrate of Kulgam gave him a permit, but to his
surprise, uniformed men at Khudwani stopped him and beat him up.“I told them my
aunt had just undergone a surgery and I had to visit her,” said Tawseef, who
suffered multiple fractures from the beating.Police have lodged 337 FIRs
against people who have allegedly violated the lockdown. Moreover, about 627
people have been arrested in the past week. “The incidents capture the horrors
of violence against civilians in Kashmir at the hands of police personnel
ensuring a lockdown. They do not have a humane approach, but with a
militaristic one,” writes Gowhar Geelani, a veteran journalist and author
of Kashmir: Rage and Reason for The Federal. Dr. Khawar, one of the medicos treating
coronavirus patients, said this is the exact kind of epidemic that takes people
by awe. “It took me nearly nine hours to process the news that the first
COVID-19 patient had been found in the Valley. Like me, people are in utter
confusion. Most are not aware of the implications of contracting the disease,”
he said “Another reason for people evading quarantine
is the careless attitude of the authorities. People were stacked like cattle in the
quarantine facilities at Awantipoora and Sumbal,” said Geelani.“There
were videos that went viral on social media showing that not even necessities
like soap or sanitizers were available. The people were not really isolated,
because in some instances, dozens of people had to stay in a single room and
had to use common washrooms, which were dirty and unhygienic”. Asifa was then
taken to a quarantine centre, which is a local hotel cum restaurant in
Lawaypura area of Srinagar. “There were people from Europe, Pakistan,
Bangladesh and all of us were kept together. For three days, nobody came to
the hotel, not even the doctors. We were left alone.” “On March 23,
at about 10 pm, we were told that we were being shifted. At about 12:30 in the
night, we realised that we were brought to a hill-station, with three-feet
snow. We were caught unprepared in the cold,” said Asifa. “Some of us were in
slippers. We were told to stay in a hut where there are only two rooms for five
of us. There was no water, not enough heating, not even a bar of soap “Haj
House was dirty. The compound was full of stray dogs. There was no water in the
washrooms, toilets were defunct.” Moreover, more than 14 beds were stacked in a
single room, which were not even an arm’s length apart.” After the first
patient tested positive, the number of ventilators at SKIMS, SMHS and JVC and
other district and sub-district health centres was 97. And most of these
ventilators are occupied by non-COVID-19 patients. According to Census 2011,
there are seven million people in Kashmir and by 2021, it is expected to be
eight million.One of the health officials from the Valley said on the condition
of anonymity, “I think we are living in a slaughterhouse. We must not care much
about masks and other personal protective equipments (PPEs) for doctors. If
Milan, France and New York are facing acute shortage of PPEs, Kashmir, a third
world region in a third world country, should not be an exception.”
“What we must do is import more and more ventilators. Since March 18, how many
ventilators did the government arrange for? None,” he said. The official also
said that the level of testing was abysmal and called for more testing kits. An
official at the Government Chest Diseases Hospital, Srinagar echoed him when he
said, https://thewire.in/rights/kashmir-coronavirus-covid-19-internet
5.
Youth arrested: Apr., 4, 2020: In occupied
Kashmir, Indian police arrested four more Kashmiri youth from different areas,
today.The police during house raids arrested four youth including Azad
Ahmed Butt and Altaf Ahmed Baba in Handwara and Sopore areas of
north Kashmir.A police officer talking to media men claimed that the arrested
youth were over-ground workers of mujahideen. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/03/indian-police-arrest-four-kashmiri-youth/
6.
Youth martyred: Apr., 4,
2020: Four Local young men
Killed In Kulgam Encounter,2 Army Mens Injured Indian troops in their
fresh act of state terrorism martyred four Kashmiri youth in Kulgam district,
today. The troops martyred the youth identified as Sadam Malik, Aijaz Ahmed
Naikoo, Shahid Sadiq Malik and Waqar Ahmed during a cordon and search
operation in Hardmanguri area of the district. Earlier, three Indian troops
were injured in an attack in the same area. The troops also destroyed three
residential houses in the area with explosive material. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/04/indian-troops-martyr-four-kashmiri-youth-in-kulgam/
7. Youth martyred:
Apr., 6, 2020; In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops
in their fresh act of state terrorism, martyred
five more Kashmiri youth bringing the toll to nine since yesterday. The youth were killed during a continued
violent operation in Keran area of Kupwara district. Indian army confirmed that
three soliders were also killed during the operation. Earlier, Indian troops
had killed four youth identified as Sadam Malik, Aijaz Ahmed Naikoo, Shahid
Sadiq Malik and Waqar Ahmed in Hardmanguri area of Kulgam district, yesterday.
Three Indian troops were injured in an attack in the same area. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/05/indian-troops-martyr-five-more-kashmiri-youth-in-iok/
8.
1. 4G: Mar., 24, 2020: The Centre must immediately restore 4G internet
connectivity in Jammu and Kashmir. To deprive citizens of direct access to
information and instructions during a global pandemic is unjustifiable.
Moreover, it is outright inhuman to do so at a time when there is no indication
of trouble on the ground and when the forces and security arrangements in place
are adequate to meet any challenges As
things currently stand, businesses have suffered a lot. Some have had to suspend
their operations or even shut down altogether .Students and researchers have
faced great problems. Many have faced terrible difficulties to complete mere
applications and registrations. Doctors and other health care personnel have
also faced significant predicaments. With concerns arising over the coronavirus
pandemic, the risks to life and lungs have increased. A Kashmiri doctor
recently tweeted his frustration over not being able to download the ICU
guidelines for COVID-19 even after an hour of trying.In this situation, some
Kashmiris have begun to publicly describe the communication restrictions
imposed as a form of collective punishment.
. https://thewire.in/rights/kashmir-coronavirus-pandemic-internet
2.
Youth arrested: Mar.,24, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops arrested six Kashmiri youth in
Kapwara district, today. The youth were arrested during a cordon and search
operation in Keran area of the district. Four of the arrested youth are from
Sopore area of Baramulla district and they have been identified as Ehtisham
Farooq Malik, Shafqat Ali Tego, Masab Hassan Butt and Nisar Ahmad Ganai.The
other two are residents of Karen area of Kapawara district and were identified
as Kabir
Lone and Sharif Ahmed Khan. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/23/indian-troops-arrest-six-kashmiri-youth-in-kupwara/
3.
Lock down: Mar., 2, 2020: On the morning of
August 5, 2019, everyone in Kashmir woke up to a complete blackout. There was
no mobile or internet service. A shrill silence fell over the state as
neighbours sat in silence. Within a few hours, Prime Minister Modi announced
the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, that the state would be
divided into union territories, and also the changing of various state-specific
laws. We Kashmiris felt betrayed. But the decision was lauded in
the Indian nationalist press, with publications such as Times Now and Republic
calling it a brave decision. Indigenous Kashmiris were under siege, with
schools shut and hospitals out of reach amid a curfew. Reporting the
on-the-ground realities — one of the cornerstones of journalism — was
forgotten, as Indian media spent the first few days in celebration, and
information filtered through them offered no crucial context for local
Kashmiris. We struggled to connect with our loved ones in different
regions of the state and had no clue about major political and social
developments. People travelled for miles in the searing heat, spending large
sums of money just to access healthcare with no respite whatsoever. The
observances for the Islamic festival of Eid on August 12 were muted.
We did not celebrate, merely offering prayers in the morning as dictated by
religious practice. For the children there were no toys or sweets, as we were
barely surviving on the bare essentials. Every street was filled with
fear and grief. Nobody was aware of the happenings in other households, not to
mention happenings around the world. People who were believed to have any
semblance of political affiliation were caged and transported to jails outside
the state. Kashmir — already the largest militarized zone on earth — was
converted into a garrison of forces. The extraordinary situation worsened the
health of my mother, who has been on medication for diabetes. Lack of medicine
and transportation made matters worse, and we had to seek help from a kind
local man who dropped us at the hospital gates in Srinagar. The
impact of Modi’s
decision is clear. The blackout has alienated Kashmiris even further, in their
hearts and their minds alike. There is no other way to look at it.The removal
of Article 370 may or may not
impact the people of the Kashmir valley, but the treatment meted out to us only
reminds us about the brutal occupation of our land. The
cruelty inflicted on us has resulted in far worse human tragedies. But these
things refuse to leave our minds and will only strengthen our desire for an
independent land.
4.
Indian Jails: Mar., 26, 2020: “Indian jails have no healthcare facility, nor the
detained Hurriyat leaders are given any proper medical treatment. We appeal to the
United Nations, OIC and all other humanitarian and health organisations to
pressurise India to release Dr Hameed Fayaz, Zafar Akbar Bhat, Yasin Malik, Asiya
Andrabi, Shabir Ahmed Shah, Masarat Aalam Butt and all other leaders and
Kashmiris from jails,” Malik added. the-long-descent https://tribune.com.pk/story/2185005/1-india-urged-release-ailing-kashmiri-leaders-amid-coronavirus-fears/
5.
4 G and Kashmir: Mar., 29, 2020: Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders or
Reporters Sans Frontières has termed the continued restrictions on the high
speed internet in occupied Kashmir as potentially criminal irresponsibility of
New Delhi during the coronavirus pandemic. According to Kashmir Media Service, in a statement
released to media, Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk, said
that 8 million Kashmiris continued to be cut off from the absolutely vital
information that was needed to prevent the spread of the pandemic, when people
under lockdown all over the world are using the internet to work, communicate
and get information. He said, this is the cruel reality to which the citizens
of the Kashmir Valley, including its journalists, are currently being
subjected. He demanded of India to immediately restore the high speed Internet
in the territory. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/28/iok-internet-gag-can-be-deadly-during-covid-19-rsf/
6.
Youth arrested: Mar., 29, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops arrested two youth in north
Kashmir’s Baramulla district, today.The troops arrested the youth identified as
Showkat
Mir and Showkat Yattoo, during vehicle checking in Pattan town of
the district. The troops labeled the youth as over-ground workers of mujahideen https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/28/indian-troops-arrest-two-youth-in-baramulla/
1. Solider martyred:
Mar., 17, 2020: A
Pakistan Army soldier was martyred after Indian forces resorted to
unprovoked fire in the Shahkot sector along the Line of Control (LOC) on
Tuesday.“Indian Army troops resorted to unprovoked fire in Shahkot sector along
LOC with heavy weapons,” said the Inter-Services Public Relations. “During the exchange of fire, one brave soldier Sepoy
Wajid Ali, age 20 years, resident of District Dadu, valiantly responding to
Indian ceasefire violation (CFV) embraced shahadat. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2178084/1-one-pakistan-army-soldier-martyred-indian-firing-across-loc/
2.
Economic strangulation:
Mar., 19, 2020:
President of the Jammu Kashmir Salvation Movement and senior Hurriyat leader
Altaf Ahmad Bhat censured Indian democracy by highlighting the injustice and
inhumane actions the Modi fascist government has been carrying upon besieged
people of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK). While talking to ZMC News live
from UK, Bhat said that the pre-planned actions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
and his aides Amit Shah, Ajit Doval and Indian army chief were to economically strangle
the region and people were thrown into a digital black hole “In a
bid to weaken the people of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the
Indian government started economic terrorism, and hence the world-famous
apples, walnuts and apricots of IOJ&K were destroyed because of Indian
state terrorism.” Shedding light on situations of education, Bhat
affirmed that the education system of Kashmir is one of its kind, and it’s
better than Indian education system, however, in order to snatch future of
Kashmiri children and youth, Indian brutal forces have converted
schools, colleges, and universities into army camps with additional forces.
“The students are going through psychological trauma and are unaware of their
future.” The president went on to say
that Indian
occupation troops under the guise of cordon and search operations are
deliberately targeting the young Kashmiris by falselybranding them as
terrorists. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2178873/1-india-economically-strangling-occupied-kashmir/
3.
Yasin Malik: Mar., 20, 2020: The illegally
detained Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Muhammad Yasin Malik
has announced to go on ‘a fast until death’ from 1st April 2020 against the
authoritarian attitude of India.Muhammad Yasin Malik in a statement released by
his family in Srinagar, today, said that the Indian government had made a
pledge with him that he would be provided with a genuine political space and
efforts would be made for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute through a
meaningful dialogue process. However, he added that India had reneged from this
pledge. Muhammad Yasin Malik pointed out that besides Indian officials, many
international diplomats were also on board for pursuing the idea behind the
pledge. The JKLF Chairman said, the cases against him are politically motivated
and the prejudice of the TADA court judge hearing a case against him was
evident by his attitude. Muhammad Yasin Malik maintained that he had every
legal right to be presented physically before the court but the Judge and the
Central Bureau of Investigation at the behest of the Indian government did not
allow it. He said he was presented through a video link, where he was neither
able to hear the arguments of lawyers, nor was allowed to speak. He
added that he had already withdrawn his counsel. Muhammad Yasin Malik, who is
detained in Delhi’s Tihar jail, deplored that the judge was not ready to
listen to him, and was behaving like a prosecuting or police officer.
He went on to add that whenever he tried to speak, the judge
muted the volume or went offline, which showed his bias and
prejudice against him and his friends. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/19/yasin-malik-to-go-on-hunger-strike-till-death/
4.
AI: Mar., 21, 2020: In wake of the Coronavirus (COVID-19)
pandemic, the Government of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir must
restore full access to internet services in the region of Jammu and Kashmir
and ensure that people have full access to health and safety related
information, said Amnesty International India today. “There is a
growing anxiety around the pandemic and unwarranted restrictions on content and
dissemination of information only stands to add to the panic,” said Avinash
Kumar, Executive Director of Amnesty International India."Complete
shutdowns or restricting of internet speed or access makes it difficult for
people to navigate their way through a difficult time further undermining their
trust in the authorities. The Government of India needs to adopt a
rights-respecting approach to protect public health and restore access to 4G
speed internet." Human rights approach must be at the centre
of all prevention, preparedness, containment, and treatment efforts to protect
public health and support the most vulnerable groups. The right to health, as
guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, provides for the
right to access healthcare. Access to health-related information is also a
crucial part of the right to health. Providing “education and access to
information concerning the main health problems in the community, including
methods of preventing and controlling them” is considered an “obligation of
comparable priority” to the core obligations of the right to health. The latest
Situation Report issued by the World Health Organisation on 17 March
recommended that that the public must be informed of the situation so that they
can take appropriate measures to protect yourself and your family. It further
advised that anxiety around the outbreak can be countered by access to facts
from reliable sources that help accurately determine risks so that reasonable
precautions can be taken. The people of Jammu and Kashmir have the right to
remain informed of the threat to their health, the measures to mitigate risks,
early warning information of possible future consequences and information on
ongoing response efforts. They have the right to information in the local
languages and through media and in formats that can be easily understood and
accessed, so that they can fully participate and take informed decisions in the
response efforts. Failures to do so can heighten the sense of helplessness,
anger and frustration, undermine the public health response, put the health of
others at risk, and may constitute human rights violations.“The situation in
relation to the coronavirus is constantly evolving. To ensure its full
communication to the people of Jammu & Kashmir, the Government of India
must urgently lift internet restrictions in the region and ensure real time
preparedness of the people against the spread of the virus. The responses to
coronavirus cannot be based on human rights violations and a lack of
transparency and censorship,” said Avinash Kumar. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/03/mitigate-risks-of-covid-19-for-jammu-and-kashmir-by-immediately-restoring-full-access-to-internet-services/
5.
COVID 19 and IOK: Mar., 21, 2020:
“This is so frustrating. Trying to download the guidelines for intensive care
management as proposed by doctors in England. It is as many as 24 MBs. It has been
one hour…still not able to do so,” Iqbal Saleem, a professor of surgery at
Government Medical College, Srinagar tweeted on Thursday about his inability to
access intensive care management guidelines as the coronavirus pandemic spreads.“While
the world is helping each other in fighting #COVID, a professor of surgery in
Kashmir had to waste hours trying to download treatment guidelines from the
internet,” another Kashmiri doctor tweeted in response. “Reason? Internet is deliberately slowed down! When
will this collective punishment end?” he asked. A research scholar from
Kashmir also tweeted about the urgent need to restore high-speed internet which
remains officially banned in Kashmir, after an unprecedented government-ordered
shutdown following the reading down of Article 370 on August 5 last year.“Restore
the damn 4G internet, Modi. Human security and health of the people of J&K
must not be kept hostage to the so-called ‘security of the state’ which is
being invoked as the reason for the continuing internet restrictions in
J&K,” Tahir Firaz, a Dublin-based Kashmiri researcher tweeted.“Our doctors
need internet now.” “This becomes all the more important in Kashmir given the
poor healthcare infrastructure. The effects of the pandemic are only worsening
because of rampant misinformation and rumours,” he said. Andrabi and his
colleagues in the US tried to reach out to people in Kashmir by making
informative videos in Kashmiri language about COVID-19 with facts about the
infection and ways to prevent its spread. However, he points out, the biggest
hurdle they’re facing is making the information accessible through the internet
to people in Kashmir is the ongoing ban on high-speed internet. “Therefore, it
is absolutely necessary that the internet is properly restored in the valley
before the problem become too big for anyone to handle, including the Indian
government itself which will likely have plenty of coronavirus related problems
of its own to deal with within a short span of time,” he cautioned. On
Thursday, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK), a doctors’ body in Kashmir started
an online initiative which will make doctors available online for voluntary
health consultations to people through WhatsApp and mobile phones in order to
limit hospital visits of routine patients in view of the COVID-19 scare.The
doctors’ body has also requested more doctors to volunteer and provide online
consultations to patients so that “people suffering from general ailments limit
visiting hospitals.”“Internet should be fully restored as it would be helpful
in disseminating critical information by doctors about the coronavirus epidemic
among people,” said Dr. Mir Mushtaq, a senior executive member of DAK. “Even
the government can use the internet to disseminate a positive message and keep
people updated about the steps taken by administration.” A psychiatrist who
works in a government hospital in south Kashmir told The Wire that given
the rising anxieties and restricted mobility of people, the already stretched
healthcare system in Kashmir will be soon overwhelmed by general patients
instead of preparing and focusing on coronavirus patients. The doctor said that
4G internet access should be immediately restored by the authorities so that
they can provide online video consultations to general patients in order to
minimiSe the patient load in hospitals. “It’s a double whammy for the Kashmiri
population in general and persons suffering from mental health issues in
particular. A video call to their physician/psychiatrist would have alleviated
anxieties of the patients when every other doctor here is offering their
personal cell numbers for their patients in this hour of need,” he said. Another doctor, an assistant professor in a
medical college said due to the months-long internet ban, he couldn’t follow up
on many of his patients from August 5 last year who would otherwise consult him
and remain in touch via video calls for their medication. “In my personal
practice, video call consultation, and videos through WhatsApp was a routine
until the lockdown from August 5 last year,” he said, adding that it was very
feasible for elderly and frail patients across the valley as well as they
didn’t have to move out of their homes and travel.“Many such patients have
stopped medications and I have lost the opportunity to follow up on many more
patients since last summer,” he said. “It has been a tragedy in my personal
practice.” The doctor said in the present situation when the coronavirus
epidemic is posing a serious threat and claiming lives worldwide, the
restoration of 4G internet services would “at least alleviate the anxiety and
fears among people and also help the student community.” “Despite the rising
number of cases, on 17 March 2020 the Government of the Union Territory of
Jammu and Kashmir ordered for the continued restrictions on full internet
services such as restricting the speed to 2G in the region. Complete internet
shutdowns have also been imposed intermittently in certain areas in the guise
of security,” the statement further said.
https://thewire.in/rights/coronavirus-kashmir-slow-internet
6.
Youth arrested: Mar., 23, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops arrested two Kashmiri youth
on the fake charge of being overground workers of mujahideen in South Kashmir. the
youth identified as Irfan Ahmed Kuttey and Adil Bashir Lone were arrested
during a cordon and search operation by a joint team of Indian Army and police
in Shopian district. Police claimed that Irfan, a resident of Chotipora Sedow
in Pulwama district, was motivating the youth to join the armed struggle
against Indian occupation. The other detained youth, Adil Bashir Lone, was a
resident of Aaloora, Shopian. The troops have taken the detained youth to an
unknown location. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/22/indian-troops-arrest-two-youth-in-south-kashmir/
7.
8.
1.
Youth
martyred: Mar., 9, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian
troops martyred two Kashmiri youth in Shopian district, today. The
youth were killed by Indian troops during a violent siege and search operation
in Khawjapora Reban area of the district.
Meanwhile, Indian forces
blocked all entry and exit points of the area and conducted house-to-house
search. The movement of the people was restricted. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/09/indian-troops-martyr-one-kashmiri-youth-in-iok-2/
2.
MAPIM: Mar., 10, 2020: Kuala Lumpur based non-governmental
organization, Malaysian Consultative Council for Islamic Organization (MAPIM)
has expressed deep anguish and concerns over the prevailing bloodbath targeting
Muslims in India and inhuman lockdown in occupied Kashmir. The MAPIM headed by
Mohammad Azmi Abdul Hamid in a statement issued in Kuala Lumpur demanded the
Indian government to immediately take action against Hindus extremist elements
who targeted and killed the innocent Muslims in Delhi and destroyed their
properties and masjids. The organization also condemned the role of the Indian
media and police in being biased against the Muslims and being complicit with
the government to promote their hateful agenda of division and oppression. “The
unjust policies, laws and actions by the government have intentionally target a
religious creed and this will render India unmanageable politically, socially
and economically,” the statement added. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/10/mapim-denounces-massacre-of-indian-muslims-lockdown-in-iok/
3.
Youth martyred: Mar., 13, 2020: In occupied Kashmir,
Indian troops in their fresh act of state terrorism martyred one Kashmiri youth
in Baramulla district, today.The troops martyred the youth identified as Mudassir
Ahmed Butt during a cordon and search operation in Shutloo area of
the district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/13/indian-troops-martyr-one-kashmiri-youth-in-baramulla-4/
4.
UK Parliament: Mar., 13, 2020: Debbie Abrahams, UK Labour Party
MP and Chairperson of All Parties Parliamentary Group on Kashmir (APPGK) in the
British Parliament, presented a resolution in the UK Parliament for debate. March
26 has been fixed for debate on the resolution titled “Human Rights in
Kashmir”.The debate is being held in the wake of a week-long visit by a
delegation of the APPGK to Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir last month. The
parliamentary delegation, besides a report of the visit, also presented a
resolution in the parliament for a detailed debate on ‘Kashmir situation and
human rights in Kashmir’. The parliament, accepting the resolution, fixed 26th
March for debate. The members will take part in the debate for three hours https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/13/debate-on-human-rights-in-kashmir-in-uk-parliament-on-march-26/
5. Farooq Abdullah: Mar., 15, 2020: former R&AW chief A.S. Dulat says that
he visited Srinagar to meet Abdullah and that the government had cleared the
visit and, additionally, national security adviser Ajit Doval was fully aware
of it. Dulat – who said he visited Abdullah in Srinagar on February 12 – has
known the National Conference patriarch for decades and interceded with him on
behalf of earlier governments on at least two previous occasions. Speaking to
Karan Thapar for The Wire,
he says Farooq Abdullah will respond if the Centre reaches out and that he has
always done so. Dulat told The
Wire that his involvement began when he spoke to Abdullah on
October 31 to enquire how he was. He asked if he could come and meet him and
Abdullah said that depends on the authorities.
Dulat then contacted a former colleague in the IB in Srinagar who said
he would need to get clearance from Delhi. Dulat then contacted sources in the
home ministry in Delhi but they did not give him permission to meet Farooq
Abdullah. However, on February 9, he received a phone call from the home
ministry saying he was free to go to Kashmir. Dulat says this phone call would
only have happened with the knowledge and concurrence of Doval and this means
the NSA was fully in the loop. Although Dulat told The Wire his visit to Srinagar was a
“private” one, he revealed that the IB in Srinagar provided transport to take
him from Srinagar airport to Abdullah’s residence at Gupkar Road and back to
the airport. It was a short trip and Dulat was back home in Delhi by 6.30 pm
the same day. Shortly after his return, he was rung by the home ministry to
find out how the trip had gone. Dulat told The
Wire that he spoke to Farooq Abdullah late on the night of March
13t), some six hours after the latter’s release, and that Abdullah told him he
would probably come to Delhi in 15 days time. This means Abdullah is likely to
miss the present session of parliament altogether. Speaking about his meeting
with Abdullah on February 12, Dulat told The
Wire that the NC leader was particularly concerned about the use of
PSA against his son, Omar Abdullah, and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti. Dulat said
Abdullah could not understand why this was done. He says Abdullah also
expressed concern about the impact of the reading down of Article 370 and all
the subsequent developments in Kashmir on his grandchildren. He
said he himself was fully committed to India and had brought up his children in
the same way. But now he did not know how to answer questions his
grandchildren may ask The meeting with
Farooq lasted for an hour during which time he also met Abdullah’s wife, Molly,
and his daughter, Safia, and had lunch.Dulat told The Wire he was confident the
government would also find some way of talking to Mehbooba Mufti if it had not
already done so. Talking about Omar Abdullah, Dulat said the
present government was even more comfortable with Omar than with Farooq. With
great confidence, he said Omar Abdullah would be the next chief minister of
Jammu and Kashmir, i.e. whenever the state elections are held. https://thewire.in/security-security/interview-karan-thapar-a-s-dulat-farooq-abdullah
6.
ICJ: Mar., 15, 2020: International Human Rights
Association of American Minorities (IHRAAM) organised a panel discussion
“Democratic Despotism and Crimes Violations of Self-Determination” on the
sidelines of the 43rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC)
in Geneva.The panelists, in a lively interaction, detailed the Kashmir dispute,
Alaska and Hawaii, referencing other cases in the world where the right to
self-determination is denied and suppressed, when in fact it could be used as a
conflict prevention strategy.Prof Alfred de Zayas, First UN Independent Expert
for the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, said that
in 2013, he presented a report to the UN General Assembly discussing issues of
self-determination including Jammu and Kashmir, and the matter should be taken
seriously and that they should adopt appropriate resolutions and send the case
to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion. He referred to
and endorsed the reports of the UN High Commissioner for human rights situation
in occupied Kashmir, saying there is an urgent need to address the past and
ongoing human rights violations and to deliver justice for all people in
Kashmir. Prof De Zayas concluded by endorsing the right to self-determination
of various peoples around the globe, as specified in his report to the United
Nations General Assembly, commonly known as 69(n), assessing that
the source of the problem is in the violation of that right, emphasising that
realisation of self-determination is a conflict prevention strategy. Kashmiri representative and Executive Member
of Organisation of Kashmir Coalition (OKC), Ms Shamim Shawl evaluated India’s
action in Kashmir since the 5th of August 2019 and offer her analysis on future
strategies to best illicit international response to India’s continued
occupation and aggression on Kashmir as well as their disregard to
International laws. Ms Shaista Safi, journalist and TV anchor expressed the
need to emphasize on personal stories of Kashmiri victims as well as lobbyists
who advocate for them. She gave the examples of Kashmiri representative, Syed
Faiz Naqsbandi who was informed of his mother’s demise whilst in a UN session
in Geneva. She further referred to Barrister Tramboo’s exile and the cruelty
India has meted out to him and his family. Another Kashmiri representative,
Advocate Pervaz Shah, questioned the illegal annexation of occupied Kashmir on
5th of August, last year, and expressed concerns over India’s plan to change
Kashmir’s demography by ushering in illegal land reforms after the abrogation
of special status of Kashmir. He stated that there was an impending
economic crisis in occupied Kashmir and that the Indian judicial system had
proved to be not only a failure, but corrupt as they bend to the whims of the
BJP government. He ended by reminding the audience of Kashmiri
prisoners including leaders and suggested a campaign to demand the early
release of all political leaders.Kashmiri journalist, Latif Ahmed Butt
expressed concern over the journalists of occupied Kashmir who have been unable
to report freely post August 5th and lamented India’s action by clamping down
on the media in Kashmir and placing hundreds of journalists on Exit Control
List.Barrister Abdul Majeed Tramboo, IHRAAM Permanent Representative to United
Nations and Executive Member of OKC concluded the event by re-emphasizing
crucial terminologies that must be used to accurately reflect the actions of
India in occupied Kashmir such as: Genocide, demographic change, war crimes,
crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.He further added his
pursuit of Kashmir’s cause at the ICC and ICJ, stating that no stone will be
left unturned in seeking and delivering justice, peace and freedom for the
oppressed and subjugated people of occupied Kashmir https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/15/panelists-seek-icjs-intervention-on-kashmir-issue/
7.
Youth martyred: Mar., 16, 2020: Indian troops on Sunday martyred four Kashmiri youth in
Indian Occupied Kashmir in the latest spike in violence. One of the martyred
youth was identified as Tariq, Muzaffar, Umar and Sajjad. . The youth were martyred during a cordon and
search operation in Watrigam area of Islamabad district on Sunday.The Indian
forces sealed all the entry points of Watrigam, Achabal and Islamabad and
launched a massive door-to-door search operation. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2176939/1-four-kashmiris-martyred-iok/Weekly update 27:
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Mar., 3, 2020 to Mar.,
9, 2020
1.
Journalism in Occupied Kashmir:
Mar., 2, 2020: Due to frequent internet blockage IOK journalists, face difficulty
in broadcasting their stories and full filling their duties. In recent lockdown
and revoke of article 370, life in IOK became stagnant and miserable. The
lockdown of the internet has ceased communication. The Indian authorities had
snapped the broadband internet connection of the Kashmir press club. This move
meant 200 journalists who are a member of Kashmir Press Club; fraternity could
not file their reports. Hence, Internet blockage is the main hindrance in full
filling the profession of journalism in IOK. Besides the difficulties of internet
blockage, journalists of the valley face imprisonment, torture and even murder
for their obvious duty. They are continuously harassed. Indian
authorities are seeking forced undertakings from news organizations regarding
assurance to defend Indian defined narrative. India has also issued an advisory
to international journalists who are working in India, reminding them that they
would need prior permission to travel to “protected areas” including IOK. IOK
journalists are bound to ensure the Indian government promoted versions. They
are summed and called to police stations often. The detention of Journalists
in Counter Insurgency Centre (Cargo) in Srinagar has become a routine matter. Beside local journalists, Peerzada Ashiq who works for “The Hindu”
was also summoned to Kothi Bagh Police station. He was interrogated for
breaking news regarding IOK. Aqib Javaid of Daily Kashmir Observer was
interrogated for interviewing Aasiya Andrabi (Chairman Dukhtaran-e-Millat).
Asif Sultan Assistant Editor at Kashmir Narrator was arrested in lieu of
defaming India and possession of incriminatory material on his laptop. None of
these charges were substantiated. These assaults on journalists are an attempt
to suppress freedom of expression in IOK. On the other hand, under the
draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), journalists are captured, detained, tortured
and molested by the Indian army for portraying the true events to the world. Recently, pellets were fired on four photojournalists in the
Shopian area of the valley. This assault left these journalists injured. Asian
Forum for Human Rights development (FORUM-Asia) expressed its concerns over the
firing and detention of journalists. Journalist broadcasting truth is accused
of spying and supporting Pakistan. These journalists are detained, tortured and
left without any proof of allegation on them. In recent curfew, journalism is
the most suffered profession in IOK. Only a few local and international
journalists are daring enough to work in IOK in today´s situation. Operating
freely from the valley has become a dream for IOK journalists. Concluding more! Human Rights
commissions condemned India for its genocide in Kashmir including people from
any walk of life. Human Rights watch urge India to ensure the security of
Journalists in IOK. United Nations should take positive actions and pressurize
India to bring peace in the valley and provide security to the journalist.
India should allow International journalists and news agencies to work in IOK
providing sufficient security to them. Indian army should be prohibited to
capture or torture any registered journalist regardless of any proven
allegation. Human Rights violations should be controlled. http://kashmirwatch.com/journalism-in-indian-occupied-kashmir/
2.
Youth martyred: Mar., 5, 2020: In occupied
Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of state terrorism martyred a Kashmiri
youth in Baramulla district, today. The troops killed the 22-year-old youth,
identified as Omar Subhan, during a cordon and search operation in Warpura area of Sopore
in the district.Earlier, a Special Police Officer of Indian police was killed
and another was injured in an attack in the same area. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/04/indian-troops-martyr-youth-in-baramulla/
3.
Freedom of World: Mar., 5, 2020: In the latest edition of Freedom in the World, an annual
report published by Washington-based pro-democracy nonprofit Freedom House,
India has suffered the largest decline in its political rights and civil
liberties score among the 25 most populous democracies because of the Narendra
Modi government’s “alarming departures from democratic norms,”
while Kashmir’s status has declined from “Partly Free” to “Not Free.” On
Kashmir, the Report 2020 highlights the abrupt revocation of Jammu
and Kashmir’s (J&K) special status on 5 August, 2019, the massive
deployment of troops, the arbitrary arrests of hundreds of Kashmiri leaders and
activists, and shutdown of mobile and internet services. Kashmir, the report
said, “experienced one of the largest single-year score declines of the past 10
years in Freedom in the World, and its freedom status dropped to Not Free. Interestingly,
the Freedom House was founded in 1941 with the support of President Franklin D.
Roosevelt in response to the rise of Nazism at the time. The 2020 gives a
damning assessment of the Modi government’s pattern of Hindu nationalist
policies, including the persecution of religious minorities, abruptly revoking
Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, the adoption of the Citizenship Amendment
Act (CAA), which it calls a discriminatory citizenship law and the aggressive
suppression of the anti-CAA protests that followed. India, which is ranked
‘Free,’ dropped from 75/100 in 2019 to 71 in 2020.“Indian government has taken
its Hindu nationalist agenda to a new level with a succession of policies that
abrogate the rights of different segments of its Muslim population, threatening
the democratic future of a country long seen as a potential bulwark of freedom
in Asia and the world,” Sarah Repucci, Freedom House’s Senior Director of
Research and Analysis, writes in the report. India because of its Hindu
nationalist policies was highlighted as glaring example in the 2020 Freedom
report, which is called A Leaderless Struggle For Democracy. The report said,
“The BJP has distanced itself from the country’s founding commitment to
pluralism and individual rights, without which democracy cannot long survive.” https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/04/freedom-report-grills-india-for-anti-kashmir-anti-muslim-agenda/
4.
Journalism under
occupation: Mar., 6, 2020: Next day, we woke up to a curfew or we can call it a
military siege, stricter and more threatening than what we had witnessed in
Kashmir before. Streets, lanes and bylanes that connect one area with the other
were sealed with barbed wires. Everywhere, only gun-toting paramilitary troops
with orders to foil any kind of resistance were present on the roads. I was
watching television and at around 10:30 am, news channels reported that home
minister Amit Shah had presented a Bill in the upper house of parliament to revoke
Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy. Two days after restrictions were placed; I went outside
to observe the situation. When I reached the main road, I was chased by
soldiers who swore at me. They behaved in an uncouth manner and didn’t even let
me tell them that I am a journalist. I was left without any work, like hundreds
of thousands of other young Kashmiris whose careers were in peril and who were looking for new opportunities. My plans
were falling apart before me and I felt distressed at home. It was difficult to
concentrate on anything, as rumours about killings, detention of youth and
protests were circling. Every night, I kept tossing and turning in bed,
thinking about the future of my people. I wanted to amplify their voices, as
their human rights were being brazenly violated. But I was helpless In South
Kashmir districts people told us horrific tales of torture, detention and loss.
Most people looked frightened and refused to talk to us. It was as if an
invisible tape bound their mouth or there was a gun to their heads, asking them
to accept the decision that had changed their lives drastically and had been
made without counting their opinion. During my career, I have mostly covered
South Kashmir, where hundreds of people were killed during the last few years
of anti-militancy operations and violent protests. I had never met a local who
was reluctant to talk to the media. In fact, they were always vocal. The one
phrase that was often repeated to us while interviewing people was, “Kasheer
Karikh Khatim (Kashmir has been destroyed One afternoon, we went to a
nearby hotel to have lunch. A Kashmiri man, probably in his 40s and wearing a
salwar kameez, was sitting at the table before us. He looked distressed and
tired and started to converse with us. He had come to Jammu all the way from
Shopian, a hotbed of militancy in South Kashmir, to meet his elder brother, who
was incarcerated in the Kot Bhalwal Jail in Jammu. The brother had been picked
up by the police from his home two days after the dilution of Article 370.As he
wasn’t able to make any contact with his brother, two days ago, he had left his
home early morning under clampdown. He had passed through scores of barricades
and security checkpoints. He walked by foot, hitchhiked up to Anantnag, around
35 kilometres from Shopian, where he boarded a cab to Jammu. While speaking to
us, the man was almost in tears. He was running out of money and wanted to
leave Jammu as soon as possible. “Before leaving home, I collected some cash
from family members and took a cheque with me,” the man told me. “I thought I
would withdraw it in Jammu as the banks were still closed in Shopian.”When he
went to the bank to withdraw money, the cheque got bounced because of an
incorrect signature. He couldn’t even contact his family. Before leaving the
hotel, the man turned toward us and said, “Assi Kya Korukh (What has
been done to us?).” When I returned home, I began feeling frustrated again. In
Jammu, I came to know that I had been shortlisted for the ‘Young Journalist Award 2019’ run by Thomson
Foundation in collaboration with the Foreign Press Association. I was waiting
for news on who would be the three finalists, as they would be flown to London
to attend the Gala Award Ceremony.
5.
I gave access to
my email to a friend who was working in Delhi in a private firm. He was
checking my email everyday day. I wasn’t one of the three finalists, but I was
given an opportunity to sign up for a free online course offered by the Thomson
Foundation. I was unable to utilise that opportunity as the Internet was still disconnected
in Kashmir.To work around the restrictions, I had begun to dictate story ideas
to my friend in Delhi, who sending emails to editors on my behalf. In the months preceding August 5, 2019, I was
regularly writing reports from Kashmir. During the last six months, I only
managed to file four reports. The Internet blockade in Kashmir has already
surpassed 200 days. On January 25, a painfully slow speed mobile internet was
restored with access limited to just government-approved whitelisted
websites. It was mere
eyewash, just to show the outside world that ‘normalcy’ has returned to
Kashmir. Apart from stifling journalism, the prolonged internet ban has
severely damaged
businesses has left Kashmiri
students in distress. And still, we do
not know when the restrictions will be lifted.Can you imagine living in today’s
digital world without the Internet, under a prolonged military siege? Have you
ever witnessed raids in the dark of the night and widespread detentions? Have
you ever stayed in your own home as a prisoner for months? https://thewire.in/rights/kashmir-life-under-clampdown
6. PSA: Mar., 6, 2020: Geneva: International Human Rights
Association of American minorities (IHRAAM), a global organisation dedicated to
human rights and right to self-determination, has expressed deep concern about
Kashmiris’ arbitrarily detentions and accused India of widely misusing a law
allowing for detention without trial in Indian occupied Kashmir. Barrister
Abdul Majid Tramboo represents the IHRAAM at the 43rd session (24 February-20
March 2020) of the Human Rights Council at UN offices in Geneva. The
Public Safety Act (PSA), which Indian Supreme Court describes a “lawless law” under
which the Indian authorities hold children, old people, political leaders,
activists, lawyers and protesters, IHRAAM said in its statement submitted at on
ongoing session. It was a breach of international human rights law, the
statement of IHRAAM said published on the UN General Assembly said.The IHRAAM,
which is in consultative status with the UN, demands that PSA be scrapped and prisoners released. “OHCHR, the
President of UNHRC and UNGA must take serious note of this and call upon India
to repeal the PSA to ensure it complies with its international human rights
norms and obligations and release all the prisoners detained under PSA,” it
said. The law prohibits the detention of children but IHRAAM said that Indian
authorities knowingly detained minors under this law. IHRAAM said that Indian
authorities use the PSA as a safety net, using it to secure the detention of
people who are released, or likely to be released, on bail. It said that
authorities keep on issuing orders to keep people behind bars. In August 2018,
authorities amended the Act to remove a proviso that barred detainees who are
permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir from being lodged in jails outside the
state. The US NGO IHRAAM said that at least 40 pro-freedom Kashmiri political
leaders, who are detained under PSA, have been moved to Indian jails outside
the state. In its statement. This law provides cover to those officials who
detain people arbitrarily. As per Section 22, “no suit, prosecution or any
other legal proceeding shall lie against any person for anything done or
intended to be done in good faith” under the PSA http://kashmirwatch.com/india-is-misusing-lawless-law-in-kashmir-us-ngo-informs-unhrc-at-geneva/
7.
Women day: Mar., 9, 2020: As the world
is observing the International Women’s Day, today, the miseries and
victimization of the Kashmiri women at the hands of Indian troops and police
personnel continue unabated in occupied Kashmir. According to a report released
by the Research Section of Kashmir Media Service on the occasion of the
International Women’s Day, today, thousands of women are among 95,507
Kashmiris, martyred by Indian military, paramilitary and police personnel since
January 1989 till date. At least 671
women have been martyred by Indian troops since January 2001 till date.
The report pointed out that the unabated Indian state terrorism rendered
22,912 women widowed. The Indian forces’ personnel molested 11,179
women including the victims of Kununposhpora mass rape and Shopian double-rape-and murder
of 17-year-old Aasiya Jan and her sister-in-law Neelofar Jan. An eight-year
girl, Aasifa Bano, of Kathua, was abducted, gang-raped and subsequently
murdered by Indian police personnel, in January 2018. The report said that
thousands of women lost their sons, husbands, fathers and brothers in the
occupied territory who were subjected to custodial disappearance by India
troops. As per the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, more than 8,000
Kashmiris went missing in custody during the past 31 years, the
report added.The report revealed that thousands of school boys and girls were
also injured by the pellets fired by Indian troops while over hundred including
19-month-old
Heeba Jan, 2-year-old Nusrat Jan, Ulfat Hameed (17), Insha Mushtaq, Ifrah
Shakoor (17), Shakeela Bano, Tammana (11), Shabroza Mir (16), Shakeela
Begum(35) and Rafia Bano (31)were blinded. The report said that
near a dozen women including Hurriyat leaders, Aasiya Andrabi, Fehmeeda Sofi,
Naheeda Nasreen and Insha Tariq Shah (23) were facing illegal detention inside
Kashmir jails and in infamous Tihar Jail in India. They are being victimized
only for representing the Kashmiri people’s righteous demand and aspirations. The
report further pointed out that womenfolk are majority of the Kashmiris
suffering from multiple psychic problems. The women whom these disappeared men
leave behind are referred to as “half-widows,” reflecting their uncertain
status between wifehood and widowhood.Many mothers are waiting for their
disappeared sons while widows and half-widows are in pain since decades in
occupied territory. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/08/thousands-of-women-killed-molested-by-indian-troops-in-iok/
8.
9.
Weekly update 26:
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Feb., 25, 2020 to Mar.,
2, 2020
1. IHRAAM: Feb.,
25, 2020: The International Human
Rights Association of American Minorities (IHRAAM), a non-governmental
organisation, has submitted a written statement for the 43rd session of the
Human Rights Council’s agenda item 4, human rights situation. The
session of the Human Rights Council will be held from February 24 to March 20,
2020 and the Secretary-General has received the written statement, which is
circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31. It
said, the Convention has been ratified by 152 states. The International Court
of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly stated that the Convention is peremptory
international law and that it embodies principles that are part of customary
international law. This means that whether or not States have ratified the
Convention, they are all bound that genocide is a crime prohibited under
international law, it added. The statement said,
Kashmiris in occupied Kashmir is a distinct national/ethnic/religious group, in
particular the Kashmiri Muslims, as being recognised in the UN report 2019. It
said Kashmiris are subjected to genocide by the perpetrators with the intent to
destroy, in whole or in part.
The IHRAAM submitted in its
statement that the international human rights groups have admitted that Indian
armed forces are using excessive force that leads to unlawful killings and hundreds
of thousands of Kashmiris have been killed during the period 1990-2019.It
said, in recent years, the civil society groups estimate that 130
to 145 Kashmiris were killed by the Indian forces between July 2016 and March
2018. These killings resulted from the use of pellet guns, bullets,
teargas shells, inhaling chemical shell fumes and shooting by Indian troops. The
statement said, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International
Commission of Jurists all claim that there were over 90 fatalities of
Kashmiris in 2016 and during 2018, it is claimed that 160 Kashmiris were
killed, the Kashmir Valley accounted for 122 and the four districts of South
Kashmir recorded 85 killings. The first half of 2019 (January–June 2019)
continued with killings of Kashmiris. The first six months record 163 Kashmiris’
killings, it said. The IHRAAM statement said,
among the civilians killed, 9 were minors and 12 were women and all the
killings were at the hands of Indian forces. The second half of 2019
(July–December) records 64 killings of Kashmiris. These figures (95,475
killings since January 1989 to December 10, 2019 corroborate the argument that
there is a systematic pattern in place with intent to destroy in whole or in
part the Kashmiris, it maintained.It said, there has long been persistent
claims seriously bodily harm of Kashmiris who have been subjected to torture or
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. “Such bodily injuries are caused
from lethal weapons including pellet shotguns. Besides, injuries through
torture and other mistreatment occur at the detention and interrogation centres
operated by the Indian forces and the intelligence agencies, it added. It
said, one of the most dangerous weapons used against Kashmiris is the
pellet-firing shotgun – a shotgun – that fires metal pellets. According to
information received by the State Human Rights Commission from 10 districts of
the Kashmir Valley, metal pellets seriously injured 1,726 Kashmiris in 2016, it
deplored. The statement said, the
Government of India has introduced the policy of “operation all out” that has
been on-going since 2017 and this operation has led to severe injuries
including 1,253 Kashmiris blinded by the metal pellets up to the end of 2018.The
IHRAAM statement said, human rights groups have warned the authorities that
minors were arrested under draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) in 2016 and 2017
and several Kashmiri leaders detained under the black law in 2018 and 2019
continue to be imprisoned and many of them were transferred to Indian prisons
adding that the aim is the physical destruction of the Kashmiris. It said,
civil society in occupied Kashmir claims over 8,000 Kashmiris having disappeared
since 1989 and impunity for enforced or involuntary disappearances
in the territory continues. Cases of enforced disappearances continue to be
reported until the end of 2019, it added.
In February 2018, the Support
Group for Justice for Kunanposhpora survivors filed a petition before the Human
Rights Commission of the territory, urging investigation into all cases of
sexual assault by Indian forces upon Kashmiri women. This vicious act is
undertaken to ensure physical destruction of Kashmiri women, it said. A media investigation claimed that schools and colleges were closed for
60 percent of the working days between 2016 and 2017 and
the situation in 2018 and in 2019 was such that practically no schools and
colleges were open. The IHRAAM statement said,
human rights groups claim days-long curfews and communication blockade have
major impact on Kashmiris and their access to medical care particularly on
pregnant women. “According to civil society reports around 200 ambulances were
damaged by Indian armed forces and in some cases by protestors. The Doctors
Association of Kashmir documented several instances of doctors, paramedics and
ambulances drivers being obstructed, prevented and physically assaulted by
Indian armed forces, it deplored.
It said, IHRAAM addresses the
international community and calls
for an international Commission of Inquiry on the killings perpetrated against
the Kashmiris. It also calls for the prosecution under the Convention and under
universal jurisdiction of the perpetrators of the crime of genocide in the
occupied territory, who have acted or act at the behest India. The Chief
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, should open a
formal investigation under articles 6 and 7 of the Statute of Rome. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/22/ihraam-submits-statement-for-43rd-session-of-unhrc-session/
2.
ICJ: Feb., 26, 2020: A former
chief justice has suggested Pakistan
to approach the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding the continuing
rights violations in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Retired
Justice Ali Nawaz Chowhan, according to a statement issued by the
Srinagar-based Legal Forum for Oppressed Voices of Kashmir (LFOVK) on Saturday,
said Pakistan being an important party to the long-standing dispute should
approach the UN court. LFOVK, which
organized the event, is an international legal organization which defends
"the political, social and human rights of Kashmiris." Chowhan, a Pakistani national, was a judge in
the Hague from 2006 to 2009. He later served as chief justice of Gambia between
2014 and 2015. The former judge urged for efforts to get Kashmiris recognized
before the UN the way Palestinian bodies are represented at the international
forum.“There are UN resolutions on Kashmir, they nurture the struggle of
Kashmir but when we wish to address the legal aspect of the dispute, one fails
to understand why Pakistan as a state and an important party to this dispute
fails to approach the ICJ," he said. According to several rights
organizations, thousands of people have been killed and tortured in the
conflict since 1989. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/pakistan-should-take-kashmir-issue-to-intl-court/1742287
3. LoC :
Feb., 28, 2020: Since 2019, at least 60
civilians have been killed and more than 280 wounded due to Indian
shelling into Pakistan-administered Kashmir, according to Pakistani government
data, which also revealed that the death toll rose by 114 percent compared with
the year before. Conflict at the LoC
spiked in February 2019 following a suicide attack that killed at least 40
Indian security forces in the Indian-administered town of Pulwama. India
responded by increasing shelling across the LoC and then carried out air raids
on Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on February 26 s." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/constant-fear-death-pakistan-administered-kashmir-200226140258169.html
4.
UNHCR: Feb., 28, 2020: In its update to the Human Rights Council on rights
concerns and its progress across the world, the Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights highlighted both Kashmir and the Citizenship
Amendment Act. The latter and the violence into which the capital city has
descended as a result of it was described as a cause for “great concern.” In
her address to the Human Rights Council, in its 43rd Session, High Commissioner
Michelle Bachelet spoke on the prevailing situations in countries across the
world. Her mention of India began with the detention of political leaders in
Jammu and Kashmir. The UN has taken cognisance of the Indian
government’s excesses in the region a few times before and since the reading
down of Article 370, on October 29, the spokesperson for the High Commissioner
for Human Rights, Rupert Colville acknowledged that an “undeclared curfew” had
been lifted from much of Jammu and Ladakh regions within a few days. Bachelet had expressed concerns about restrictions
imposed on Kashmir in her inaugural speech at the 42nd session of the UN Human
Rights Council in Geneva as well, in September 2019. After Article 370 of the constitution was read down
in August, five UN-appointed independent human rights experts had described the
communication clampdown and security restrictions as a “collective
punishment” for the
population. This
time, the OHCHR’s focus remained on the treatment of political leaders,
activists, the closure of schools, the partial restoration of mobile and
internet services, the restrictions on social media and the often excessive use
of forces. https://thewire.in/rights/caa-kashmir-violence-unhcr
5.
Missing Parents: Mar., 1, 2020:
I’ve been watching the images of bloodshed and targeted attacks against Indian
Muslims breaking out on the streets of Delhi. The role of the police in
precipitating violence in Delhi and the detention spree in Kashmir since August
5, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the region’s nominal autonomous
status, has laid bare a glaring truth: The Indian
government is willing to use any means to crack down on dissent. For as long as
I can remember, my father has suffered under the Indian state. I’ve seen
him in the guise of a prisoner all my life. It’s hard for me to even conjure
him as a free man. On February 5, he completed his 27th year of imprisonment.
I’m 20 years old. In his absence, my mother raised me. But I
haven’t seen her for two years. Both my parents are in solitary
confinement, in two different jails. As Kashmiris, they have been
detained by the government of India for speaking out against the occupation and
demanding the right to self-determination. In Kashmir, my story is commonplace.
While much media attention in India has shown great concern vis-Ã -vis the
detention of pro-Indian politicians like Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti in
Kashmir, there has been little backlash against the horrible detention of
those Kashmiris who do not see their future with India. Every such
Kashmiri is deemed inherently criminal and punishable Of the total number of detentions, 412 were
booked under the Public Safety Act—a law
that India has used for decades to quell any protest. The detainees do not have
the right to legal representation, and can be held up to two years without
charges. Amnesty International has
called this a “lawless law.” The
authorities are not required to inform the detainees about the grounds for
their arrest if they decide that revealing the information goes “against the
public interest.” In fact, it’s the very existence of this draconian law that
violates our “public interest.” A 76-year-old lawyer, Mian Qayoom, who has
practiced law for over four decades in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and
Indian Supreme Court, has been detained under the act. The High Court dismissed
a petition challenging his detention. He is a diabetic patient surviving on a
single kidney and has recently had a heart attack. He needs urgent medical
care—a basic right that our prisoners have long been deprived of. When it comes to our political prisoners,
India disregards international law, and its judiciary only validates this
injustice. When my own mother calls me from prison once a month, the
authorized time is 12 minutes. But the jailers rarely allow us to talk that
long. The underlying message is clear: They are more entitled to my mother than
I am. They violate their own laws and ignore their own dicta, to put in our
mind that there is no “system” or “law” that a Kashmiri can count on. Yasin
Malik, a popular resistance leader, has been in a solitary cell for more than a
year. He espouses a peaceful method of struggling for the right to
self-determination. The prolonged and harsh imprisonment of a political
activist like him conveys an important message: The democracy of India will
not tolerate even nonviolent Kashmiri resistance. Children as young as 13 have been taken
into custody. They have been arrested while they were busy
playing on the streets or picked up from their homes in the dead of night. Fifteen-year-old
Umar is an orphan but the sole breadwinner for his family; he dropped out of
school a few years back when his father passed away. On August 7, he was detained from
his home, handcuffed, and sent to a prison a thousand miles from his home. For
three months, he was confined inside a small cell. Umar was finally released,
but his life is not the same. He is in a state of war within. He has abandoned
the bakery shop amid fears he would be arrested again. Families like his
are finding it hard to battle for justice and livelihood at the same time. Some
of them can’t even afford the cost of traveling to the
distant jails where their loved ones have been kept.
I know a mother who scurried from one police station to another, with eyes
hopeful of catching one glimpse of her detained child. In most of the cases,
the authorities do not inform the family regarding the whereabouts of the
detainee. On December 20, 65-year-old detainee Ghulam Muhammad Bhat died
during imprisonment. Ever since his death, many families in Kashmir fear that
they could be faced with a similar fate. With little or no communication with
their detained family members, they wonder if they will have the closure of
saying goodbye to their loved ones before they die. In the ongoing
violence against Muslims by right-wing Hindu supremacists, the lives of
Kashmiri detainees in Indian jails remain in great peril. Kashmiris have always
been soft targets of majoritarian nationalism. Now those attacks are
increasingly also aimed at Muslims across the country. Oppression in Kashmir
prefigures injustice elsewhere.
Violence is the natural state of the Indian government’s rule in
Kashmir. The individual liberty of every Kashmiri comes into
conflict with the national integrity of India. The Indian state’s plan of
action in Kashmir is simple: crush every form of dissent and increase the cost
of resistance. By compelling the people to choose between survival and
resistance, the Indian government thinks it can subdue Kashmiri political
aspirations. What it does not realize is that for many Kashmiris, resistance is
survival. https://www.thenation.com/article/world/delhi-kashmir-india/
6.
VPH: Mar 2, 2020:
Keen to clamp down on VPN use, the security forces first resorted
to physical checks of smartphones, as multiple Kashmir
residents told Scroll.in. Then,
on February 17, the Jammu and Kashmir Police’s cyber wing filed a first information reprt on the alleged “misuse of
social media” through VPNs.
The FIR invoked the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and various sections of
the Indian Penal Code against unknown persons. According to police officials,
there have been no arrests directly under the cyber police’s FIR. But it has
kicked into motion several arrests under FIRs filed at the district level. Scroll.in tracked down
at least five cases of arrest since February 17, all for social media and VPN
use. https://scroll.in/article/954711/in-kashmir-a-spree-of-arrests-for-alleged-misuse-of-social-media-and-vpns
1. UAPA: Feb.,18,2020: The police in Jammu and Kashmir are reportedly using the stringent
Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act – one of India’s ‘extraordinary laws’ –
against those who are using VPN or proxy servers to access social media
websites. The administration has partially restored internet services in the Valley,
only about 350 “whitelisted’ websites can be accessed. All social media platforms have
been banned – and this is the first time the police has filed an FIR for that
ban being broken. The police decision to file an FIR against those using VPN
servers came a day after a video of ailing Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani was
uploaded on social media, according to the Indian
Express. “Taking serious
note of misuse of s ocial media, the Cyber Police Station, Kashmir Zone,
Srinagar has registered a Case FIR against various social media users who
defied the Government orders and misused social media platforms,” The FIR was filed “while taking cognizance of
social media posts by the miscreants by use of different VPNs, which are
propagating rumors with regard to the current security scenario of the Kashmir
valley, propagating secessionist ideology and glorifying terror acts/
terrorists”, the police said. The Wire had reported earlier that a
large number of Kashmiris have been using VPN servers to slip past the internet
restrictions, which many have called unfair. https://thewire.in/government/kashmir-vpn-uapa-social-media-fir
2.
Facial recognition technology: Feb., 19, 2020:
Activists in the Indian capital of New Delhi are expressing concern over the
use of facial recognition by the police amid intensifying protests over the
controversial Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA).The protesters are reportedly
anxious about the lack of regulation around facial recognition and its possible
role in the crackdown on the protest movement. They point to the fact that the
government didn't acknowledge it was using the technology for this purpose
until a national newspaper Back then,
the technology was used to identify and filter out what the police called
"law and order suspects" at one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's
rallies. When the Delhi Police first acquired its Automated Facial Recognition
System (AFRS) in 2018, the original purpose was to identify and locate missing
children by matching facial images. "I do not know what they are going to
do with my data," Rachita Taneja, a Delhi-based activist who created an
online cartoon about cheap ways for protesters to hide their faces, told Reuters.
"We need to protect ourselves, given how this government cracks
down." A 21-year-old Muslim protester told Reuters that he has adopted a
pseudonym and at times covers his face with a handkerchief to avoid being
identified."We don't know enough about these things, but we are trying to
take some precautions," he said.
The recently retired police chief of the northern state of Uttar
Pradesh, O P Singh, told Reuters that facial recognition had only helped the police
in detaining a "handful" of more than 1,100 people arrested on
charges of alleged links to violence during protests. Modi's government is
currently seeking bids from companies to help set up a National Automated
Facial Recognition System. It would match photos captured from
CCTV with existing databases, with policing a key potential use for such
technology. Critics equate the project with the far larger-scale surveillance
system in China. https://www.dw.com/en/protesters-in-india-object-to-facial-recognition-expansion/a-52412455
3. Exodus: Feb., 18, 2020:
Both moved to the Indian capital after losing hope of a sustainable
career in their native Kashmir, where an internet gag has crippled businesses.
“Before August, I had job offers from many IT companies in the Valley. Now, the
prolonged internet shutdown has almost wiped out the sector,” says Nabi, who
hails from Bemina in Srinagar. The
duo is among the thousands who have moved out of Kashmir since August last year
when the communication blackout was enforced by prime minister Narendra Modi’s
government in the wake of Kashmir’s revoked constitutional
autonomy. The state has since been
reconstituted into the union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh,
directly governed from New Delhi. Though Kashmir is no stranger to internet
clampdowns, governments in the past have ensured that lease lines (or private
communication channels) and broadband services were uninterrupted. This time,
however, it was a complete blackout. This exodus of educated youth, some even
to Gulf countries, is indicative of a wrecked economy.Kashmir has lost some
Rs1.78 lakh crore ($25 billion) in economic output in the five months since
August 2019, according to an estimate by The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (KCC&I).
This is 11% of the erstwhile state’s nominal gross state domestic product
(GSDP) of Rs1.59 lakh crore for 2018-19. If we separate Kashmir Valley from
Jammu and Ladakh regions of the former state, the loss is a whopping 20%.
“People from carpet industry, handicrafts, paper mache, tourism, IT and
e-commerce have opened makeshift offices in New Delhi, Punjab, Hyderabad, and
Kolkata,” says Sheikh Ashiq Hussain, president of KCC&I. The worst-hit has
been Kashmir’s Rs450-500 crore IT industry, which once employed an estimated
25,000 people across the Valley. .” Even though many businesses have regained
access to broadband internet after signing an undertaking with the police
accepting responsibility for any “misuse,” the relocated IT firms are in no
hurry to close their offices outside Kashmir. “The situation in the Valley remains
unstable and uncertainty looms,” says Ahmad. “We will continue to use our
outside offices as our backup.” There has also been a mass migration of
hoteliers, travel agents, tour operators, and ticketing agents from Kashmir’s
Rs65,000 crore tourism industry. The sector, which accounts for 6.8% of its GSDP and employs over two million people, is now
struggling.Outbound tourism had grown exponentially in recent times with over
40,000 Kashmiris going for Hajj every year. Now this, too, has taken a hit. For
one, online visa processing is no longer possible under the circumstances,
leading tour operators to move out left
Kashmir,” says Samiullah. Running news portals, too, has become
impossible. The student community is one
of the worst-hit. A significant number of those who fled Kashmir used
high-speed internet to prepare for competitive examinations. Last year, around
25,000 students from J&K appeared in the National Eligibility cum Entrance
Test (NEET) for admissions to undergraduate medical courses. Around 8,000
appeared for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) exam.. https://qz.com/india/1803539/kashmirs-internet-shutdown-makes-startups-students-flee/
4.
Missing persons:
Feb., 18, 2020: Kashmiri
mothers are still awaiting the return of their kids...When most parts of the
world celebrate Mother’s Day, thousands of Kashmiri women continue to wait for
the return of their sons subjected to disappearance in custody by Indian troops
in Indian Occupied Kashmir over the past 30 years. Their resistance persists. One
such story is of Parveena Ahangar, the mother of Javeid. Javeid was 16
when Indian security agents arrested him in August of 1990. She has not seen
him since. Parveena does not know why her son was arrested, or even whether he
is alive. In her grief, she started a group called the Association of Parents
of Disappeared Persons (APDP) more than 10 years ago. Since then she has filled
a thick green folder with hundreds of letters and sun-faded photographs from
families with husbands and sons who have vanished. Women in Kashmir have
suffered immensely as the conflict in the region continues.Many has lost their
husbands, sons, or fathers. There are also around 2,500
"half-widows" who remain unaware of their husbands' whereabouts.
For Parveena and thousands of other Kashmiris who have lost family members in
this conflict, the politics is irrelevant. For them, there is only the one
recurring question: Where is my son?
5.
Three young men martyred: Feb., 20, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of state
terrorism martyred three Kashmiri youth in Pulwama district. The troops
martyred the youth, Jahangir Rafiq Wani, Uzair Ahmed Butt and Raja Umar Maqbool Butt,
in a fake encounter in Tral area of the district. As per reports, Jahangir
Rafiq Wani and Uzair Ahmed Butt were arrested by Indian troops on 12th January,
this year, and were kept in custody. They were killed in cold blood by the
troops in a fake encounter, last night. Thousands of people attended the
funeral prayers of the martyred youth in Tral. The participants of the funerals
raised high-pitched anti-India and pro-freedom slogans. Indian police arrested
Sirajuddin Ganai, who was working as a domestic help at the residence of ailing
All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman, Syed Ali Gilani, from outside the
house of the veteran leader and shifted to a police station https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/19/indian-troops-martyr-three-kashmiri-youth-in-pulwama-2/
6.
AI: Feb., 20, 2020: Amnesty
International has said that police is using repressive counter terrorism law to
prevent access to social media in occupied Kashmir. Avinash Kumar, Executive
Director of Amnesty International India, in a statement in Bangaluru, said
while the government has a duty and responsibility to maintain law and order in
the territory, filing cases under the repressive counter-terrorism law over
vague and generic allegations and blocking social media sites is not the
solution. He was responding to the news that the police in occupied Kashmir
have invoked the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against people allegedly
misusing social media sites through proxy servers in the territory. He
maintained that nearly 12 million residents in occupied Kashmir have been
living through communication restrictions since 5th of August, 2019, and now
the police is using the UAPA, a repressive counter terrorism law, against the
people for overcoming the longest-ever internet ban imposed in the world by
using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter through Virtual Private
Networks (VPN).He said the people arrested under this law can be kept for up to
seven years in jail. He said the Indian government says such sites are blocked
to curb the misuse of the sites by miscreants for propagating false
information/ rumours but the government has almost total control over what
information is coming out of the region.Avinash Kumar added that the Indian
government needs to put humanity first and let the people of Kashmir speak https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/19/india-using-repressive-law-to-stop-access-to-social-media-in-iok-ai/
7.
US Congressmen; Feb., 20, 2020: Two US Congressmen, Ami Bera and George Holding,
have expressed concern over the grim situation in occupied Kashmir, insisting
that the Narendra Modi government should release political detainees and
restore normalcy in the territory at the earliest. Ami Bera also expressed
concern over the Citizenship Amendment Act, a controversial law that has
sparked protests across India over the last three months. Several member of the
US Congress have already termed the law, which deprives Muslims of Indian
citizenship as “discriminatory” and “unconstitutional”. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/20/us-congressman-expresses-concern-over-situation-in-kashmir-protests-over-caa/
8.
Brutal Indian occupation: Feb., 22, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, APHC leader and the Chairman of Jammu and
Kashmir Tehreek-e-Muzahamat, Bilal Siddiqi, has said that India has created an
atmosphere of fear in the territory to prevent people from expressing their
aspirations and sentiments. Bilal Siddiqi in a statement issued in Srinagar
said, Indian troops barge into the residential houses, harass the inmates and
ransack household goods. He said that since August 5, last year, there was
complete ban on political activities in the territory. He said if any remark is
made or published in favour of freedom movement, the person who makes the
remarks is arrested while action is taken against the said newspaper. Bilal
Siddiqi maintained that India intends to create a silence of graveyard in the
occupied territory. He appealed to the world community to take cognizance of
the grim human rights situation in occupied Kashmir and impress upon India to
resolve the Kashmir dispute by giving the Kashmiris their right to
self-determination. International news organisation, Reuters, in a report
maintained that India has launched a massive crackdown against Virtual Private
Network users in the territory for accessing Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter and
other social networking sites. A police spokesman told Reuters that cases have
been registered against several people who accessed social networking sites
through proxy servers.On the other hand, a large number of people from
different civil rights organisations held a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in
New Delhi, demanding restoration of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that
granted special status to occupied Kashmir. Posters calling for ‘Free Kashmir’
came up for sale on the occasion of the demonstration held on the completion of
200 Days of Kashmir Blockade, yesterdayThe police in the Indian city of
Bangaluru arrested a girl for holding a placard carrying slogans ‘free Kashmir,
free Dalits and free Muslims’ during a protest against the citizenship
amendment law. On Thursday evening, a 19-year-old girl, Amulya Leona, had
raised “Pakistan Zindabad” slogan thrice in the presence of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul
Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi after the organisers of the event under the
banner of “Save Constitution” invited her to address the gathering. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/21/india-has-created-an-atmosphere-of-fear-in-iok/
9.
Two young men martyred: Feb., 23, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops martyred two Kashmiri youth in Islamabad
district, today.(Saturday). The troops martyred the youth at Naina Sangam in
Bijbehara area of the district during a cordon and search operation which
started late last night. . https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/22/indian-troops-martyr-two-youth-in-iok-18/
10. Youth arrested: Feb., 23,
2020: Indian police and troops arrested at least 17 youth
during house raids in Pulwama, Shopian, Ganderbal and Baramulla districts.
These youth have been labeled as Over Ground Workers of mujahideen. The police
also arrested two other youth in Kupwara and Handwara areas for sharing
material depicting the Indian atrocities in the territory. The arrests have
been made days after the Indian police registered an open FIR for defying
government orders on the use of social media. The sleuths of
India’s National Investigation Agency carried out a raid at Darul-Uloom in
Pinglana area of Pulwama district. On
the other hand, a delegation of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, today, met
the visiting British Members of Parliament in Islamabad and apprised them of
the latest situation of occupied Kashmir. The International Human Rights
Association of American Minorities, a non-governmental organisation, has
submitted a written statement for the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council
drawing its attention towards the grim human rights situation in occupied
Kashmir. It appealed to the international community to constitute an
International Commission of Inquiry for investigating the killings and
prosecuting the Indian troops involved in the crime of genocide in occupied
Kashmir. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/22/indian-troops-martyr-two-youth-in-iok-18/
11. Kashmiri Women: Feb., 24,
2020: The miseries and victimization of Kashmiri women by the
Indian troops and police personnel continue unabated in occupied Kashmir. According
to a report released by the Research Section of Kashmir Media Service on the
occasion of the Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day, today, revealed that at least 671 women have been martyred by Indian troops since January 2001
till date. The report pointed out that since January 1989; the
unabated Indian state terrorism rendered 22,911 women widowed while Indian
forces’ personnel have molested 11,178 women. The report said that thousands of
women lost their sons, husbands, fathers and brothers in the occupied territory
who were subjected to custodial disappearance by Indian Army, police and
paramilitary personnel. The report said that several
women including Hurriyat leaders, Aasiya Andrabi, Fehmeeda Sofi and Naheeda
Nasreen were facing illegal detention. They are being victimized only for the
reason that they represent the Kashmiri people’s aspirations. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/23/thousands-of-women-martyred-molested-in-iok-since-jan-1989/
Weekly update 24:
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Feb., 11, 2020 to Feb.,
17, 2020
1.
Torture:
Feb., 13 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops brutally
subjected Kashmiri men and women to torture and harassed children during a series
of cordon and search operations in Srinagar and other parts of the territory. The troops along with
the personnel of paramilitary and police conducted operations in different
areas of Srinagar, Bandipore, Ganderbal, Badgam, Kupwara, Baramulla, Islamabad,
Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam, Ramban, Doda, Kishtwar, Rajouri and Poonch districts.
They sealed all entry and exit points at different places and conducted
door-to-door search operations. The residents told media that the troops also
ransacked houses.Meanwhile, Indian police arrested, at least, three Kashmiri
youth for taking part in a silent protest demonstration in Srinagar on the
occasion of so-called visit by 25 selected foreign envoys to the territory. The
locals said that Indian government was managing such tours to falsely portray
normalcy in the territory. The Democratic Political Movement at a
meeting in Srinagar called upon the international community, especially the
United States and the United Nations to take notice of grim human rights
situation in occupied Kashmir https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/12/troops-brutally-torture-inmates-during-casos-in-iok/
2. American city
opposes CAA: Feb., 13,2020: Cambridge in Massachusetts state has
become the second city in the United States after Seattle to pass a resolution
against a controversial citizenship law pushed by India's Hindu
nationalist The Cambridge ity
Council on Tuesday passed a unanimous resolution against the Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA), calling upon the Indian Parliament to "uphold"
the country's secular constitution by repealing the law and stopping a proposed
National Register of Citizens (NRC). The US city houses the world-renowned
Harvard University and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology. “It has come to the attention of the city council
that on December 11, 2019, the Indian Parliament passed the Citizenship
Amendment Act, which for the first time uses religion as a criterion for Indian
citizenship," the resolution said.The Cambridge resolution declared that
"Modi government's racist and repressive policies" were inconsistent
with the values of the city, "which welcomes South Asian communities of
all castes and religions".The Cambridge city council urged its
congressional delegation to support legislation in the US Congress censuring India or enacting such policies.The move came a
week after Seattle, one of the most powerful city councils in the US, passed a
similar resolution, urging India to repeal the CAA and stop the NRC.The two
resolutions came ahead of an upcoming visit of US President Donald Trump
to India. Rachel Wyon, an activist in Cambridge who was born in India to British
parents, told Al Jazeera that laws such as CAA echoed the Nazi Germany of the
1930s."Through the CAA, most of us can recognise the echo of the 1930s in
Germany when a Nazi government took similar steps - closely parallel to the NRC
and CAA - which we know now were initial steps towards the Holocaust,"
said Wyon, who deposed before the city council in support of the resolution.She
said CAA and NRC are "unconstitutional and designed to disenfranchise
several million Muslims, Dalits (people at the bottom of Hindu caste hierarchy)
and other marginalised groups in order to move toward an ultra-right-wing
fascist state"."People in India and the South Asian community in the
US should know that they have the support of the world in opposing such a
discriminatory law," Wyon told Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/city-passes-resolution-india-citizenship-law-200212094100503.html
3.
US Senators on Kashmir: Feb., 14, 2020:
Four U.S. senators asked the State Department on Wednesday to provide
assessments on India's crackdown in Kashmir, weeks before President Donald
Trump's visit to New Delhi. In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, Sens. Chris Van Hollen, Todd Young, Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham
expressed concern that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has
blocked the internet in the Jammu and Kashmir region for months."India has
now imposed the longest-ever internet shut down by a democracy, disrupting
access to medical care, business and education for seven million people.
Hundreds of Kashmiris remain in 'preventive detention,' including key political
figures," said the bipartisan group of senators in the letter. The
government's steps, including the Citizenship Amendment Act, "threaten the
rights of certain religious minorities and the secular character of the
state," they wrote. The senators requested information in 30 days about
the number of political detainees in Kashmir, restrictions on the internet and
cell phone service, access for foreign diplomats, journalists and observers and
on religious freedom.They also seek to know the number of people who are at
risk of being stateless, deported or locked up as a result of the citizenship
law and whether Indian authorities are employing "excessive use of
force" against protestors. The letter came nearly two weeks before the
White House announced that Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will travel to
India on Feb. 24 and 25, marking his first presidential visit to South Asia’s
largest country. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/us-senators-request-assessment-on-kashmir-issue/1732529
4.
Leader
booked: Feb., 15, 2020: Shah Faesal, a former bureaucrat, whose arrest
along with other political leaders in Kashmir after the abrogation of Article
370 on August 5, has sparked outrage, was on Saturday detained under the
draconian Public Safety Act (PSA), which allows detention without trial for up
to three months and multiple extensions. Faesal, who had floated the Jammu and
Kashmir People’s Movement party after resigning from the Indian Administrative
Service, was a topper in the 2010 batch. The young former bureaucrat denounced
the civil services to protest "unabated killings" in Kashmir and the
"marginalisation of Indian Muslims". He joined active politics in
January 2019, but after the Centre abrogated Article 370 on August 5, which was
condemned by all political outfits in Jammu & Kashmir, was arrested from
Delhi airport on August 14. His arrest, while on his way to the US, reportedly
to complete his studies, sparked outrage across the country and abroad, since
he had unequivocally opposed the demotion of J&K from a state to a Union
territory. According to a human rights outfit, JKCCS, as many as 662 persons were booked under the draconian PSA in
2019, a majority of them after August 5 in Kashmir. In a
report titled by Annual
Human Rights Review 2019 by Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons
(APDP) and Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), the outfits said that4 12 persons in the region
had been booked under PSA, often termed as a “lawless law”, after
August 5. A majority of these persons continue to serve detention in jails
across India, making it difficult for their family members to even meet them. https://www.newsclick.in/jk-leader-shah-faesal-booked-under-draconian-public-safety-act
5.
EU: Feb., 16, 2020: The
European Union (EU) has called for swift removal of communication and political restrictions in Kashmir. The organisation
was in touch with the Indian authorities for continuing dialogue regarding the
situation in Kashmir, a spokesperson for the EU said. Some restrictions remain,
notably, and some political leaders are still in detention. While we recognise
the serious security concerns, it is important that the remaining restrictions
are lifted swiftly”, said Virginie Battu-Henriksson, EU Spokesperson for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.The statement was issued a day after a
delegation of 25 diplomats that included the EU Ambassador to India Ugo Astuto
and several other European envoys
visited Kashmir and Jammu from February 12 to 13. The delegation
was not part of the earlier team of diplomats that visited Kashmir in January
as they had insisted on meeting jailed political leaders. .In recent months, India's relation with the
EU has been marked by growing concern of the powerful regional body over the
Kashmir situation, the controversial new Indian citizenship law and National
Register of Citizens. In January, 626 of the 751 members of the EU Parliament
took up six resolutions for discussion but ultimately postponed a vote on the
matters till coming spring.Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit
Brussels in March for the next EU-India summit. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/eu-for-swift-end-to-all-curbs-in-kashmir/article30823016.ece
6. State
terrorism: Feb., 16,2020: :
Delhi police , unproved, beat up university students in a library. Jamia
Milia Islamia's CCTV footage shows security forces entering and beating
students who were studying in the library. This is from 15 December 2019 when a
student lost sight in one eye after the clash. https://www.facebook.com/najmi.zuberi/videos/10219393762248959/
1.
Youth
martyred: Feb., 5, 2020: In
occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of state terrorism martyred
three Kashmiri youth in Srinagar, today. The troops martyred the youth during a
cordon operation in Lawaypora-Shalteng area of Srinagar.Earlier, one Indian
soldier was killed and another was injured in an attack in the same area. Soon
after the incident, Indian police and troops cordoned off the area and launched
searches. Further details are awaited. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/05/indian-troops-martyr-two-kashmiri-youth-in-sriangar/
2. OIC: Feb., 7,2020: Saudi Arabia
has shown reluctance to accept Pakistan’s request for an “immediate meeting” of
the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) of the Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC) on Kashmir, Pakistani daily Dawn has reported. On February
9, senior officials of the OIC are meeting in Jeddah to make preparations for
the 47th CFM. “It is expected that the usual resolutions on Kashmir
would be included in the agenda of the foreign ministers’ meeting scheduled to
be held in Niger in April, but still no special focus on the plight of
Kashmiris, who have been enduring lockdown that is now in its 185th day since
abrogation of Article 370,” the newspaper on February 6. Support from Saudi
Arabia and other Arab countries for a CFM meeting on Kashmir is crucial,
considering they control the 57-member OIC. Saudi Arabia’s reluctance to accept
Pakistan’s request has reportedly frustrated Prime Minister Imran Khan. To drum
up support, he has visited Malaysia to seek support from Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad on the issue. Mohamad has been speaking against the Kashmir lockdown at various
fora, leading India to issue trade restrictions on palm oil
import from Malaysia. India has been urging Malaysia to not internationalise
the issue and treat it as an “internal” matter. https://thewire.in/diplomacy/kashmir-oic-pakistan-saudi-arabia
3. Missing sons: Feb., 7, 2020: Several Kashmiri
mothers are awaiting the return of their sons who were picked up by the armed
forces ahead of the August 5 announcement altering the constitutional status of
the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The arrested men have been moved to faraway
jails in various states across country. As per Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil
Society ( JKCCS ), 412 people were charged under Public Safety Act (PSA), which
allows preventive custody for two years without trial or charges, after August
5 last year and majority of them have been moved to jails outside the Valley.
80-year-old Zaina hobbles through room sits quietly in a corner and takes out a
picture of her son and stares at it without blinking her eyes. After a while,
she wraps a piece of cloth around the picture, kisses it, and puts it back. “They
have expunged my heart. I am restless. He is the light of my eyes. I am
suffocating inside,” she wails. She has not seen her son in past six months
after he was picked up by armed forces from his home in Southern Kashmir’s
Bello village.“Only god’s name is with me now. I do not know what to do. I am
helpless,” she says. She was not home when her son, Lateef Ahmad Dar, was
picked up by the Army from his home in Southern Kashmir’s Bello village. Next
morning, she rushed to her home and headed straight to the Rajpora police
station to see her son, “When I saw him, he pretended to be alright. His face
was pale and his voice suggested he was unwell. We hardly talked. We looked at
each other’s face and wept,” she says.The police officers there told her that
he would be released soon. But that did not happen. Instead, he was first
shifted to central jail and then to Agra, “I visited central jail, where I was
thoroughly frisked, almost stripped. “They looked inside my clothes and asked
me to remove my pheran (a knee-length dress that Kashmiris wear during
winters). It was humiliating. I tolerated everything for my child. Even if I
have go through the procedure thousands times for the sake of my child, I would
not hesitate,” she says.She says she was then told that he would be released
after August 15. “I was making arrangements for his return, but he did not
come,” she says. 56-year-old Naseema looks downcast. She could not gather
courage to meet her son in the police station. She says on August 4, the Army scaled
the wall of their house and barged inside, “they locked me and my daughters
inside a room and enquired about my son,” she says.The last she saw her
18-year-old son was when he opened their door and pleaded for their safety, “I
have not seen him ever since,” she says.Her head becomes heavy and her
heartbeat increases whenever she misses her son, “My veins tighten up and my
head feels heavy. I weep day and night without letting any know about it. In
fact, every member of my family weeps secretly,” she says.She says the thought
of her son sleeping on a bare floor keeps her awake, “how can a mother enjoy a
cosy bed when her child is sleeping on floor. It keeps me awake whole night,”
she says. Naseema says her son has never been away from his home even for a
single day. “He would not spend a day without me. None knows about his likes
and dislikes. The mere thought about it tears my heart into pieces,” she
says.He used to change his clothes thrice a day, “I have heard he doesn’t get
good food and clothes there. What will he do there,” she says, knowing well
that travelling to distant jail is a tough call for her. Atiqa, 55, sits on the
verandah of her mud house with her gaze fixed at the door hoping that someday
her son will open it and emerge from there. She says her son is the only person
left in her life. Her husband died a decade ago and she was living with her
son. He was the sole bread earner of the family. On August 5, Atiqa had sent
him to run an errand to the market in Maisuma but did not return. Instead,
somewhere between his home and the market, Faisal was picked up by police.“He
went out to buy medicine for me but was picked up Central reserve Police Force
on the way,” she says.Her son has been booked under the draconian Public Safety
Act. Faisal Aslam Mir, 30, runs a business. According to his mother, he was
detained for three days at a local police station and then shifted to the
Srinagar Central Jail until August 21, after which he was moved to a jail in
Agra in Uttar Pradesh.“I am only alive for my son. Otherwise, I have no other
reason to live,” she says, with tears in her eyes. A few kilometers from the
Southern Pulwama town, Sara Bano, in her late 40s, is inconsolable. “I am
unable to bear your separation please come back. I am dying inside. I tell no
one but I cry silently behind haystacks in the field, in the bathroom and in
your room,” she wails. Fayaz, 26, was among hundreds slapped with the PSA and
shifted to Bareilly in UP after he was charged for ‘stone-pelting’, as per his
dossier. Fayaz was in the middle of his completing his PhD in Arabic, having
completed his Master’s from the University of Kashmir. According to Sara Bano,
Fayaz was falsely framed under prior charges and was “just keeping himself busy
with a tractor — which was his part-time job”. It has been six months, and she
has not only been able to visit her son even once. “Since the past six months,
our son has not able to work or study. And as a result of him being jailed, our
financial condition has worsened,” she adds.Rubeena, 45, remembers the last
glimpse of her son before he was taken away by the Army from home in Karimabad
area of Pulwama. “I only had half a glimpse of his face. I remember that from
fear, his face had turned dark. That face still swims in front of my eyes,” she
says. She tried to run after him but was scared away by the Army personnel.
“They fired a few bullets at the door. I was scared. They took him away,” she
says. Rubeena’s financial conditions did not permit her to meet him, “I am poor
and cannot afford to travel outside,” she says, adding “all my savings have
been exhausted.. Since the past four days, Rubeena has been running from pillar
to post to gather money for her visit to her son. “My cow is sick and I don’t
have money to even buy medicine for her. Only god’s name is with me,” she says.She
believes her son was picked up by the Army for keeping long hair. “His hair was
cut with a knife. How would have his hair harmed them?” she says, adding “He is
innocent. What will government achieve by arresting him”.Jana, 75, says that
she has no option but to only wait for the return of her son. “Even if I wish
to meet him in jail, my health will not allow me to do so. I have problems in
my back and knees,” she says. Gulshan, 70, is suffering from multiple ailments
which prevent her from moving outside, “I have not seen my son in the last six
months. I have problems in my back and knees and cannot travel long distances,”
she says.In the absence of her son, she says, she is dying inside and often
cries when she is alone. “I have no other option but to seek help from the god.
I cry whenever I miss him. Why is government snatching our sons from us. Don’t
they know how important a son for a family,” she says. Gulshan says she does
not know what to tell her 5-year old granddaughter who wants to know where her
father is. “I have no answers for her. And I am sure the government has no
answers either,” she says.The other thing that is keeping her away from meeting
her son is her family’s economic condition. “A visit costs Rs 10,000-20,000.
Where will I be able gather so much money from? He was the only source of
income for the family,” she says. All the mothers have requested government to
release their sons immediately as they are old and infirm and not in a
condition to travel long distances, just to catch one glimpse of them. https://www.newsclick.in/Kashmir-Missing-Youth-Mothers-Article-370
4. Muslim Youth killed :
Feb., 7, 2020: “Jaipur se hum ek ek Kashmiri ko
nikal denge,” (We will take every Kashmiri out of Jaipur) Sufyan Rafiq,
the only eyewitness to Basit Khan’s beating told The Quint on
Friday, 7 February, a day after Khan succumbed to his injuries in a hospital in
Jaipur. A 17-year-old Kashmiri boy, Basit Khan, who was doing a part-time job
in Jaipur to support his family was thrashed by a mob on the night of 5
February. Khan succumbed to his injuries at 8:30 pm on the night of 6 February
and, by the afternoon of 7 February, his body was sent via a private ambulance
to Kashmir. Basit belonged to a poor family from Kupwara in Kashmir. His father
died in 2012. He was the oldest in the house, with three younger sisters and a
brother. “The family has had to pay Rs 30,000 to get the body to Kashmir. They
are very poor and he had come here to work to help the family financially. He
was in class 11 and was doing part-time work at an events company to make some
money.” Basit and Rafiq, both from Kashmir, went to work at an
event on the evening of 5 February. When they returned, they got into a fight
with a few other boys on the organising team. “Basit wanted to sit in front as
he was tired. This enraged a boy from Mumbai and he held on to Basit’s collar.
They started beating him up. One of the boys, Aditya, was repeatedly hitting
Basit on the head,” Rafiq, an eyewitness to the beating, told The Quint. Rafiq said they held
him down so he could not help Basit. “After beating him the driver dropped us a
few kms away from our home. In the cab, the boys kept complaining about the
increasing number of Kashmiri’s at work. After getting dropped, he and I walked
and walked. He kept falling. As soon as we reached home he began to cry. Then
he started vomiting. In the cab on the way to the hospital, he fell
unconscious.”Rafiq said the doctors operated on him but said his chances of
survival were meagre. He died at 8:30 pm on 6 February.His statement has been
recorded by the Rajasthan Police and the accused have been booked under
Sections 307 (attempt to murder), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 323 (voluntarily
causing hurt) of the IPC on 6 February.After Basit’s death on 7 February, the
police incorporated the section 303 of the IPC (murder) into the FIR.https://www.thequint.com/news/india/kashmiri-boy-dies-after-being-attacked-assaulted-by-mob-in-rajasthan?fbclid=IwAR0RNhLGdmT409NdTZSve3Yy1nF0s9lQoiNTjj_8RHTH2Qjyy48FYsAiPrQ
5.
BJP and Kashmir: Feb., 9, 2020: Article 370, adopted by the constituent assembly in 1949, was no
ordinary provision. It reproduced a solemn compact negotiated over five long
months, from May to October 1949, between prime minister Nehru and his deputy
Vallabhbhai Patel on the one hand, and the prime minister of Kashmir Sheikh
Mohammad Abdullah and his trusted colleague and brilliant lawyer Mirza Mohammed
Afzal Beg on the other. What Prime Minister Narendra Modi did on Aug 5, 2019,
went far beyond the abrogation of Article 370. It was the constitutional
and political destruction of Kashmir. Not only was it robbed of its
status and reduced to a ‘union territory’, but its entire political landscape
was also altered drastically. Measures are afoot to redraw its electoral
constituencies, engineer defections in its two major political parties the
National Conference (NC) and People’s Democratic Party, build up a new
political front comprising the BJP’s touts and flunkies, and give primacy to
Jammu. The touts include two senior leaders of the PDP. The bulk was put in
jail. The entire exercise was based on the calculation that Kashmir’s leaders,
press and political class would submit to the BJP’s plans. An atmosphere of
fear was created all over Kashmir. The assumption that all would eventually
submit, resigned to their fate, has been belied. That it was entertained at all
reflects the poor opinion BJP leaders have of Kashmiris. Politicians were not
put in jail because they were about to commit any crime; far from it. They were
incarcerated for fear that they would reject the BJP regime’s sordid scheme and
urge the people to do likewise. They were no terrorists. When in power as chief
ministers, the PDP and NC’s leaders fully cooperated with New Delhi in
combating the armed insurgency. It is total, popular rejection of the BJP’s
scheme that prompted it to forcibly remove them from political activity How
long can this oppressive setup last? How long can those senior leaders be
placed under these forced restraints? It is a habit of rulers to sound their
detainees about their future plans. That is how New Delhi created rifts among
jailed Hurriyat leaders about two decades ago. But a different ballgame is
being played today. Kashmiris are being asked to become accomplices in the
murder of the political identity of their own ancient historic land with its vibrant
past, rich culture and a record of revolt over centuries since Emperor Akbar
extinguished Kashmir’s independence in 1586. Kashmiris never cease to invoke
their history. They never will. The instrument that the BJP has deployed is of
colonial vintage. The Criminal Procedure Code, 1898, itself had a hoary past.
In 1973 it was ‘revised’ but this new code is no better. On Feb 5, the
imprisoned ones completed six months of detention. They have refused to sign
the bonds. An official told The Tribune: “The government can continue
their detention beyond Feb 6 only after the advisory board recommends so. The
J&K government detained nearly 6,000 political leaders after invoking
Section 107 of the CrPC through its magistrates.” Nearly 1,000 persons,
including three former chief ministers, are still under detention under Section
107 of the CrPC and the Public Safety Act. Had the police detained political
leaders or others under Section 151 of the CrPC, they would have all secured
bail given the charges against them, said a police officer. That is why this
British-era law of Section 107 came in handy this time, he revealed. The plans
do not reckon with public opinion, in Kashmir or elsewhere. As ill thought as
the Citizenship Amendment Act, the scheme of Aug 5, 2019, will hoist the Modi
government firmly on its own petard.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1533154/destroying-kashmir
6.
Youth
arrested: Feb., 9, 2020:
In occupied Kashmir, Indian police arrested five youth during cordon and search
operations in Badgam and Bandipora districts.
Three of detained youth
identified as Amir Shafi Dar, Shabir Ahmed Ganie and Mudasir Ahmed Khan were
arrested from Badgam while two other youth Irfan Aziz Butt and Mohammad Asif
Parray from Bandipora district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/09/indian-police-arrest-five-more-youth-in-iok/
7.
LoC firing: Feb., 9, 2020: An ex-serviceman lost his life and his teenaged daughter and three
other civilians were injured in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Saturday in
“indiscriminate and unprovoked” shelling by Indian troops from across the
restive Line of Control (LoC), officials said.The casualties occurred in
Abbaspur tehsil of Poonch district, where Indian troops resorted to heavy
shelling, using mortar and artillery, at about 3pm, the officials said, adding
that the shelling continued till evening. "Indian troops resorted to
unprovoked ceasefire violation [the] LoC in Chirikot Sector. They targeted
civilian population with artillery and mortar fire," the Inter-Services
Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement. https://www.dawn.com/news/1533229/ex-serviceman-martyred-4-civilians-injured-in-indiscriminate-indian-shelling-along-loc?fbclid=IwAR0ibuGt2BmKNRxaaQWUtMtk-9uEOwleUMnC6M7XmTp9vDsK2ZsVvPum774
8.
Leaders booked under PSA: Feb., 10, 2020: Akhtar became the sixth mainstream leader in Kashmir to be booked under the controversial PSA, which was enacted
in 1978 to deal with rampant timber smuggling. Two other former chief
ministers -- Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti -- were booked under the
stringent law on Thursday. PTI | Last Updated: Feb 08, 2020, 05.35 PM IST The
Jammu and Kashmir administration has slapped the stringent Public Safety Act
(PSA) on senior PDP leader Naeem Akhtar, officials said on Saturday. Akhtar
became the sixth mainstream leader in Kashmir to be booked under the
controversial PSA, which was enacted in 1978 to deal with rampant timber
smuggling. While former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah was
booked under the PSA in September last year, two other former chief ministers
-- Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti -- were booked under the stringent law on
Thursday. National Conference (NC) general secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar and PDP
leader Sarah Madni have also been detained under the PSA. Several mainstream
politicians were taken into preventive custody ahead of the Centre's
announcement on abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution on August 5 last
year. Over 20 leaders have either been released or shifted to their residences
and put under house arrest. 1 Comments Save National Conference (NC) general
secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar and PDP leader Sarah Madni have also been detained
under the PSA : https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/pdps-naeem-akhtar-sixth-mainstream-leader-to-be-booked-under-psa-in-kashmir/articleshow/74029158.cms?from=mdr
1.
Youth martyred: Jan., 28, 2020: In
occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of state terrorism martyred
one Kashmiri youth in Kulgam district, today.The youth was killed during a
cordon and search operation by the Indian troops in Arwani area of the
district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/27/indian-troops-martyr-one-youth-in-iok-5/
2.
Indian actions in IOK: Jan., 30,2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops continued massive cordon
and search operations in Srinagar and several other areas of the territory,
causing huge inconvenience to the residents.The troops continue to conduct
these operations in Srinagar, Kupwara, Handwara, Rafiabad, Tujjar, Chandoosa,
Pattan, Hajin, Chadoora, Kangan, Tral, Awantipora, Bijbehara, Shopian, Kulgam,
Ramban, Kishtwar, Doda and other areas. The residents of several areas talking
to media men said that the harassment, frisking, checking and door-to-door
searches by the troops had made their life miserable. They said that the troops
and police personnel during operations besides arresting youth were abusing and
threatening inmates to stop supporting the liberation struggle. In the
meanwhile, normal life remained badly hit in the Kashmir Valley due to the
military siege and broadband internet shutdown on 178th consecutive day, today.
.A website Indiaspend in a report quoting the estimate of Kashmir Chamber of
Commerce and Industry said that since 5th August, 2019, a total of
144,500 people had lost their jobs in Kashmir’s tourism and handicrafts sector
– mostly dependent on earnings from travelers. The report said that the overall
job loss in the commercial space stood at 496,000. APHC-AJK leader and the Vice
Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement, Abdul Majeed Malik, in a
statement issued in Islamabad condemned the continued lockdown imposed by India
in occupied Kashmir. Another APHC-AJK leader and Vice Chairman of Jammu and
Kashmir People’s League, Syed Aijaz Rehmani, in his statement in Islamabad
expressed serious concern over the plight of illegally detained Kashmiris
languishing in different jails. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/29/indian-troops-continue-casos-in-occupied-kashmir/
3. PSA : Jan., 30,2020:
Notwithstanding the criticism of the arbitrary use of the Public Safety Act
(PSA) in Kashmir through 2019 – the year J&K was stripped of its special
status – the law has been consistently invoked by authorities to keep people
“out of circulation” in the restive region. A report by J&K Coalition of
Civil Society (J&KCCS) and Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons’
(APDP) said 662 persons, including a former chief minister and sitting MP, were
booked under the PSA in 2019. Of the total number of detentions, 412 were made
after August 5 when the Centre scrapped key portions of Article 370 and
followed with a massive clampdown and mass arrests to quell any protests. The
100-page report criticises the government for its ambiguity over the total number
of detentions. “There is no clear statement (from the government) on how many
(people) were booked under the PSA,” reads the report titled Annual 2019 Human Rights Review.
After 1990, when the armed struggle broke out in the Valley, the PSA has been used
rampantly to book people including separatists, their supporters and voices of
dissent. In 2015, for the first time, the government disclosed in response to
an RTI that 16,329 persons had been detained under the PSA since 1988. Almost
95% of the detainees were from Kashmir. The 2011 AI report described the PSA a
“lawless law”, documenting how it was being misused to detain people without
trial, depriving them of basic human rights by “circumventing” criminal justice
to undermine accountability and transparency. Advocating its immediate
abolition, the organisation said J&K authorities were using the PSA
detentions as a “revolving door” – a detainee on being released by the court is
immediately slapped with another PSA and the cycle continues till the authorities
want him to be behind bars. “It is done to keep people the authorities cannot
or would not convict through proper legal channels locked up and out of
circulation,” said the report. In other words, the court quashed more than
81% of the detention orders that the Advisory Board had upheld. . https://thewire.in/rights/psa-detentions-kashmir
4.
Three
youth martyred: Feb., 1, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh
act of state terrorism martyred three Kashmiri youth in Jammu district,
today.The youth were martyred after Indian troops intercepted a Srinagar-bound
truck at Bann toll plaza on Srinagar-Jammu highway in Nagrota area of the
district and fired at the vehicle. The troops cordoned off the area and started
a search operation. Indian police and troops arrested two persons including
driver of the truck. Earlier one Indian policeman was critically injured in an
attack in the same area. The troops also launched cordon and search operations
in several areas of Kupwara, Bandipora, Baramulla, Pulwama, Shopian, Islamabad,
Kulgam, Kishtwar, Ramban, Rajouri and Poonch districts.
https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/31/indian-troops-martyr-three-kashmiri-youth-in-jammu/
5. January
2020 human cost Feb., 2, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their
unabated acts of state terrorism martyred 21 Kashmiris in the last month of
January. According to the data issued by the Research Section of Kashmir Media
Service, today, during the month, 14 people were critically injured due to the
firing of pellets, bullets and teargas shells by Indian troops and police personnel
on peaceful protesters in the occupied territory. As many as 104 civilians,
mostly youth and Hurriyat activists, were arrested and several of them were
booked under black law Public Safety Act. The troops molested 3 women and
ransacked and damaged 5 houses in the month. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/02/01/indian-troops-martyr-21-kashmiris-in-january-2/
1. Photojournalism: Jan., 21, 2020: An armed
rebellion broke out against Indian rule in Kashmir in the early
1990s. \ Photojournalists have played an essential role in documenting the
bloodshed and rights violations that followed. Over the past three decades,
journalism in Kashmir has emerged as one of the strongest institutions
challenging the Indian government, with Kashmiri journalists working
relentlessly to keep the story alive. Being a female photographer in the field
can be frustrating at times. People stare at me because they are not used to
seeing a woman with a camera. The stories and perspectives of women have
largely been ignored and buried in the Kashmiri and international media. They
have hardly been spoken about - their losses, their resilience.I wanted to
document the untold stories of women and to talk to them. I knew women in my
neighbourhood wanted to speak. They were suffering, but would hide their faces
and feel uncomfortable opening up to male journalists. It was stormy in the
early hours of May 24, 2019, when I set out with other journalists to cover the
funeral of prominent rebel commander Zakir Musa. For Kashmiris, the
civil engineering student-turned-militant was a popular face of Kashmir's new
generation of rebels. He was the founder of Ansar Ghazwat-Ul-Hind, a rebel
outfit that had pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda. The road to the house where the
rebel was killed was a sea of mud. Puffs of smoke rose from the burned remains
of the cement structure. Thousands of people had gathered around it. I found another way in. When Musa's body
reached the funeral ground, I was in an attic, preparing for high-angle shots
and standing on the edge of the roof. The noise from the slogan-shouting crowd
seemed to shake my camera, but I was able to take some pictures of the body
before it was taken away to be buried Then, before I put my camera away, I
peeped into the viewfinder and saw the empty bed where the rebel's body had
been. I took this picture. For me, the empty bed had a different story to tell,
far more haunting than the story it told with a dead body on it. It was the
void the frequent killings of fighters and ordinary women and men leave behind
in their families. The bodies of Kashmiris killed by the Indian armed forces
are not taken to the graveyard in a closed coffin. They are considered heroes
or martyrs and are often carried out on metal beds or stretchers - taken from
the hospitals where families have gone to identify them - so everyone can see
them. This picture makes me think of how these beds carry the bodies of young
men, women, children, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers before they are gone
forever. I think about families coming to kiss them for the last time on those
beds. These beds share a connection of death and grief This picture also reminds me of my very first
news assignment in August 2017. I had to meet the family of Firdous Ahmad Khan,
a labourer killed in a gunfight in the southern Kashmiri district of Pulwama. I
was worried that his family would not speak to me, or that security forces
would stop me. I was afraid of failing to tell the story.But when I met
Firdous' widow Ruksana, then 25 and soon to give birth to their second child, she
hugged me and cried and told me about the pain of losing her husband. She was
burdened and desperate to speak, and could open up to another woman. While her
story made me extremely sad, I felt a responsibility to tell it. I watched
Ruksana's two-year-old daughter embracing her father on a metal bed, kissing
and touching his face for the last time before he was separated from them
forever and another empty bedframe returned to the hospital. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/kashmir-empty-bed-signifies-life-lost-200114091520056.html
2.
Youth martyred: Jan., 21, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops martyred three Kashmiri youth in Shopian
district, today. The youth were killed in a joint operation by the Indian
Army’s 55 Rashtriya Rifles and Special Operation Group in Wachi area of the
district. A house was destroyed when the troops used heavy weapons and
inflammable chemical during the operation. Two of the martyrs were identified
as Adil
Sheikh from Zainapora and Waseem Wani from Urpora in
Shopian district. The identity of the third martyred youth could not be
ascertained. Indian police claimed that Adil Sheikh was formerly associated
with Jammu and Kashmir police, who along with two others was killed during an
encounter with the Indian forces. According to the last reports, the Indian
forces had blocked all the entry and exit points and started house-to-house
search operations in the area. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/20/three-kashmiri-youth-martyred-by-troops-in-iok/
3. Deradicalization camps :
Jan., 22, 2020: Police chief in Indian-administered Kashmir
has endorsed the view to set up deradicalization camps for youth in the region
The idea was mooted last week by India's first Chief of Defence Staff Bipin
Rawat who claimed that children as young as 10-12 were being radicalized in Kashmir.
Asked by a reporter whether he supported Rawat’s idea Director General of
Police in Kashmir Dilbagh Singh said that it would be a “good sign, good
development” if such a facility comes up in Kashmir. Some Kashmiri groups in
Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence or
for unification with neighboring Pakistan. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/kashmir-police-chief-seeks-deradicalization-camps/1708591
4.
Two youth martyred: Jan., 22, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops martyred two more Kashmiri youth in Pulwama
district, today ( Monday) , raising the toll to five during the past two days. The
youth were killed during a cordon and search operation launched by the
personnel of Indian Army, Central Reserve Police Force and Special Operation
Group in Awanitpora area of the district. Earlier, an Indian soldier and a
special police officer were killed and another was injured in an attack in the
same area. Meanwhile, thousands of people defying restrictions participated in
the funeral prayers of the three youth in Shopian and Pulwama districts. These
youth were martyred by Indian troops in Shopian, yesterday. Anti-India,
pro-freedom and pro-Pakistan slogans were raised on the occasion. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/21/two-more-kashmiri-youth-martyred-in-iok/
5.
Daw Kadal massacre: Jan., 22, 2020: The families of the deadliest Gaw Kadal massacre continue to
wait for justice to the victims on the 30th anniversary of the tragedy. Over 50 people were killed and hundreds others were injured when
Indian troops had opened fire on peaceful protesters in Gaw Kadal area of
Srinagar on this day in 1990. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Zamruda Habib
and Barrister Abdul Majeed Tramboo in their separate statements paid homage to
the martyrs. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/21/two-more-kashmiri-youth-martyred-in-iok/
6.
Journalists and Clampdown
Jan., 23, 2020:India's
communication blockade on the back of its revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's
autonomous status has forced several journalists into odd jobs. Muneeb ul Islam, 29, found himself running short of money as
winter began to set in Kashmir. As the only bread-winner in his family, he had
to take care of expenses at home. But most importantly, he had to take care of
his pregnant wife’s medical expenses. She requires frequent medical check-ups,
due to miscarriages she suffered in the past. Before he went to sleep on December 2, Muneeb mulled over ways to
arrange money. The money he had borrowed from friends and relatives had been
spent on household expenses. He had tried to work as a salesman once, but with
everything shut thanks to India's crackdown in Kashmir, that option was a
non-starter. On the morning of
December 3, Muneeb put on his shoes and left his home in Anantnag district. He
did not tell his family where he was going. By that afternoon, Muneeb had found
means to earn: carrying bricks at a construction site. For a day’s work, he was
paid around $6.5. He continued to work as a labourer for several days: carrying
bricks to helping carpenters and masons at construction sites in different
villages of south Kashmir, Muneeb did everything he could to earn money. When
he managed to make around $25, he took his wife to a doctor and bought her
medicines that would last for the next two weeks. A few days later, a Valley-based weekly magazine printed his
photo on the cover at an under-construction site, which was widely circulated,
where was pictured carrying bricks. Muneeb’s
profile as a labourer was indeed worth a cover story. For the past four years,
he had been working as a photojournalist in Kashmir’s southern region. He has
documented dozens of gun battles between militants and Indian forces, protests
and other aspects of the conflict that rages in the Kashmir Valley. His work
has featured both in international and national publications. But when the
government of India annexed disputed Jammu and Kashmir and revoked its
autonomy, it put the entire region under a strict lockdown for several weeks,
fearing reprisals for the decision it had taken without consulting Kashmiris,
their elected leaders or other stakeholders. There were no means of
communication and no permission for moving around. Even the movement of
journalists was restricted. Everything had come to an absolute standstill. Almost four months passed. With
businesses and the internet shut, the money people had saved began to wear
thin. For those with medical patients in their families, the financial
constraints began to hit sooner, and harder. Journalists were among those worst hit. In the absence of
internet access, media professionals like Muneeb could not research, pitch and
file stories. “There was no way I
could carry on with my profession,” says Muneeb. In the first weeks after
August 5, the internet was only available at a government-run media
facilitation centre, some 50 kilometres from where Muneeb lived. Since there
was no public transport, it would take him a full day just to access the
internet — access was given for a few minutes at a time — given the fact that
the media facilitation centre only had a few computers for nearly 200
journalists. A few weeks later, when the internet was made available at a
government office in his district, he went there to pitch photos to a
Delhi-based news website. But when he reached, he found that only a select crop
of journalists, who he says were in the good books of the Indian government,
were allowed to access the internet. But he kept visiting, in hope. He says he could not visit Srinagar’s media
facilitation centre every time to access the Internet because it cost him more
than $6.5 a day to rent a cab – the same amount he earned as a labourer for one
day. “If I am to spend so much of money on just accessing internet, how much
will I be able to earn from a story?” he asks, adding that with the contacts he
had, his photo stories would get him somewhere between $25-50.The more he tried
to work on stories, the more dejected he became.“At the government office where
the internet was available, some low-rung government officials would ask me to
show them the photos I had to email. How can a government official judge my
photo story?” Muneeb says. On top of that, Muneeb says, he was not allowed to
send photos himself. “They would ask for photos in flash drives, our email ID
and passwords. Then they would email our stories on our behalf. That was
humiliating and a breach of privacy,” Muneeb says. Muneeb chose to ditch
the camera and work as a labourer. So did several other journalists in Muneeb’s
vicinity, who asked not to be named for this story. One of his friends, who has
been writing for a Delhi-based newspaper for the last seven years, also worked
as a labourer. To his luck, it was autumn, the apple harvesting season, so he
was hired by his uncle to pick, carry and pack apples. Since he had no
experience in tending to orchards, he was not able to earn much. But he
continued anyway. “Anything those days was too much.” Muneeb’s neighbouring
village is home to another journalist, Rashid (name changed). He was in charge
of the Kashmir bureau for a Delhi-based publication for the last five years.
But when the internet stopped, he could not send any stories across. He also suffered
the double-whammy of having his salary withheld since September. When he faced
a cash crunch, he began looking for alternatives. He set up a small shop with a
printing machine where he printed brochures, cards, posters etc. But his
alternative did not bring him much relief as orders for printing, during this
tough time in Kashmir, were rarely placed.There are others: a photojournalist
works at a pharmacy, another helps his brother in his spice business while
another sells groceries. “Shopfronts are the points where everyone comes to
discuss politics. Since people around know I am a journalist, they often seek
my opinion,” one of the journalists, who is now a salesman, says. “But I am so
cut off from the news that I have often nothing to say.” Most of these
journalists, who took up odd jobs to bear the expenses at home, say that if the
internet is not restored, they will have to give up the profession forever and
start looking for new career options. “The passion for clicking pictures and
telling stories won’t leave me, but the priority is to feed my family,” another
journalist said. But Muneeb does not want to give up his career in journalism.
He has earned a name in the field, and people in Kashmir’s media circle know
him. But he still has regrets.“I should have chosen something else for my
career. Something more secure. But now it is as it is. Internet services in
Kashmir have been almost entirely shut since the night of August 4. It has been
described as one of the longest shutdowns
in a democracy. The government recently 'eased' communication but mobile
internet and social media are by and large still blocked with limited broadband
service available in parts of the Kashmir Valley.The fate of Muneeb and the
lives and careers of others like him, still hang by a thread. https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/meet-the-journalists-whose-jobs-vanished-after-india-s-kashmir-crackdown-33118
7.
Youth martyred: Jan., 23, 2020: occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act
of state terrorism martyred one Kashmiri youth in Pulwama district, today
(Wednesday) The youth was killed during a search and cordon operation by the
Indian troops in Awantipora area of the district. The operation was going on
from two days in the area. An Indian soldier and a Special Police Officer (SPO)
were killed in an attack in the same area on Tuesday
https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/22/indian-troops-martyr-youth-in-iok-5/
8.
Youth martyred: Jan., 26, 2020: In occupied
Kashmir, Indian troops martyred three
Kashmiri youth in Pulwama district, today (Saturday) .The troops martyred the
youth during a siege and search operation at Hariparigam in Tral area of the
district. Earlier, three Indian soldiers were injured during an attack in the
same area. The military operation was going on when the last reports came in. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/25/indian-troops-martyr-three-youth-in-iok-9/
9.
1. Youth martyred: Jan., 13, 2020: In occupied Kashmir,
Indian martyred three Kashmiri youth in
Pulwama district, today. The youth were killed by the troops during a cordon
and search operation in Gulshanpora area of Tral in the district. Police
claimed that the youth were killed during an encounter with the troops. The
martyred youth were identified as Umer Fayaz Lone, Faizan Hamid and Adil Bashir
Mir.
. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/12/indian-troops-martyr-three-youth-in-iok-8/
2.
Youth martyred: Jan., 13, 2020: In occupied
Kashmir, Indian troops martyred three Kashmiri youth in Pulwama
district, this morning. The youth were killed by the troops during a cordon and
search operation in Tral area of the district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/12/indian-troops-martyr-two-youth-in-pulwama-2/
3. Human rights: Jan., 14, 2020:
In a statement, a group of human and civil rights lawyers of South Asian
descent have expressed grave concerns about “ongoing legal abuses and human
rights atrocities” in India. Their statement covers the Citizenship (Amendment)
Act and National Register of Citizens, and the way protests against the two have
been cracked down on by the government, as well as the Central governments
actions in Kashmir. “The crisis unfolding in India today is rooted in a long
history of impunity and failed democratic institutions,” the signatories have
said. They say that India has not been able to keep its minorities safe, and
violence against the marginalised has become commonplace. “The BJP and Prime
Minister Modi have built upon this troubled history with a Hindutva nationalist
agenda,” they continue. To counter this, they argue, US lawmakers must raise
their voice and take action, by condemning the CAA and NRC, and also demanding
that legal observers and foreign journalists be allowed complete access in
Kashmir. https://thewire.in/rights/caa-nrc-kashmir-india-fundamental-rights
4.
Youth martyred: January 15 , 2020: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their
fresh act of state terrorism martyred one more Kashmiri youth in Doda district
of Jammu region, today The troops martyred the youth identified as Haroon Hamad
during a cordon and search operation in Gundara area of the district. “The
operation is going on in the area. However, body has not been recovered so
far,” a police officer told media men. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/15/indian-troops-martyr-one-kashmiri-youth-in-doda-2/
5.
HRW: Jan., 16,2020: The New York-based Human Rights
Watch has criticized the Indian government for gross human rights violations
including arrests, torture and communication blackout after abrogation of
Kashmir’s special status in August, last year. Human Rights Watch in its World
Report 2020 posted on its website said, Indian authorities also failed to
protect religious minorities, used draconian sedition and counter-terrorism
laws to silence peaceful dissent, and invoked foreign funding regulations and
other laws to discredit and muzzle nongovernmental organizations, critical of
government actions or policies. “The Indian government has tried to shut down
Kashmir, hiding the full extent of the harm caused there,” said Meenakshi
Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch in a press release. “Instead
of addressing growing attacks on minorities, Indian authorities bolstered their
efforts to silence critical voices in 2019,” she added. The report said, “Prior
to its actions in Jammu and Kashmir, the government deployed additional troops
…, shut down the internet and phones, and arbitrarily detained thousands of
Kashmiris, including political leaders, activists, journalists, lawyers, and
potential protesters, including children. Hundreds remain in detention without
charge or under house arrest to prevent protests.” It said that the Indian
government blocked opposition politicians, foreign diplomats, and international
journalists from independent visits to occupied Kashmir. “The Indian government’s
actions in Kashmir have led to loss of livelihood and access to education.
The repression resulted in international criticism including in the United
States’ Congress, the European Parliament, and the United Nations Human Rights
Council. Throughout the year, UN experts have raised concerns over a series of
issues in India, including extrajudicial killings, potential statelessness of
millions in Assam, possible eviction of tribal communities and forest-dwellers,
and the communications blackout in Kashmir,” the report added. The report said
that the February 14 Pulwama attack in which over 40 Indian troops were killed,
led to military escalation between India and Pakistan. Following the incident,
Kashmiri students and businessmen in different parts of India were harassed,
beaten, and even forcibly evicted from rented housing and dorms by BJP
supporters. In the 652-page World Report 2020, its 30th edition, Human Rights
Watch reviews human rights practices in nearly 100 countries. The report said
that despite numerous independent recommendations, including by United Nations
experts, the India government did not review or repeal the Armed Forces Special
Powers Act, which gives soldiers effective immunity from prosecution for
serious human rights abuses. The law is in force in occupied Kashmir and in
several states in northeast India. The HRW said that in November, following a
petition by child rights activists, the Indian Supreme Court sought a detailed
report from the juvenile justice committee of occupied Kashmir High Court on
the detention of children and other abuses during the lockdown imposed since
August. The committee earlier submitted a police list of 144 detained
children, the youngest being 9 . https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/15/hrw-condemns-indian-government-over-atrocities-in-iok/
6. Proving
death: Jan., 16, 2020: On an unusually tense afternoon when Indian-administered Kashmir
was under full lockdown, Osaib Altaf Marazi, made a fatal decision. The
17-year-old boy, who loved to travel and take selfies, left home to play
cricket with his neighbourhood friends on August 5 last year - the day New
Delhi stripped Kashmir of its autonomy. He never returned. Osaib's body was
later fished out of the nearby Jhelum river. Saleema Bano, Osaib's mother, has
struggled to come to terms with her youngest son's death. For five months, she
has broken down almost every day. "He was a beautiful boy," she said.
"Everyone asks me to endure but how can I forget my son who would be in
front of my eyes every hour of the day."
Saleema remembers the day vividly. "I told him to have lunch first
and not to go out but he insisted he will be back soon," she said. That was the last time Saleema saw Osaib. The events that followed
forced her family to embark upon a traumatic quest to even prove his death and
seek a death certificate. After four months of denial, Kashmiri police finally admitted that
Osaib's death had been the first in the wake of the abrogation of Article 370
of the constitution that had granted special status to the Muslim-majority
region. On August 5, roads across Kashmir were blocked and checkpoints,
manned by Indian paramilitary troopers, were set up. A tense atmosphere
descended upon the region as phone networks, internet services and TV channels
were blocked. The crackdown seemed designed to prevent Kashmiris from protesting
against New Delhi's decision to scrap Kashmir's limited autonomy.
The Marazi family mourned Osaib's death as Kashmir endured the
longest internet shutdown imposed by a democracy. Suhail Ahmad Marazi, Osaib's older brother, was not home on August
5. He later gathered witness accounts of what happened to his brother in the
moments before his death. Osaib had been with his friends and together they walked a short
distance from his home in Palpora village on the outskirts of Srinagar, the
main city in the region, when they found themselves surrounded by paramilitary
forces. "They were 10 boys. As they reached the middle of a footbridge
they saw CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force] personnel running after them from
both the sides. They were scared and jumped into the river," Suhail told
Al Jazeera. Osaib did not know how to swim. "The other boys who were
present at the spot told us that Osaib held to the edge of the bridge for [a]
few seconds before the armed men hit him with a stick on his head and hands and
he slipped into [the] waters. It was a murder," he said.
At home, Saleema was doing chores when boys from the neighbourhood
came running and knocked at her window. "They said Osaib had been martyred," Saleema recalled,
overcome by emotion. "I wait for him every day and call his name every
time when I serve the dinner. He was afraid to sleep alone," she said.
"I just cannot forget his face for a second."
Osaib's body was handed over to the family for burial but the
hospital refused to issue a death certificate. Officials at Shri Maharaja
Hari Singh hospital in Srinagar asked the Marazi family for a First
Information Report (FIR), a police complaint, to certify Osaib's death.
It was the start of a months-long battle to secure a death
certificate. "From the hospital, I went to one police station and then
another and both said that they will not be able to register the FIR as the area
does not come under their jurisdiction," Suhail said. "It was a
helpless situation." In September, after two child rights activists, Enakshi Ganguly
and Shanta Sinha, filed a petition in India's Supreme Court to investigate
cases of rights violations involving children in Kashmir, the court tasked the
juvenile justice committee with investigating cases involving minors who were
being detained in the region. In the midst of their struggle to prove Osaib's death, his family
was shocked by a written submission by police to the juvenile justice committee
admitting that they had detained 144 minors. But the police dubbed Osaib's death "baseless".
"Osaib Altaf, the incident as reported has been found to be
baseless as no such death has been reported to the police authorities as per
verification report received from the field formations," the police
report said. The family then approached the lower court to request the
FIR. "We approached the court because how can they deny our
child's death? It is very devastating for us that we struggled to prove that he
died," Suhail Marazi, said. "While we were mourning at home, every
week we had to go to the court as well." Last month, the police finally submitted a report to the court
admitting Osaib's death by drowning. "It is prayed that on 05-08-2019, the deceased Osaib Marazi
aged about 24 years allegedly drowned in river Jhelum," said the status
report submitted by the Parimpora police station to the court.
Osaib's school records show he was 17, not "about 24" as
the police claimed. He was a grade 12 student at a local school.
"No one gets justice here and we do not hope for it either.
But we want that we should be provided the death certificate," said
Suhail, adding that they will continue to fight for the certificate.
"Our neighbour Danish was killed the same way in 2016, and
even they did not get any justice. They [the police] have found a new way to
kill children in Kashmir." Authorities in Kashmir, who now come directly under India's
interior ministry, have denied any killings took place in the wake of the
August 5 decision. But local human rights group Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of
Civil Society (JKCCS) said, in its 2019 human rights review, that six civilians
had been killed by the Indian armed forces. The list included 17-year-old Asrar Firdous Khan from Soura,
Srinagar, who was playing cricket with his friends on August 6 when soldiers
shot him in the head several times with pellets, according to his family.
Asrar's medical records showed his death occurred due to pellet
injuries to his skull, but the police refuted that, saying he was killed when a
stone was thrown at him. The police did not specify who threw the stone.
While Osaib's family continues to struggle for acknowledgement of
his death, Saleema struggles with her pain and longing.
"I want to tear my heart open to find my son. It seems the
light of my eyes has gone away." https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/kashmir-family-harrowing-quest-prove-son-death-200116065122901.html
7. De-radicalization camps for children: Jan., 18, 2020: Top
Indian general had suggested putting young Kashmiri children in
“de-radicalization camps”
The statement, which referred to Gen Rawat's remarks at the Raisina
Dialogue 2020, added that as a perpetrator of “unabated state-terrorism in the
Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IOK)”, India is in no position to
pontificate on the issue of terrorism.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1528918/fo-condemns-indian-generals-remarks-on-sending-kashmiri-children-to-deradicalisation-camps.
Concentration camps: Jan., 18, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, India
has planned to set up Nazi type concentration camps for the Kashmiri youth to
starve, torture and kill them. A clear indication of the
plan has been given by warmonger former Indian Army Chief and incumbent Chief
of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, while addressing a conference in New
Delhi. He said that young Kashmiri children are being radicalized and they
need to be identified and put in de-radicalisation camps. Rawat also
claimed that Indian forces could not be blamed for injuries caused by pellet
guns and that radicalised stone-pelters were “more dangerous” than the pellet
guns. By emphasizing the need to deal with heavy hand in occupied Kashmir,
General Rawat has pointed towards the Indian design to step up state terrorism
in the territory. All Parties Hurriyat
Conference and other liberation organizations in their statements have said
that in the name of de-radicalization, the Kashmiri youth would be tortured in
new camps. They said that General Bipin Rawat’s warning was a depiction of
India’s militaristic approach towards the Kashmir dispute and was aimed at
making the Kashmiri youth to shun their struggle. The organizations said New
Delhi is using all brutal methods including torture to crush the Kashmiris’
liberation movement and bully them into accepting its illegal occupation of
Jammu and Kashmir. They pointed out that despite killing over 95,000 innocent
Kashmiris since 1989, Indian troops have failed to subdue the Kashmiri people’s
resolve for securing freedom from the Indian yoke. Meanwhile,
as the Juma congregational prayers culminated, people took to the streets in
Srinagar, Badgam, Pulwama, Tral, Doda and other areas and held forceful
anti-India demonstrations. The protesters raised high-pitched pro-freedom and
anti-India slogans https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/17/india-plans-nazi-type-concentration-camps-in-iok-2/.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXYZPJ03p2U
8. Indian occupied Kashmir: Jan., 19, 2020: Kashmir
has been under a lockdown for five months. Fearing that Kashmiris might protest
the revocation of autonomy provided to Jammu and Kashmir state under India’s
constitution, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi clamped down.
Since the restrictions in August, the government has taken slow, reluctant
steps to ease some of them, but is still falling far short in upholding
Kashmiri rights. Many of the thousands arbitrarily arrested – lawyers, shop owners, traders,
students, rights activists – have now been released, but reportedly
only after promising
not to criticize the government. Some senior
Kashmiri political leaders, including former chief ministers, remain in custody. Police
admitted at least 144 children had
been detained, and now the chief of defense staff has spoken of putting
children in “deradicalization camps.”
The government had also blocked phone lines and access to the internet. The government was so fearful of
criticism and dissent that it curtailed Kashmiris’ ability to share news of
births or deaths, call their doctors, order supplies, research term papers,
file taxes, and trade apples and walnuts. While authorities started gradually
restoring landlines and some mobile phone services, it denied internet
services. After the Supreme Court said on January 10 that access to the internet was a
fundamental right,
the authorities relented – only to set up government-controlled internet kiosks, with firewalls permitting only
some websites and forbidding social media. This violates free expression
rights and hardly complies with the principle laid down by the court that “the freedom of speech and
expression and the freedom to practice any profession or carry on any trade,
business or occupation over the medium of internet enjoys constitutional
protection.” The costs of the government’s policies have been staggering, and the
attempt to avoid criticism has not worked. The United
Nations has expressed concern,
as have numerous
foreign governments. Indian authorities have sought to
justify their rights violations on the grounds of national
security. Maintaining law and order is a critical state function, but it’s
necessary to protect civil liberties as it is carried out. India needs to do
better in Kashmir. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/17/india-failing-kashmiri-human-rights
Weekly update 19: Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Jan., 7, 2020 to Jan., 13, 2020
1.
JHU: Jan., 7, 2020:
We went through the DDA Munirka flats complex to get to JNU. The gates of the
colony were locked towards the JNU side. At the gate, we saw four-five young
men, with lathis, on two-three bikes. Two ambulances also came through Munirka.
When the colony’s gates were opened to let them through, we also exited on
foot. All street lights from the Munirka DDA gate till beyond the JNU gate on
Baba Ganganath Marg were switched off. It was pitch dark. Outside
the gate, a huge crowd was raising anti-JNU slogans, saying ‘Desh ke gadarron ko, goli maro salon ko (Shoot
the traitors of the country)’; ‘Urban
Naxal wapis jao and desh chorho (Urban Naxals go back, leave the
country)’. The crowd must have been at least 500-600
strong, and several had masked their faces. There was large deployment of
police outside JNU. As we were taking some photos and videos, people started
shouting at us. Around 9- 9:15 pm, an ambulance came from
Vasant Kunj side with the sirens on. As the ambulance tried to turn right
towards the gate, the crowd surrounded it and started banging on it. They
banged their fists on the bonnet and kept shouting at the medical personnel
inside, even as they were holding up their ID cards to show that they were
doctors and medical staff. The crowd broke the glass of the ambulance, hurled
abuses and threatened anyone trying to record a video of the attack. They
forced the ambulance to turn around. It made a U-turn and exited towards Vasant
Kunj. Our team of doctors, nurses & medical volunteers who reached
JNU to give first aid to injured students & teachers, was attacked by
hundreds of goons. Mob manhandled doctors, nurses & threatened them. Our
ambulance’s glass & windows broken, this is totally inhuman &
insane. Shortly after that,
we saw Yogendra Yadav addressing the media outside the gate and he was being
heckled and shouted at. Suddenly he was pulled down and disappeared from view.
We tried to make our way through the crowd to get to him (we were on the other
side) but it was impossible. It appeared like he was dragged to the left and
towards the divider (towards Munirka). while speaking to JNU
teachers, a police inspector (no nameplate) dragged me and ABVP/RSS group (incl
Prof Mishra, Sanskrit Dept) pushed me,pulled my muffler. I fell down, minor injury.
Police contd to push me out after I got up. It is important to note that even though police
personnel were present in large numbers, they did not intervene to prevent the
attack on the ambulance or on Yogendra Yadav.
It continued to be pitch dark through all of this. Around
10:30 pm, CPI leader D. Raja and Annie Raja arrived. Shortly after that, a
crowd gathered and started aggressively shouting slogans against all of us.
Yogendra Yadav was heckled and pushed away again. D. Raja, Annie Raja, Rakhi
Sehgal and the two of us were cornered by the crowd, which kept shouting ‘Urban
Naxal go back, wapas jao, wapas jao‘ ‘desh chorro‘, ‘jhootha,
jhootha (lies, lies)’ etc. Some
people within the crowd covered their faces and started shoving, pushing and
twisting the arms of women and students who had reached the spot. The
aggressors claimed to be students, but they could not name the school/centre
they were studying at the university. Some were smelling strongly of alcohol.
At several points, they pushed and almost caused a stampede. The most
aggressive of the lot was a young man in a white sweatshirt with a blue cap. In
the commotion, one young man fell and broke his glasses. Several
people pleaded with the police to come and help as we were cornered, but no
police persons came to the spot. Finally, some students and those who had come
out in solidarity managed to get between the aggressive crowd and us and took
us closer to the main gate. At this stage, police in riot gear also appeared. We
saw the police open the pedestrian side of the JNU main gate and some men, with
helmets or faces covered, exited the campus. Around 11:15 pm, the street lights
were finally turned on. At some distance, behind us, opposite the main gate (on
the far side of the road) we could see 60-70 people were gathered. One of them
had a walkie talkie (they were not dressed in police or security personnel
uniform). After some discussion, they all dispersed. When the lights came on,
the aggressive crowd had dispersed and only students and those who had come in
solidarity remained. They formed a large ring at the gate. The police did not
allow any of us to enter the campus. Through the gate, we were able to speak
with several JNU faculty members, including Ayesha Kidwai, Nivedita Menon, Atul
Sood and others. The JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) addressed the students
through the gates. https://thewire.in/rights/jnu-violence-eyewitness-account-main-gate
2. Indian Supreme Court: Jan., 10, 2020: Besides the petition by Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, the apex
court had heard the petitions filed by Anuradha Bhasin, Executive Editor of
Kashmir Times, and few intervenors questioning restrictions in the valley. The
Supreme Court on Friday ordered the \ Jammu and Kashmir
administration to review all the restrictions pertaining to Internet services
in the region. Internet
shutdown is in force the Union Territory (UT) from August 5, 2019. A three-judge Bench led by Justice
Ramana said the temporary suspension of Internet and curtailment of basic
freedoms of citizens should not be arbitrary and was open to judicial
review.The court noted that the freedom to use the Internet was a fundamental
right under Article 19(1)(a) of free speech, and trade and commerce through
Internet was protected under Article 19(1)(g). It said restrictive orders under
Section 144 of the CrPC was not a tool to repress legitimate expressions of
citizens. It ordered the UT authorities to publish every order made under the
section to enable challenges by affected persons. “Magistrates, while passing restrictive
orders under Section 144 CrPC, should apply their minds and have a sense of
proportionality between danger to security and liberty of citizens. Repetitive
order without giving reasons and not based on material facts will be
violative," the judgment authored by Justice Ramana stated. The Central government had referred to
terrorist violence in the Kashmir Valley and said that for the past so many
years terrorists were being pushed through from across the border, local
militants and separatist organisation had held the civilians captive in the
region and it would have been “foolish” if the government would not have taken
preventive steps to secure the lives of citizens. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/review-suspension-of-internet-in-jk-supreme-court/article30531478.ece
3. SC judgment: an., 11, 2020:
Indian Supreme Court finally pronounced its judgment on a clutch of
petitions challenging the shutdowns. But though the 130-page judgment delivered
by Justice N.V. Ramana, R. Subhash Reddy and B.R. Gavai makes a strong case for
limiting the government’s power to restrict a citizen’s access to the internet,
it has no explanation for why the court could not strike down restrictions
which it found “unreasonable”.The bench made it clear that an order suspending
internet services indefinitely is impermissible under the Temporary Suspension
of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Service) Rules, 2017, and that
suspension can be resorted to only for temporary duration. “Any order
suspending [the] internet issued under the Suspension Rules, must adhere to the
principle of proportionality and must not extend beyond necessary duration,”
the bench held The bench also made it clear that the state’s power under
Section 144 CrPC – restricting a citizen’s freedom to move and assemble – could
only be used to prevent danger, if it is in the nature of an “emergency” and
for the purpose of preventing obstruction and annoyance or injury to any person
lawfully employed. More important, the power under Section 144, the bench
clarified, cannot be used to suppress the legitimate expression of opinion or
grievance or exercise of any democratic protest https://thewire.in/law/sc-judgment-kashmir-internet-shutdown-why-it-falls-short-of-expectations
4. Kashmir lockdown: Jan., 12, 2020: The Indian-controlled state of Jammu and Kashmir has been on lockdown
since August — making it the longest lockdown to ever take place in a
democratic state. India has imposedcurfews and internet
blackouts across the region, stifling local business like the saffron and apple
trades. India's supreme court has since ruled the indefinite internet blackout unlawful, and ordered the government to review the restrictions. Ashiq
Rashid's family has been farming saffron for more than 80 years — since before
their homeland, Kashmir, was a disputed territory between India and
Pakistan."We've been farming saffron for generations — from my
great-grandfather, grandfather, my father. Now it's me. I'm farming,"
Rashid told Business Insider
Weekly. About 7% of the world's saffron is
harvested in the Indian-controlled union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, making
India one of the top exporters since it gained control of part of the region in
1947. But saffron farmers like Rashid have struggled ever since India's
government has put Kashmir on lockdown, imposing an internet blackout and
region-wide curfews as well as stepping up its military presence. It's been
more than five months since the lockdown begain in August, making it the longest ever imposed
in a democratic state. "During conflicts, a farmer cannot
go to work. He cannot tend to his land, so that affects productivity,"
Rashid said The Indian government sent
in 38,000 extra troops
to smother any signs of dissent, critics say. Modi also imposed a curfew,
blocked roads, and shut off most forms of communication, including the
internet. The lockdown has enraged
Kashmiris, and stifled businesses that rely on the internet. "Many
farmers, many product sellers in Kashmir used to sell their products on online
websites like Amazon, Flipkart and other online websites," Sajad Rafeeq, a
former saffron farmer, told Business Insider Weekly. "So when there's, you
know, any kind of shutdown or when there's, you know, conflict and the
communication is not good, so all of the industry gets affected. In the past five months, it's gotten even
harder to sustain commerce at every level. Apple
farming is the pillar of the region's economy, employing half of the population,
about 3.5 million people. In fact, 70% of India's apples came from Kashmir last
year, contributing $1.5 billion
to the Indian economy. But now,
Kashmiri fruit traders like Maqbool Hussain say they're having trouble getting
their produce to market. "If nobody comes to buy apples from outside, then
how will Kashmiri apples sell?" Hussain said. "We can't find anyone
to work in the markets. Almonds are spoiling. Walnut sales have gone down by
60%." The fallout from the conflict can also be felt hundreds of miles
away from the violence, in the serene mountains of Ladakh, a neighboring region
that's also administered by India. There, herders like Karma Takgol still gather raw wool from
Tibetan goats the way they have since the 15th
century. "Old people say that the villages with the coldest weather have
the best pashmina," Takgol told Business Insider Weekly. Now, Kashmiris say the Indian government's
help cannot make up for the way that the heavy military presence, internet
blackout, and curfews have upended the economy. Saffron farmers like Rashid
said that "because of the conflict here, the curfew here, our ambitions
remain unfulfilled." "Younger people feel angry that I want to
increase the productivity of my land," he said. "We hope our desires
will be fulfilled but the conflict and curfew here don't allow us to
prosper." https://www.businessinsider.com/kashmir-india-lockdown-saffron-farmers-business-2020-1
5. Enforced
Silence: Jan., 12, 2020: A retired academic and social
activist Muslim Jan was detained on Oct. 15 for protesting against the
continued detention of political leaders in Indian-administered Kashmir. She
had marched to the city center along with a group of prominent women in the city
of Srinagar -- summer capital of the region. Even as she was released after a
few days, the busy bee has kept her lips sealed. Because she gained freedom
only after signing a bond that she will not participate in any political
activity. Dozens of political activists, taken into custody after India revoked
autonomy of the region on Aug. 5 have been released recently, but after signing
a pledge to abandon politics or consenting to maintain silence on political
issues. Talking to Anadolu Agency, Harsh Dev Singh, a former lawmaker, said he
sought his release after promising that he will not speak against government
policies. “You can imagine the fate of politics emerging out of these pressure
tactics. There was no politics anyways in Jammu and Kashmir. This is not a
democracy, where you cannot express dissent,” said Singh whose political group
Panthers Party had held a few demonstrations in Jammu – winter capital of the
region. Sajad Ahmad Kichloo, former minister for home, responsible for internal
security was also asked to sign a bond to pledge that he will not issue any
statement or talk about the abrogation of the region’s autonomy. Legal experts
blame authorities for resorting to illegal activities by making politicians and
social workers to sign the pledge, as a precondition for their release. Altaf
Ahmad, a lawyer, said there is a provision in the statute book under Section
107 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), to seek a written pledge or an
undertaking from criminals to prevent them breaching the peace. But there is no
precedence to use it to silence politicians. ''The bond or undertaking has been
tampered, to include lines that the signatory will not participate in any
political activity or will not give any statement or express his views related
to latest political developments in the region,'' said the lawyer. He said that
asking a person, not to make any comment, violates Article 19 of the Indian
Constitution, which forms its basic structure, guaranteeing every person the
right to free speech. Sheikh Showkat
Hussain, political commentator and former teacher of law, said the bonds have
been effectively used to buy the silence of politicians. Peace Activist and
Interlocuter Sushobha Barve is now planning to petition Jammu and Kashmir High
Court against these bonds. Along with Muslim Jan, she too had been detained for
participating in the demonstration and then released after signing the bond..”
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/bond-of-silence-buys-freedom-in-kashmir/1698670
6. US State Department: Jan., 13, 2020: The US State
Department on Saturday said that it is concerned about the detentions in Jammu
and Kashmir as well as the Internet shutdown in the region. It also said that
it considers the trip of foreign envoys to Jammu and Kashmir an important step
but still remains concerned and that it is closely following the envoys'
trip. “We remain concerned by detention
of political leaders and residents, and Internet restrictions. We look forward
to a return to normalcy," said US State Department's Bureau of South and
Central Asian Affairs on Saturday. https://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-politics/concerned-about-jammu-and-kashmir-detentions-internet-shutdown-us-state-department/story/393638.html
1.
Right of return law scrapped: Dec., 31, 2019: India has scrapped a 37-year-old law in Jammu and Kashmir that
permitted the return of its residents who fled to Pakistan from 1947-1954, says
a government notification. the government has announced the scrapping of
further 152 laws, that also included the Jammu and Kashmir Grant of Permit for
Resettlement in the State Act. The law adopted by the state legislature in
1982, though never operational, was providing a glimmer of hope for Kashmiri
Muslim migrants to return and resettle in their homes. Many divided families
living in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Pakistan were awaiting
operationalization of this law over the past 37-years to return to their
homes. "Closing doors on thousands
of Muslim families and at the same time granting citizenship in Kashmir to
Hindus who had fled under similar circumstances, clearly indicates that
abolition of this law is motivated by ideological and religious reasons,"
said Wasim. "Abolition of this law is also in sync with their vicious
policy of undermining the Muslim-majority character of Jammu and Kashmir.
History testifies to the fact that Jammu had a sizeable population of Muslims
who were driven out by murderous mobs https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/india-doors-shut-for-return-of-muslim-migrants-of-kashmir/1688002
2.
HR in IOK: Dec., 31, 2019: This report on the
situation of human rights in Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir (Read as
Indian Occupied Kashmir) covers the period from 1 January to 31 December 2019.
Violence in J&K in 2019 saw similar trends as witnessed during the last
decade. The year witnessed the killings of at least 366 killings in different
incidents of violence. The year witnessed extrajudicial executions of at least
80 civilians in J&K, besides killings of 159 militants and 129 armed
forces. Among 80 civilians killed in 2019, 12 are women. In 2019, as in the
past, children continued to be victims of state violence in J&K as 8
children were killed in various incidents of violence. Besides becoming victims
of extra-judicial executions, children also faced illegal and unjust detention,
ill-treatment, including torture, at the hands of armed forces during detention
and fear of further reprisals. The year also saw targeted violence against
non-local workers post the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, during which
at least 14 non-local workers were killed by unidentified gunmen and several
others were injured. Out of the 80 civilians killed this year, 19 were killed
by armed forces, 17 were killed in cross LOC shelling between Indian and
Pakistani armed forces (We have not been able to ascertain the number of
killings of civilians in Pakistan administered Kashmir.) While 28 civilians
were killed by unidentified gunmen, 6 were killed by militants, 7 were killed
in explosions, one person died after being allegedly hit by a stone and one
person (a non-local) died in cross-firing between armed forces and militants. While the government of India has refused to
acknowledge any civilian killing, the documented cases of killings by JKCCS and
APDP post August-5 at the hands of state forces state otherwise. JKCCS and APDP
have been able to document at least six killings at the hands of the Indian
armed forces following the abrogation of the Article 370 on August 5. Firing of
pellets and teargas shells resulted in at least 6 deaths in 2019. This year 4
people died due to pellet injuries and 3 died due to inhalation of excessive
tear and pepper gas. 2017, Indian armed
forces carried numerous encounters with militants in different areas leading to
killings, severe injuries and destruction of civilian property. A total of 87
encounters took place in Jammu and Kashmir leading to killings of 150 militants
and 29 personnel from Indian armed forces and J&K Police. In 2019, at least
195 Cordon and Search Operations (CASOs) and Cordon and Search Operations
(CADO’s) were conducted in J&K which resulted in the killing of 159
militants. The frequent instances of CASOs have led to multiple human rights
violations of the civilian population, including harassment, molestation,
detention and use of excessive and indiscriminate force. According to the data
compiled by JKCCS and APDP, at least 87 encounters took place between Indian
armed forces and the militants following CASOs in the year 2019. During CASOs,
vandalism and destruction of civilian properties was reported through-out the
year. While the Government of India claimed in Parliament on November 20, that
‘5,161 persons were detained since August 5 out of whom 609 were under
detention while rest were released’, – there is no clear statement on how many
were booked under PSA. As per data obtained by JKCCS and APDP through J&K
High Court Registry, as many as 662 fresh Habeas Corpus petitions (challenging
detentions under PSA) were registered in 2019 out of whom the majority (412)
were registered post August 5, 2019. There continued to be no trace of the fate
of more than 8000 disappeared persons in Jammu and Kashmir and the families of
these victims suffer incessantly as the Government and its institutions could
not provide any relief to these families. Neither any enquiry nor any policy
has been introduced to establish truth behind the thousands of victims of
enforced disappearance in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2019, media continued to be at
the receiving end of the pressure, intimidation and harassment by the
authorities, with several incidents of beating and thrashing of journalists.
Besides physical assaults, journalists in 2019 also faced reprisals for filing
stories on contentious issues. Following a precedent set in the previous years,
the government trampled people’s right of religious freedom in the disguise of
maintaining peace and order. In 2019, no prayers were allowed in the historic
Jamia Masjid for 24 Fridays. The Jamia Masjid was kept under complete lockdown
from August 5 to December 18, for 19 consecutive weeks. During the month of
Ramadhan, congregational prayers on two Fridays were not allowed. A centuries
old tradition of Khoja Digar, a special prayer held at Naqshband Sahab shrine
in old Srinagar City, was disallowed for the first time this year on November
2. On the occasion of Eid Milad, which is traditionally celebrated in Kashmir
by thousands of people observing night long prayers in Hazratbal shrine, only a
small gathering of people was allowed as restrictions were put in place to
prevent people from reaching to the shrine and assembling in large
congregation. In 2019, the right to access information continues to be severely
restricted in J&K as part of the ongoing counter-insurgency measures by the
government of India as there were 55 instances of internet blockades recorded
in the year 2019. Prior to the August 5 decision of the Indian government to
revoke Kashmir’s autonomy, internet services were blocked a total of 54 times
from January 1, 2019 to August 4, 2019. However, on the intervening night of
August 4 and 5 –the government enforced the 55th internet shutdown of the year
and which to date is the longest running (149 days till 31st December
2019) internet blackout not just in Kashmir but in the entire world. Serious
cases of sexualized torture and gendered violence were reported post August 5.
The Independent reported on September 1 a case of torture from Parigam area in
Pulwama district in south Kashmir. Mohammad Yasin Bhat and 11 other men were
detained during the cordon and search operation and tortured. They were
stripped naked and kept in a queue on the main road. All of them were electrocuted
in their genitals. When the physical torture ended, they were made to lie face
down on top of each other, in a pile. Many cases of gender based violence were
reported during cordon and search operations and night raids post August 5,
some of which have been documented by JKCCS and APDP. In J&K, the
destruction of civilian properties by armed forces personnel during encounters
or while dealing with the protestors have been normalized. In the last few
years – especially since 2016, the reports and allegations of destruction of
property by armed forces shows no decline. While in the first
quarter of 2019, at least 18 cases of
destruction of civilian properties were reported in Jammu and Kashmir, in
the next three months of April, May and June instances of destruction of
civilian properties began to be reported less due to unknown reasons. Due to
the restrictions and communication blockade enforced on August 5 by the
authorities, the allegations of destruction and vandalism of civilian properties
by armed forces during night raids were not reported. However, while surveying
several areas in many districts of Kashmir valley, where it was possible to
visit in light of restrictions imposed post August 5, people generally
complained of destruction and vandalism of civilian property by forces
personnel. JKCCS and APDP has documented several cases of vandalism and
destruction of civilian properties at the hands of armed forces. Kashmiris
living in India – be it students, businessmen or professionals, continue
to remain prone to all kinds of harassment from state forces, right-wing
student groups and from general public. In 2019, at least 43 incidents of
attacks on Kashmiris across India were reported throughout India, with 42 of
them alone in the first quarter of 2019, in the aftermath of the Pulwama bomb
blast in which around 48 Indian soldiers were killed. In 2019, five political
activists, and one relative of an elected Sarpanch, were killed in various
incidents of targeted violence in J&K. While two were from Peoples’
Democracy Party (PDP), the rest of the three belonged to BJP, RSS and Congress
respectively .Similar to last year, the trend of suicides and fratricides among
Indian armed forces stationed in J&K saw an uptick as this year, 19
armed forces committed suicide while 3 CRPF personnel were killed in a
fratricidal incident by a CRPF trooper in Udhampur district of Jammu. https://dnd.com.pk/jammu-kashmir-coalition-of-civil-society-confirms-rapes-killings-and-abduction-of-kashmiris-by-indian-army/178819
3.
Human Rights review: Jan., 2019: In occupied Kashmir, a fresh report by Association of Parents
of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society
(JKCCS) has revealed that as many as 662 persons were booked under the
draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) in 2019, most of them after August 5. The
report titled by Annual Human Rights Review 2019 by APDP and JKCCS revealed
that 412 persons in the territory were booked under the PSA post August 5. A
majority of these persons continue to remain detained in jails across India, it
said. “As per data obtained by JKCCS and APDP through J&K High Court
Registry, as many as 662 fresh Habeas Corpus petitions (challenging detentions
under PSA) were registered in 2019 out of which the majority (412) was
registered post August 5,” the report said. As per the report, those booked
under the law are mostly youth, not older than 35 years of age. “The maximum
number of PSA cases has been found within the age group 18-35 years old,
forming about 58.6% of the total number. It is only within this age bracket
that incidences of being booked twice with PSA have been observed,” it said. . According
to the report, the highest number of PSAs in 2019 has been reported in South
Kashmir’s Pulwama district where 105 persons have been detained under the law,
62 of them after August 5. In North Kashmir’s Baramulla district 95 persons
were reported to have been booked with 51 of them after August 5. As per the
data in the report, the highest number of persons booked after August 5 under
the PSA belongs to capital city Srinagar. Amongst the total of 87 persons
detained, 70 have been booked after August 5.
. Nearly 37.4% of the detainees, the report claimed, in PSA related
cases have been moved to jails in various states across India. The location of
about 45% of the detainees, however, the report pointed out, remains “unknown”.
“Of the two unreleased juveniles, a 17-year-old is being held at District Jail
Agra, and the other unreleased juvenile, 15-year-old is being held in Central
Jail Srinagar,” the report added. In response to a petition filed in Supreme
Court of India regarding the arrests of minors in Kashmir, the Juvenile Justice
Committee of Jammu and Kashmir High Court had said that 144 boys, including a
9-year-old kid were arrested by Indian forces post Article 370 abrogation on
August 5’. However, the report stated that scores of minors have been arrested
“illegally and without any charges”. The number of 144 detentions of minors
submitted in Supreme Court by the Juvenile Justice Committee of Jammu and
Kashmir High Court, the report said, is an “under-estimation of the actual
figure of minors kept under detention, including illegal detention.”“Many
detentions of minors were not included in the JJC report, partly because the
minors were reportedly detained for many days in the police stations without
any formal charges brought against them,” the report added. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/12/31/662-persons-booked-under-psa-in-iok-in-2019-report/
4. Kashmiri identity:
Jan., 3, 2020:
All Parties Hurriyat Conference leader, Bilal Siddiqui has said that
India is hell bent upon robbing the Kashmiris of their civilizational, cultural
and religious identity. In a media interview in Srinagar, today, Bilal Siddiqui
pointed out that the controversial Indian laws, the Citizenship (Amendment)
Act and the National Register of Citizens, had proved that BJP-led Indian
government intends to make the survival of the Muslims impossible not only in
the occupied territory but also in whole of India. He said such
moves have vindicated the struggle of the Kashmiri people against New Delhi’s
brutal repression and added that they would in no case reconcile with the
Indian occupation. Bilal Siddiqui said that in order to cripple the
Kashmiris economically, the Indian government was deliberately disallowing
trucks laden with perishable goods especially apples to reach to Indian markets
by halting their movement on the Srinagar-Jammu Highway every now and then Two Indian troops were killed, today, in an attack
in Rajouri district of Jammu region.The troops came under attack when they
launched a cordon and search operation at Khari Thrayat in Nowshera area of the
district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/01/india-hell-bent-upon-robbing-kashmiris-identity/
5.
Fascist attack on HU: Jan., 6, 2019: Several students and teachers have been injured they were
attacked by members of right-wing students' group in New Delhi's Jawaharlal
Nehru University (JNU) on Sunday. Witnesses said violence followed a public
meeting organised by the JNU Teachers Association in connection with a rise in
hostel charges for the students announced some weeks ago. The JNU Students
Union said its president, Aishe Ghosh, and many other students were injured in
stone-pelting and attacks by members of right-wing students' group Akhil
Bharatiya. Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Videos on social media appeared to show a group of several masked
attackers roaming the campus wielding batons as students screamed . Masked goons roaming freely with sticks and Police did NOTHING
to stop them. News channels also showed groups of masked people said to be from
outside the campus - which student bodies blamed on each other's factions -
brandishing rods and sticks, targeting students and teachers and vandalising
property."When the violent mob began beating up students and teachers, we
went closer to the aid of those injured and to also know what was happening, but
they attacked us as well. We had to literally run for our lives," one
student, who wished to remain anonymous, told Al Jazeera. Another student, who also did not wish to
be named, said: "There was such an environment of fear. They were not
asking about anything but were beating up everyone and chasing us." "Students
were forced to lock their doors and female students switched off the lights of
their rooms in order to escape the violent mob," she added. Local media reported that
20 to 30 "What we see today is
possibly the culmination of what has been happening for the past few years.
Earlier there was an intellectual destruction of JNU, now we are looking at the
physical destruction of JNU." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/delhi-students-teachers-injured-clashes-jnu-200105180840606.html
1. Economy: Dec., 24, 2019: The internet shutdown in India's Muslim-majority state of Jammu
and Kashmir, which shows no signs of abating and has been the longest lockdown
in a democracy, is taking a toll on the local economy and has led to the loss
of thousands of jobs, according to rights groups and analysts. Access Now, a
global digital rights group that has been monitoring the situation in Kashmir,
told VOA the "loss of connectivity in the valley" because of the
shutdown has been "devastating to the local economy." "India’s
internet shutdown in Kashmir is the longest ever in a democracy," Raman
Jit Singh Chima, Access Now’s senior international counsel and Asia Pacific
policy director, told VOA. “You have redefined the definition of normalcy, the
J&K [Jammu and Kashmir] definition of normalcy now prevails in the
rest of the country. This is uncaring and unthinking government,” Indian
National Congress said on twitter this week in reference to what’s happening in
Kashmir and the passage of a recent . Some analysts, however, say the internet
lockdown is largely designed to prevent collective political protests. "The
stated reason [by the Indian government] was to contain possible terrorist
attacks. In my view, it is largely designed to prevent collective political
protests of any sort,” Sumit Ganguly, a professor of political science and
the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilization at Indiana University,
told VOA . "As I see [it], the real reason for [the] internet
shutdown is not to restrict communication within Kashmir Valley, but to
restrict Kashmir’s communication with [the] outside world," Swain
said, adding the government is more concerned about its global image as a
democracy. "By taking away the internet, [the] regime is also
controlling the local media and its publication as the journalists are
dependent on [the] regime’s mercy to communicate with [the] outside
world and to contact with their offices," Swain said . Sheikh Ashiq, the
president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told VOA that there
has been a rapid rise in unemployment and a significant drop in Kashmir’s
cottage industry. "Our handicraft sector, that is solely based on the
internet, is at a standstill. As a result, 50,000 artisans are jobless,” Ashiq
said, adding that the export of its heritage industry handicrafts had declined
by 62%. Experts say the action against Kashmir has led to losses in tourism,
health care, education and in the communications industries. "The state
economy has lost more $1.5 billion due to [the] lockdown. Several companies,
whose operations were internet-dependent, have been closed," Swain said. The
internet lockdown "has affected education, health service and even regular
movement of the people, creating a severe humanitarian crisis. Business,
particularly fruit trade and tourism, have [been] affected severely," he
added . Young Kashmiri entrepreneurs like Muheet Mehraj see a bleak future in
Kashmir, as the internet shutdown has placed a cloud over future employment
prospects. "If something doesn’t change for the better with time or our
internet isn’t resumed, then I don’t understand what I am going to do in the
future," Mehraj told VOA.Many businesspeople told VOA they have been
forced to leave Kashmir to earn an income. Syed Mujtaba, the owner of Kashmir
Art Quest, shifted his business to Delhi because of the
lockdown."Eventually, my family and my own logic told me it was best to
leave Kashmir," Mujtaba told VOA https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/kashmir-internet-shutdown-takes-toll-economy
2. Death of
an activist: Dec., 26, 2019: 65-year-old Ghulam Mohammad Bhat was a former member of the
banned Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir, was arrested on 17 July and booked
under the draconian Public Safety Act Bhat died in Naini jail in Uttar Pradesh's
Prayagraj. Bhat died 16,000 kilometres
away from his home in Naini Central
Prison. Bhat, who was frail when jailed, was among 20 Kashmiri prisoners
brought to Naini prison from Anantnag. They had been detained under the
stringent PSA immediately after the Centre scrapped the special status of Jammu
and Kashmir. The septuagenarian was already quite ill during the time of his
detention and had been suffering from ailments like gastroenteritis,
pancreatitis and liver issues, the police said. Bhat was transferred to Naini
prison because the government thought that if he were in Anantnag he would
disrupt peace. Interestingly, the superintendent of Naini prison HB Singh said that
Bhat was paralysed when he was brought to Prayagraj. "He was paralysed at
that time and could barely move on his own." https://www.firstpost.com/india/kashmir-psa-detainee-ghulam-mohammed-bhat-dies-in-up-jail-they-told-me-you-have-to-just-bring-him-back-home-says-32-year-old-son-7820841.html
3.
Press clampdown: Dec., 30, 2019: In occupied Kashmir, the Modi-led Indian communal government
has enforced a total communications blackout, snapping telephone services,
including mobile and broadband internet after it revoked Kashmir’s special
status and bifurcated it into Union Territories on August 5, Indian newspaper,
The Telegraph reported.. The communications blackout has created an information
black hole in occupied Kashmir and the local press bore the brunt of the
blockade as its functioning was crippled, the newspaper said. “The authorities
also snapped the broadband internet connection at Kashmir Press Club on August
5. This move meant that the over 200 club members belonging to the local
journalist fraternity could not file their reports.” The Telegraph reported
that later, a limited internet facility was provided at a makeshift media
centre set up by the information department in a Srinagar hotel. The media
centre was then moved to two small rooms of the information department where
hundreds of journalists had to jostle for space to get a few minutes of
internet access. “I haven’t been able to call officials and/or sources for
months. At the media centre we had to wait in queues for long simply to mail
our stories,” said a local journalist. “It’s frustrating and humiliating. It is
very difficult to continue working in these circumstances,” he deplored.
Another local journalist said how many like him had been forced to travel to
New Delhi, India, frequently to access the internet and continue filing
stories. Kashmir Press Club’s elected board raised the issue of the
communications gag with the authorities on several occasions, urging them to
restore internet for journalists and media outlets, including newspaper offices
and the club. “But all these efforts have proved to be futile as these services
have not been restored to journalists for over four months now.” What got published in prominent local
English dailies was a reflection of the censorship and government pressure on
the press. For example, Greater Kashmir, the largest circulated
daily published from Kashmir, avoided publishing editorials on the emerging
situation for months after August 5 when the government revoked the special
status and bifurcated the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union
Territories. There was little or no coverage of how people suffered in the
weeks after the communication blockade and clampdown was imposed. Its edit page
did not carry opinion pieces on the situation in Kashmir post-August 5. In
fact, the paper was published without an editorial page for several days. Since
then Greater Kashmir has not published a single opinion piece in its edit page
on the revocation of Article 370 and the subsequent clampdown in the valley.
The only opinion piece it did publish, in the third week of the clampdown,
argued, curiously, in favor of the revocation of the special status. Apart from
that day, leading articles, columns and editorials steered clear of commenting
on the clampdown and the humanitarian crisis in the valley because of the
communications shutdown. Instead it wrote and commented on “The Subtle Secrets
of Nature (August 9), “Vistas’s of Botox Therapy in Medicine (August 17),
“Macbeth and the Moral Universe (August 22), and “Poetry and Journalism”
(August 23).
Big Brother diktats.Other prominent dailies of Kashmir also adopted a soft
editorial line post-August 5. There were no reports on the effects of the total
communication shutdown on everyday lives of people, arrests of thousands of
local youths, torture of youths in southern Kashmir, crippling of healthcare
and other emergency services. The front pages carried reports based on the
government version of events culled from official press releases. What was not
covered in the local press said a lot about the curtailment of the freedom of
the press. The editor of a prominent local daily said the clampdown was also
meant for local journalists, who were prevented from adhering to an independent
line while covering Kashmir post- August 5. He said a senior police
officer visited his newspaper office in August after a photo essay on the
ground situation in Kashmir had been published. The officer then went on to
advise editors against publishing such photo features. After that
“reprimand”, no prominent English daily published photo essays on life in the valley.
Online editions of most local dailies remained suspended for more than three
months since August 5 after internet services were snapped across the valley.
Only one local daily, Kashmir Monitor, updated its web edition by accessing the
internet from outside the state. The authorities also snapped the broadband
internet connection at Kashmir Press Club on August 5. This move meant that the
over 200 club members belonging to the local journalists’ fraternity could not
file their reports. Later, limited internet facility was provided at a
makeshift media centre set up by the government information department in a
Srinagar hotel. The media centre was then moved to two small rooms of the
information department where hundreds of journalists had to jostle for space to
get a few minutes of internet access. “I haven’t been able to call officials
and/or sources for months. At the media centre we had to wait in queues for
long simply to mail our stories,” said a local journalist. “It’s frustrating
and humiliating. It is very difficult to continue working in these
circumstances.” Another local journalist said how many like him had been forced
to travel out of Kashmir (New Delhi) frequently to access the internet and
continue filing stories. Other Kashmir journalists, working for Delhi-based
papers and magazines, had to send their stories in pen drives via a friendly
face or acquaintance traveling to New Delhi. At times, the authorities also
resorted to intimidation. On the night of August 14, Irfan Malik,
a reporter with Greater Kashmir, was picked up by police from his home in South
Kashmir’s Tral district and locked up in a local police station. After his
arrest created a furore, he was released on August 17. No reason was given for
his arrest. On August 31, Journalist and political analyst Gowhar Geelani was
stopped at New Delhi airport before he could board a flight. He was traveling
to Germany to attend a conference. A few months ago, senior journalist and
editor of an Urdu newspaper Ghulam Jeelani Qadri (62) was detained by police
after he was picked up from his residence in Srinagar soon after he’d returned
from office in the evening. Qadri was arrested in connection with a case dating
back to 1992. He was released on bail the next day following a court appearance.
Another Kashmiri journalist, Asif Sultan, remains in detention since August
2018. He’d written a story for a local magazine on militant commander Burhan
Wani who was killed in an encounter on July 8, 2016. Intelligence agencies and
police have summoned and questioned several other journalists about the source
of reports filed after August 5. This has created an atmosphere of
fear among local reporters and editors. According to a report titled,
“Kashmir’s Information Blockade” released on September 4 by the Network of
Women in Media, India (NWMI) and the Free Speech Collective (FSC), the
continued communication shutdown in Kashmir has resulted in “throttling of
independent media”.The two-member team from NWMI and FSC spent five days in
Kashmir (from August 30 and September 3) to determine the impact of the
communications crackdown on the media in Kashmir. The team spoke to more than
70 journalists, correspondents and editors of newspapers and news websites in
Srinagar and South Kashmir, including members of the local administration and
citizens.“Our examination revealed a grim and despairing picture of the media
in Kashmir, fighting for survival against the most incredible of odds, as it
works in the shadow of security forces in one of the most highly militarized
zones of the world and a myriad government controls,” the report said.
“The
team observed a high degree of surveillance, informal ‘investigations’ and even
arrest of journalists who publish reports considered adverse to the government
or security forces; controls on the facilities available for print publication,
government advertising to select publications, restrictions on
mobility in select areas including hospitals and the most crippling
communications shutdown of all time. Significantly, there is no official
curfew, no official notification for the shutdown,” the report noted. Free flow
of information has been blocked and journalists continue to face severe
restrictions in all processes of news gathering, verification and
dissemination, according to the report, leaving behind “a troubled silence that
bodes ill for freedom of expression and media freedom.” As Kashmir looks at the
New Year, both broadband and mobile internet and the entire social media
network, which was also useful for local journalists for newsgathering,
continues to remain blocked for about five months now. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/12/29/press-in-occupied-kashmir-forced-into-silence/
1.
Gilani Sahib: Dec.,17,
2019: The Chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali
Gilani has reiterated the Kashmiris’ resolve to continue the ongoing struggle
until the last Indian soldier withdraws from the Kashmiri soil adding that he
is sure that the resistance movement will finally force India to concede
defeat. Syed Ali Gilani in a message to the Kashmiri people said, “The
overwhelmingly growing public participation in the resistance movement further
increased Indian state’s sense of insecurity and in utter desperation and
frustration, and in flagrant violation of the international law, the Government
of India finally made the illegal, immoral, inhuman and undemocratic
announcement of annexing Kashmir into the Indian union.” To implement the
decision of Aug 5, he said, India put the entire Kashmir region under an
unprecedented and indefinite security lockdown and communications black out. “Schools,
colleges universities, markets and mosques, everything was shut. Telephone,
mobile and internet services were suspended. More than 18 thousand people were
arrested and thrown into police lock ups and prisons.” Gilani said that
thousands of children youth and elderly were brutalised and women were
assaulted in their homes and those protesting these excesses were issued naked threats of rape. The ailing leader pointed out that despite all these
brutalities and excesses, Kashmiri people continued their resistance delivering
a strong message to the whole world that their resolve remains unbroken and
they will never give up their demand for freedom.Warning of India’s future
designs, Gilani said, “Our Muslim-majority character will be targeted and
assaulted at every level and our right to live as Muslims will be taken away
from us. There is also a strong possibility that our mosques, khanqahs and
seminaries would no longer remain safe and may suffer the same fate as Babri
Majid.” At the end, he said, “Advanced
old age and ill health may not grant me more respite to communicate with you
again. It has been my longstanding wish that I be buried in the graveyard of
Baqee, so that on the day of Judgement I meet my Lord in the company of those
great personalities whose footprints serve as lighthouses for the Muslim Ummah
and following whom I have tried, to the best of my abilities, to defend the
Kashmir part of Muslim Ummah and strive for the Iqamat e Deen.” https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/12/17/resistance-till-last-indian-soldier-quits-kashmir-gilani/
2.
Economic Losses: Dec., 19, 2019: In occupied Kashmir, the Kashmir Chamber and Industry has said
that the economy of the territory suffered a loss of Rs 178.78 billion in four
months after imposition of lockdown by Indian government on August 5. A report released by the Research Section of
Kashmir Media Service on the occasion of International Migrants Day, today,
revealed that the Indian atrocities since 1947 have rendered over 3.5 million
Kashmiris migrants. The report added that the unabated Indian state terrorism
during the past thirty years had forced over forty thousand Kashmiris to
migrate and live outside the occupied territory as refugees and migrants. . https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/12/18/iok-economy-suffered-rs-178-78-billion-loss/
3. LoC Violation: Dec., 20,2019: At least two
civilians were martyred and two others including a woman injured as Indian
forces violated ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) on Thursday Three soldiers of Pakistan Army also got injured in exchange
of firing between the two forces. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2121450/1-two-civilians-martyred-india-violates-ceasefire-along-loc/
1.
Religious
freedom in Kashmir: Dec., 11, 2109:
For years Romi Jan’s mornings would begin with the plaintive call to prayer
that rang out from the central mosque in disputed Kashmir’s largest city. The
voice soothed her soul and made her feel closer to God. Not anymore. For nearly
four months now, the voice that would call out five times a day from the
minarets of the Jamia Masjid and echo across Srinagar has been silent, a result
of India’s ongoing security operations in this Muslim-majority region. “The
mosque closure is a relentless agony for me and my family,” Jan said. “I can’t
tolerate it, but I am helpless.” last summer India began pouring more troops
into its side of Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan and
claimed by both in its entirety. It implemented a security lockdown in which it
pressed harsh curbs on civil rights, arrested thousands of people, blocked
internet and phone service, and shuttered important mosques. While some of the
conditions have since been eased, some mosques and Muslim shrines in the region
either remain shuttered or have had their access limited. Muslims say this is
undermining their constitutional right to religious freedom and only deepening
anti-India sentiment. The centuries-old Jamia Masjid, made of brick and wood,
is one of the oldest in this city of 1.2 million, where 96% of people are
Muslim. When it’s open, thousands of people congregate there for prayers. In
June, the U.S. State Department said in a report that religious freedom in
India continued a downward trend in the year 2018. India’s foreign ministry
rejected the report. In August, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation raised
concerns about India’s lockdown in Kashmir and called for authorities to ensure
that Kashmiri Muslims could exercise their religious rights.The ongoing
restrictions in Kashmir have also included gatherings at Muslim shrines and
religious festivals.In August, worshipers were told to host the prayers for the
festival of Eid-al-Adha inside small neighborhood mosques rather than in the
large outdoor gatherings that are normal. In September, authorities banned the
annual Muharram processions that mark the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s
grandson. Last month, during the yearly celebration of the birth anniversary of
the Prophet Muhammad, authorities blocked all roads leading to Dargah Hazratbal,
the region’s most revered Muslim shrine. Only a few hundred devotees were
allowed to pray there — far fewer than the tens of thousands the event has been
known to draw. Restrictions on such gatherings are particularly galling to
Kashmiri Muslims because they have long complained that the government curbs
their religious freedom on the pretext of law and order while promoting and
patronizing an annual Hindu pilgrimage to the Amarnath Shrine in Kashmir that
draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. Sheikh Showkat, a professor of
international law and human rights at the Central University of Kashmir, warned
that such a duality in policy sent a clear message that the government no
longer remains impartial toward different religions and further alienates the
people of Kashmir. “It no way augers well for any peace,” he said. “Whether it
triggers further radicalization or not, it definitely infuriates people about
the safety and security of their faith. It can also snowball into a mass
mobilization against the state.”
2.
Economic
impact: Dec., 11, 2019: Uncertainty in Kashmir has made the cross-continental journey
of walnuts and apples from the US or Chile a better deal for many traders
despite sky-high tariffs because militants in the valley have attacked
fruit-laden trucks, while restrictions on the Internet have made buyer-seller
communication difficult. This is
great news for US suppliers, who feared losing business as India imposed
retaliatory tariffs on several commodities including walnuts and almonds after
the Trump administration.. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/us-chile-big-winners-as-kashmir-walnuts-lose-crunch/articleshow/72449804.cms
3. Kashmir Economy:
Dec., 12, 2019: Indian Authorities also cut all
communications and imposed a curfew. The continued internet shutdown
has severely affected businesses and resulted in unemployment, mostly in the
export business, the information technology sector, and the hospitality and
tourism industries According to the
Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI), the region's main trade
body, the lockdown
has resulted in economic losses worth at least $1.5 billion (€1.35 billion) for
the region since August 5. The KCCI plans to file a legal complaint against the
federal Indian government for the financial losses. Nasir Khan, senior vice
president of the KCCI, told DW that the trade body would ask the court to
appoint an external agency to assess the damages. Muneeb Mir, a young
entrepreneur in Srinagar, told DW that he is contemplating shutting down one of
his businesses after suffering a big financial loss. "There is hardly any
business growth, and a series of setbacks has shattered our confidence,"
he said. Similarly, the hotel business in Kashmir has also been affected due to
a lack of touristic activities in the region. Despite the government's
assurance, the economic situation in Jammu and Kashmir has so far not shown any
sign of improvement. And Kashmiri businessmen, especially restaurant owners,
tour and travel operators, young entrepreneurs and information technology
professionals, are facing a difficult time. The tourism industry, which is
considered the region's economic backbone, has remained stagnant since August.
The KCCI says that New Delhi's narrative of Kashmir development is
"deceptive." "The Indian government cannot blame political
parties and other groups for the situation in Kashmir. No one is issuing
protest calls here. The prevailing atmosphere of uncertainty is a result of the
government's own actions," the KCCI argued. To make matters worse,
the early snowfall in Kashmir has further paralyzed business activities.
Officials say that a large number of orchards have been affected by the
snowfall in Northern Kashmir alone, negatively impacting the region's rural
economy. https://www.dw.com/en/kashmirs-economy-suffers-due-to-continued-lockdown/a-51611520
4. Citizenship
bill: Dec., 12, 2019: India's parliament on Wednesday passed
a contentious bill that seeks to grant citizenship to
non-Muslim immigrants from some countries, as hundreds of troops were deployed
in the northeast which has been hit by violent protests. The bill will let the
Indian government grant citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants who
entered India from three neighbouring countries before 2015 — but not if they
are Muslim. The legislation was passed 125-105 by the upper house, after the
lower house voted in support of it just after midnight on Tuesday. It will be
sent to the president to be signed into law, with his approval seen as a
formality. Opponents of the legislation
have threatened to challenge it in the Supreme Court, saying it violates the
principles of equality and secularism enshrined in the constitution. For
Islamic groups, the opposition, rights groups and others this is part of Modi's
Hindu-nationalist agenda to marginalise India's 200 million Muslims — something
he denies. Besides stoking concern among Muslims, the proposed changes have
also led to demonstrations in the northeastern states where residents are
unhappy about an influx of Hindus from neighbouring Bangladesh who stand to
gain citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB). In a third day of
protests in the far-flung region, several hundred troops were deployed in
Tripura state and in Guwahati, Assam's biggest city, a senior army official
said. Police fired tear gas in different parts of Guwahati as several thousand
demonstrators attempted to barge past security barriers to converge on the
adjoining state capital Dispur. Tripura and parts of Assam suspended mobile
internet services, with Assam wanting to avoid social media posts that could
“inflame passions”. Gatherings of more than four people were banned for 24
hours. ,” local activist Akhil Gogoi said ahead of the upper house vote. Derek
O'Brien, an opposition lawmaker in the upper house, on Wednesday said the
legislation bore an “eerie similarity” to Nazi laws against Jews in 1930s
Germany. “In 1935 there were citizenship laws to protect people with German
blood ... today we have a faulty bill that wants to define who true Indian
citizens are,” he said. Many Muslims in India say they have been made to feel
like second-class citizens since Modi stormed to power in 2014. Several cities
perceived to have Islamic-sounding names have been renamed, while some school
textbooks have been altered to downplay Muslims' contributions to India In
August, Modi's administration rescinded the partial autonomy of Muslim-majority
occupied Kashmir and split it into two. A citizens' register in Assam finalised
this year left 1.9 million people, many of them Muslims, facing possible
statelessness, detention camps and even deportation. Modi's government has said
it intends to replicate the register nationwide with the aim of removing all
“infiltrators” by 2024. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom on
Monday termed the bill as a “dangerous turn in the wrong direction”. https://www.dawn.com/news/1521685/india-passes-contentious-citizenship-bill-excluding-muslims-amid-violent-protests
5. Conference: Dec.,
12, 2109:. Barrister Tramboo recalled that
since 5 August 2019, occupied Kashmir is under blockade meaning cut-off from
rest of the world. He expressed deep anguish that the lockdown has caused; (i)Immense
human rights misery: 8 million Kashmiris are imprisoned in their homes by
800,000 Indian troops depriving them of right to liberty, food, assembly and
expression; arresting and detaining thousands of young Kashmiris across India;
(ii)No health care: Blockade has collapsed health care apparatus altogether
there causing deaths particularly relating to pregnant women and due to absence
of life-saving drugs such as chemotherapy and dialyses; (iii)No education: All
schools and colleges are closed since 5 August 2019, depriving all Kashmiri
school and college going boys and girls of right to education with no
examinations in place; and (iv) Economic blockade; Kashmir’s economy is reliant
on its handicraft, agriculture and tourist industry; lock out has cost US $4
billion economic loss to Kashmir resulting in economic chaos. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/12/11/2020-commission-kashmir-launched-for-realising-kashmiris-birth-right/
6. India and democracy: Dec., 13, 2019: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/12/11/amanpour-kashmir-dexter-filkins-rana-ayyub.cnn How two reporters snuck
into Kashmir The New Yorker's Dexter Filkins
and Indian journalist Rana Ayyub teamed up to sneak into the contested
territory of Kashmir. They discuss with Christiane what they found.
1.
Quelling
protest: Dec., 3, 2019: By
August, New Delhi had begun to set up the security apparatus and other measures
to enable the passage of Article 370 in parliament. The Valley had been more or
less reined in, if not tamed by then. New Delhi had succeeded in telegraphing
the message of a no-holds-barred reprisal should anyone hinder its agenda. When
on Aug. 5, at around 11AM, union home minister Amit Shah announced the repeal
of Article 370 in parliament, Kashmiris had been snapped from the world. There
were no phones and no internet. Thousands
had
been arrested, many of them shifted to jails across India. Almost
all major leaders across the mainstream-separatist divide, including three
former chief ministers, Farooq Abdullah, his son Omar Abdullah, and Mehbooba
Mufti, were under house arrest. Disconnected from one another, Kashmiris could
only react to Shah’s announcement in disbelief. Their ability to organise had
been broken. There was no leader active on the scene, no functional political
or social organisation which could do this. Even if there were, they couldn’t
communicate. Militant leaders, for instance, couldn’t use social media to
convey their messages and provoke the people.Though the newspapers began coming
out after a gap of a few days, they published little on the ongoing situation.
Chary of having to take a position on the issue, they went without editorials.
Their opinion pieces spoke about health, environment, and international issues.
To pre-empt spontaneous mobilisation, security personnel in significant numbers
were stationed along streets and at the entry and exit points of Srinagar and
other major towns. In volatile south Kashmir, where the government apprehended
a forceful reaction, mass arrests were complemented by the arbitrary use of
torture against youth, according to reports. Youth were randomly picked up
from their homes during nocturnal raids or called to security camps and beaten,
according to published reports. In one chilling case at village Heff Shirmal in
Shopian, the shrieks of a person being tortured were allegedly relayed on a loudspeaker to the surrounding villages. This didn’t completely prevent
protests though. Without anyone calling for it, Kashmir has been observing a
shutdown ever since. Public transport is largely off the roads. By the
government’s own admission, there were more than 300 instances of “law and
order issues.” One of the biggest protests was taken out by people at Anchar, in
the outskirts of Srinagar, and saw participation from around 10,000
people.
It was, however, stopped before it could enter the densely settled, barricaded
parts of the main city. Subsequent attempts in Anchar were similarly thwarted,
and so were those from the other areas. Protesters were allegedly shot at with pellet
guns, leaving scores injured.
Many who were hit in their eyes were partially blinded. Three
and a half months later, as Kashmir anxiously looks forward to the future,
businesses are tentatively re-opening and public transport is returning to
roads. Does it mean normalcy? Far from it. Kashmir remains without internet and prepaid mobile
phones. Leaders continue to be under detention. The lockdown remains
intact, though security personnel don’t forbid normal movement of vehicles and
people.
All kinds of
protests are strictly barred, including silent marches—around two dozen women
who tried to hold one in October were quickly hauled off to a lock-up and
released only after signing a bond that they won’t repeat it. Given New Delhi’s nervousness about
an organised mass resistance at a time when the world’s attention is focussed
on Kashmir, it looks unlikely that the region will be allowed to have a normal
political and civil society activity anytime soon. https://qz.com/india/1760086/modi-shahs-plan-to-stop-kashmir-protests-after-article-370-move/
2.
Plebiscite: Dec., 5 , 2019: A respected American weekly magazine has carried a damning
article in its latest issue about Indian Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi’s
virulent push to promote Hindu nationalism in India that targets Muslims and
other religious minorities, his illegal annexation of Jammu and Kashmir and the
repressive lockdown of the disputed state. “The change in Kashmir upended more
than half a century of careful politics, but the Indian press reacted with
nearly uniform approval,”wrote Dexter Filkins, a staff writer of The New Yorker
who recently sneaked into the curfew-bound Kashmir along with an Indian
journalist Rana Ayyub, whose book, “Gujarat Files,” about a massacre of Muslims
in the Indian state of Gujarat, has made her a target of Hindu nationalists.
“Ever since Modi was first elected Prime Minister, in 2014, he has been
recasting the story of India, from that of a secular democracy accommodating a
uniquely diverse population to that of a Hindu nation that dominates its
minorities, especially the country’s two hundred million Muslims,” Filkins said
in an in-depth article in which he also highlighted the courageous struggle of
Ms. Ayyub in getting the truth out about Modi and his associates decisive move
to subdue minorities and to turn India into a Hindu country. “Modi and his
allies have squeezed, bullied, and smothered the press into endorsing what they
call the ‘New India’,” he wrote, citing a number of instances about how much of
the Indian media now supports the prime minister’s oppressive policies,
ignoring his failures and covering up his lies, especially about the Balakot
operation.“Kashmiris greeted Modi’s decision with protests, claiming that his
real goal was to inundate the state with Hindu settlers. After the initial
tumult subsided, though, the Times of India and other major newspapers began
claiming that a majority of Kashmiris quietly supported Modi—they were just too
frightened of militants to say so aloud. Television reporters, newly arrived
from Delhi, set up cameras on the picturesque shoreline of Dal Lake and
dutifully repeated the government’s line,” said The New Yorker article,
entitled: Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi’s India. Although foreign journalists
are banned for entering occupied Kashmir, Filkins clad himself in Indian dress
and took the Srinagar-bound flight from India along with journalist Rana Ayyub.
They dodged past the heavy Indian security at the airport and got into a taxi
to the city two weeks after the August 5 crackdown. “Even from a moving car, it
was clear that the reality in Kashmir veered starkly from the picture in the
mainstream Indian press,” he wrote. “Soldiers stood on every street corner.
Machine-gun nests guarded intersections, and shops were shuttered on each
block. “Apart from the military presence, the streets were lifeless. At
Khanqah-e-Moula, the city’s magnificent eighteenth-century Mosque, Friday
prayers were banned. Schools were closed. Cell-phone and Internet service was
cut off. “Indian intelligence agents are widely understood to monitor the
rosters of local hotels, so Ayyub and I, along with an Indian photographer
named Avani Rai, had arranged to stay with a friend. “When we got there, a Kashmiri
doctor who was visiting the house told us to check the main hospital, where
young men were being treated after security forces fired on them. The police
and soldiers were using small-gauge shotguns—called pellet guns by the
locals—and some of the victims had been blinded. ‘Go to the ophthalmology
ward,’ the doctor said.“At the hospital, we found a scene of barely restrained
chaos, with security officers standing guard and families mixing with the sick
in corridors. While I stood in a corner, trying to make myself inconspicuous,
(Ms) Ayyub ran to the fourth floor to speak to an eye doctor. After a few
minutes, she returned and motioned for me and Rai to follow. ‘Ward eight,’ she
said. Thirty gunshot victims were inside.“As the three of us approached, a
smartly dressed man with a close-cropped beard stepped into our path and placed
his hand on (Ms.) Ayyub’s shoulder. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said. Rai
looked at me and quietly said, ‘Run.’ I turned and dashed into the crowd. The
bearded man took (Ms.) Ayyub and Rai by the arm and led them away. When (Ms.)
Ayyub and the photographer were detained at the hospital in Srinagar, I found a
hiding place across the street, screened by a wall and a fruit vender; (Ms.)
Ayyub would have faced serious repercussions if she was found to have snuck in
a foreigner. After about an hour, they emerged. (Ms.) Ayyub said that an
intelligence officer had questioned them intently, then released them with an
admonition: ‘Don’t come back.’ “The next morning, we drove to the village of
Parigam, near the site of the suicide attack that prompted Modi’s air strikes
against Pakistan. We’d heard that Indian security forces had swept through the
town and detained several men. The insurgency has broad support in the villages
outside the capital, and the road to Parigam was marked by the sandbags and
razor wire of Indian Army checkpoints. For most of the way, the roads were
otherwise deserted.“In the village, (Ms.) Ayyub stopped the car to chat with
locals. Within a few minutes, she’d figured out whom we should talk to first:
Shabbir Ahmed, the proprietor of a local bakery. We found him sitting
cross-legged on his porch, shelling almonds into a huge pile. In interviews,
(Ms.) Ayyub slows down from her usual debate-team pace; she took a spot on the
porch as if she had dropped by for a visit. Ahmed, who is fifty-five, told her
that, during the sweeps, an armored vehicle rumbled up to his home just past
midnight one night. A dozen soldiers from the Rashtriya Rifles, an élite
counter-insurgency unit of the Indian Army, rushed out and began smashing his
windows. When Ahmed and his two sons came outside, he said, the soldiers hauled
the young men into the street and began beating them. ‘I was screaming for
help, but nobody came out,’ Ahmed said. ‘Everyone was too afraid.’“Ahmed’s sons
joined us on the porch. One of them, Muzaffar, said the soldiers had been
enraged by young people who throw rocks at their patrols. They dragged Muzaffar
down the street toward a Mosque. “Throw stones at the mosque like you throw
stones at us,” one of the soldiers commanded him. “Muzaffar said he and his
brother, Ali, were taken to a local base, where the soldiers shackled them to
chairs and beat them with bamboo rods. “They kept asking me, ‘Do you know any
stone throwers?’—and I kept saying I don’t know any, but they kept beating me,’
he said. When Muzaffar fainted, he said, a soldier attached electrodes to his
legs and stomach and jolted him with an electrical current. Muzaffar rolled up
his pants to reveal patches of burned skin on the back of his leg. It went on
like that for some time, he said: he would pass out, and when he regained
consciousness the beating started again. “My body was going into spasms,” he
said, and began to cry. After Muzaffar and Ali were released, their father took
them to the local hospital. “They have broken my bones,” Muzaffar said. “I can
no longer prostrate myself before God.” “It was impossible to verify the
brothers’ tale, but, as with many accounts that (Ms.) Ayyub and I heard in the
valley, the anguish was persuasive. “I am a slightly more civilized version of
these people,” (Ms.) Ayyub told me. ‘I see what’s happening—with the
propaganda, with the lies, what the government is doing to people. Their issues
are way more extensive—their lives. But I have everything in common with these
people. I feel their pain.’‘One afternoon, Ayyub and I walked through Soura, a
hardscrabble neighborhood in Srinagar’s old city which has been the site of
several confrontations with security forces. By the time we got there, the
police and the Army had withdrawn, evidently deciding that the narrow streets
left their men too vulnerable. The locals told us that they regarded Soura as
liberated territory and vowed to attack anyone from the government who tried to
enter. Every wall seemed plastered with graffiti. One bit of scrawl said,
“Demographic change is not acceptable!” The Kashmiris we met felt trapped,
their voices stifled. ‘The news that is true—they never show it,’ Yunus, a shop
owner, said of the Indian media. Days before, his thirteen-year-old son, Ashiq,
had been arrested and beaten by security forces, just as he himself had been
thirty years before. ‘Nobody has ever asked the people of Kashmir what they
want—whether to stay with India or join Pakistan or become independent,’ he
said. ‘We have heard so many promises. We have lifted bodies with our hands,
lifted heads that are separate, lifted legs that are separate, and put them all
together into graves.’ “Many Kashmiris still refuse to accept Indian sovereignty,
and some recall the promise, made by the United Nations in 1948, that a
plebiscite would determine the future of the state. Kashmir was assigned
special status—enshrined in Article 370—and afforded significant powers of
self-rule. For the most part, those powers have never been realized. Beginning
in the late eighties, an armed insurgency has turned the area into a
battleground. The conflict in Kashmir is largely a war of ambush and reprisal;
the insurgents strike the Indian security forces, and the security forces crack
down. Groups like Human Rights Watch have detailed abuses on both sides, but
especially by the Indian government. “The R.S.S. and other Hindu nationalists
have claimed that the efforts to assuage the Kashmiris created a self-defeating
dynamic. The insurgency has stifled economic development, they said; Article
370 was curtailing investment and migration, dooming the place to backwardness.
Modi’s decision to revoke the article seemed the logical endpoint of the R.S.S.
world view: the Kashmiri deadlock would be broken by overwhelming Hindu
power.“As (Ms.) Ayyub and I drove around Kashmir, it seemed unclear how the
Indian government intended to proceed. Economic activity had ground to a halt.
Schools were closed. Kashmiris were cut off from the outside world and from one
another. “We are overwhelmed by cases of depression,” a physician in Srinagar
told us. Many Kashmiris warned that an explosion was likely the moment the
security measures were lifted. ‘Modi is doing what he did in Gujarat twenty
years ago, when he ran a tractor over the Muslims there,’ a woman named
Dushdaya said. “The newspaper columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote that, in
Kashmir, ‘Indian democracy is failing.’ He suggested that the country’s
Muslims, who have largely resisted radicalization, would conclude that they had
nothing else to turn to. ‘The B.J.P. thinks it is going to Indianise Kashmir,’
he wrote. “Instead, what we will see is potentially the Kashmirisation of
India: The story of Indian democracy written in blood and betrayal.” Filkins,
the New Yorker staff writer, then moved to Srinagar with Rana Ayyub where they
visited the neighborhood of Mehju Nagar, which many young men have left to join
the militants. “The talk on the street was of a couple named Nazeer and
Fehmeeda, whose son, Momin, had been taken away in the crackdown. Armed men
from the Central Reserve Police Force came to the door late one night. A masked
civilian—evidently an informer—pointed at Momin. The soldiers took him away,”
he wrote. “We found Fehmeeda at her house, kneeling on the floor of an
unadorned main room. The morning after the raid, she told us, she went to a
C.R.P.F. base, where her son was being held. He told her that he’d been beaten.
‘I begged them to give him back to me, but they wouldn’t consider it,” she
said. When Fehmeeda returned the following day, the police told her that Momin
had been transferred to the city’s central jail. But guards there said that
he’d been transferred to a prison in Uttar Pradesh, on the other side of the
country. ‘There’s no use crying, Auntie,’ they told her.“Fehmeeda said she was
not told what charges had been filed against Momin; Indian antiterrorism law
allows the security forces to detain any Kashmiri for any reason, or no reason,
for up to two years. In the three decades that Kashmir has been in open
rebellion, tens of thousands of men have disappeared, and many have not
returned. “I must accept that I will not see him again,” she said.At Fehmeeda’s
house, her friends had gathered around her, while men from the neighborhood
stood outside open windows. Ayyub sat facing her, their knees touching. As
Fehmeeda spoke, some of the men talked over her, and each time (Ms.) Ayyub told
them to shut up: “Don’t scold her, Uncle, she has problems of her own.”,“Fehmeeda
had begun stoically, but gradually she lost her composure. (Ms.) Ayyub gripped
her hands and said, ‘Your son will return to you. God is very big.’ Fehmeeda
was not consoled. Momin, a construction worker, had paid for the entire
family’s needs, including her medicine for a kidney ailment. Fehmeeda’s
thoughts began to tumble out in fragments: ‘I told him, don’t throw stones,
somebody took him, somebody was paid—’ Then she started to sob and heave. (Ms.)
Ayyub began to cry, too. ‘I can’t take any more,’ she said. ‘This is too much.’
“(Ms.) Ayyub said goodbye to Fehmeeda, promising to return with medicine for
her kidneys. (A few weeks later, she did.) We were both gripped by a sense of
foreboding, that we were witnessing the start of something that would last many
years. ‘I feel this as a Muslim,’ Ayyub said. ‘It’s happening everywhere in
India.’ “We rode in silence for a while. I suggested that maybe it was time for
her to leave India—that Muslims didn’t have a future there. But Ayyub was going
through a notebook. ‘I’m not leaving,’ she said. ‘I have to stay. I’m going to
write all this down and tell everyone what happened’.” A large part of the huge
article was devoted to journalist Rana Ayyub’s investigative work had once gone
undercover to expose the ruling BJP’s ties to sectarian and extrajudicial
violence against the Muslim minority. the article also carries details of the
rise of Narendra Modi from humble beginnings to the pinnacle of power and his
ruthless machinations and intrigues to push forward his anti-Muslim agenda and
turn India into a Hindu state. Filkins wrote, “A feeling of despair has settled
in among many Indians who remain committed to the secular, inclusive vision of
the country’s founders.” “Gandhi and Nehru were great, historic figures, but I
think they were an aberration,” Krishna Prasad, the former Outlook editor, told
Fikins. “It’s very different now.The institutions have crumbled—universities,
investigative agencies, the courts, the media, the administrative agencies,
public services. And I think there is no rational answer for what has happened,
except that we pretended to be what we were for fifty, sixty years. But we are
now reverting to what we always wanted to be, which is to pummel minorities, to
push them into a corner, to show them their places, to conquer Kashmir, to ruin
the media, and to make corporations servants of the state. And all of this
under a heavy resurgence of Hinduism. India is becoming the country it has
always wanted to be. https://dunyanews.tv/en/Pakistan/521586-Kashmiris-committed-plebiscite-rejecting-India/%27s-sovereignty-
3. Land grab: Dec., 5, 2019: The government has started identifying land
in Jammu and Kashmir for companies from outside the erstwhile state who have
shown willingness to invest in the region since the reading down of Article 370
of the Constitution. A senior government official said so far around 17,000
kanals of state land has been earmarked in regions of Jammu and Kashmir.
Ravinder Kumar, managing director of the State Industrial Development
Corporation (SIDCO) said at least 10,000 kanals of land has been identified in
Kathua and Samba districts of Jammu and another 5,000 to 7,000 kanals have been
earmarked in Ganderbal, Kupwara and some other districts of Kashmir.“There is
some land in Vessu (in Anantnag) also,” Kumar told the Wire, adding that
the process for identifying land has been ongoing for some time now. According
to Kumar, the government has issued directions to all district commissioners,
both in Jammu and Kashmir, to submit details about the state land available in
their jurisdictions.“We have enough land in both the regions,” he said. While
Article 370 gave special status to J&K in the Union of India, the Article
35A empowered the erstwhile J&K state assembly to define the state subjects
and grant exclusive rights to them. This also prevented outsiders from buying
land, owning property or applying for jobs in Jammu and Kashmir. On August 5,
the Centre read down both the Constitutional provisions and bifurcated the
state into the two Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh. The two units https://thewire.in/business/jammu-and-kashmir-land-investment
4. WhatsApp: Dec., 6,
2019: On Wednesday, Kashmiris began disappearing from WhatsApp Citizens of the disputed geographical
territory, whose autonomy the Indian government revoked in August, abruptly and
inexplicably began departing WhatsApp groups in which they had long
participated, leaving behind only a “[Phone number] left” message. Some
observers suspected that the Kashmiris who disappeared from their WhatsApp
groups this week did not do so on their own and may not even know anything has
changed. After 4 months of total communication blackout, @WhatsApp is
automatically deleting Kashmiris from groups.#Kashmir 4 months of inactivity, WhatsApp accounts
from Kashmir are getting deleted. Weird to see individuals you haven't spoken
for all these months 'leave' WA groups whereas in reality an important part of
their digital imprint - images, videos, texts & memories attached -
vanishing. “I initially thought that internet services had been restored in
Kashmir and maybe these people were just removing themselves from WhatsApp
groups on their own,” Mudasir Firdosi, a London-based Kashmiri doctor who is in
half a dozen WhatsApp groups with friends and family in Kashmir, told BuzzFeed
News. “But I quickly realized that’s not the case.” I know they would not have been able to see
my messages anyway, but this is heartbreakingly symbolic. Shahnawaz Kaloo, a
Kashmiri doctor who lives in New Delhi and is part of half a dozen WhatsApp
groups with friends and family who live in Kashmir, told BuzzFeed News that
Kashmiris who were entirely cut off from the internet were automatically
evicted from every WhatsApp group that he was in with them. “It didn’t happen
with people that used the internet [because they traveled out of Kashmir or
briefly got internet access somehow].”Suhail Lyser, a Kashmiri student who
lives in Dehradun, a city in northern India, told BuzzFeed News that he saw
more than 150 Kashmiris in a WhatsApp group that shared news and updates about
the region that he was part of suddenly get kicked out of the group. Suddenly
all my contacts from Kashmir are ‘leaving’ the #Whatsapp
groups, and their WhatsApp accounts are getting lost. Remember there is NO
internet in #Kashmir
from the last 4 months. What kind of sinister moves are these? @facebook @WhatsApp @UNGeneva @UNHumanRights
“When I first saw what was happening, I thought it was the government of India
that was doing this,” he said. In February, Nasir Khuehmi, a 21-year-old
student, set up a WhatsApp support group for Kashmiri students around the
country who faced violence and backlash in the wake of an attack by a suicide bomber in Kashmir’s
Pulwama district, in which 40 Indian paramilitary personnel were killed. On
Wednesday, the group, which had hundreds of young Kashmiris, emptied out
instantly.“I was shocked and disappointed,” said Khuehmi. “It was
heartbreaking.”
5.
1. Two tragedies: Nov., 25, 2019: Travelling South, from Srinagar to Kakapora and then to Rahmoo village, the red and white walls surrounding the army garrison in Badamibagh cantonment are among the first things you notice. Attentive troopers with guns, fingers on the trigger, ready to shoot as and when and if needed, like they would at the Line of Control. Except, this is in the outskirts of Srinagar, the capital . A right turn from Kakapora main town leads us to series of villages. The walls of the villages are painted with graffiti eulogising their Shaheed (martyrs). For the Indian government, of course, these Shaheeds are terrorists. Interestingly, the graffiti has been, for the time being, left untouched by the security forces even though every village has an army or a CRPF camp. Ashraf is lying down on a mattress and wearing dark glasses (a scaringly familiar sight in Kashmir). Before August 24, 2016, it would have been nigh impossible to find him at Home during the day, as he was dividing his time between studying and working at Airtel. When not studying for his graduation, Ashraf worked with the telecom major as a field officer, recovering outstanding bills from customers. But after the encounter of Burhan Wani, the region was united in protests, and Ashraf was no different. “That day people were protesting at Prichoo, Pulwama and I was also a part of it. We were peacefully registering our protest and I had even asked a police offer to let us do peaceful protest but he didn’t allow it. Soon, the arguments lead to stone pelting between protesters and security forces,” recalls Ashraf. Ashraf tried to move towards a corner in order to look for a safe corner. But one of the officers from a CRPF vehicle started firing at the protesters, leading to the death of two people and injuring six. Ashraf was one of the injured that day, and like thousands of others in Kashmir, his life has never been the same again. The local people picked Ashraf and took him to District hospital Pulwama, where security forces again fired at the car. So, the locals had no option but to drive to SMHS hospital in Srinagar. Mercifully, they were not attacked again by security forces on the way to Srinagar.. After crossing nine villages, you are ‘welcomed’ to Rahmoo village by a big flex with pictures of more Shaheeds. A left turn from the main village road takes me to a mud house in the corner of a field, hiding behind a Tin gate. This is the house of 28-year-old Mohammad Ashraf Wani. “I was hit by a bullet in the back which pierced my liver, touched one of my lungs and came out through the chest,” he said. And yet, Ashraf, who was on a ventilator for the next six days, was discharged two weeks later and advised to rest for three to four months. It is obvious that his survival could be termed miraculous, but this was not the end of Ashraf’s pains. On October 31, 2016, as he was still recuperating from the bullet wounds, the early morning witnessed another round of protest in the village. According to Ashraf, security forces hit hard, vandalising local properties and beating residents. Ashraf still carried bullet wounds and did not want to be found out by the security forces. So, he tried to move to a nearby hill- Lidergan, surrounded by a dozen houses, hoping it would be safe there. “That day, the security forces, including the J&K police, were beating everyone. They beat one girl so much that she was unconscious for two days,” he says. As he climbed the hill, security forces, who were chasing other youths, also climbed the hill and fired pellets indiscriminately, along with tear gas shells on people. Finding it difficult to move, he tried to hide behind a tree, but policemen aimed his pellet gun at him and fired, leaving Ashraf in a pool of blood. He was bleeding all over: legs, chest, hands, face to eyes, the tiny little lead pellets were everywhere in his body. Few pellets even made their way into the heart. For the next one week, he remained unconscious: when he woke up in the hospital, he realised he had lost vision in both his eyes. After a few surgeries, doctors were able to restore some vision in his left eye but the right eye is still blank. Even after six surgeries, pellets remain all over his body and Ashraf, a budding student and an employed person, has been left to recover from bullet and pellet injuries. For his mother Rahti Begum, 51 Ashraf getting shot wasn’t the first tragedy the family had seen. In 2005, Ashraf’s father had died after a tree fell on him, leaving the responsibility of feeding and providing education of four siblings on Ashraf’s shoulders. “He had dreams which crashed after the death of his father. He wanted to join Indian navy but he left education so as to earn enough to support the education of his three sisters and one brother,” Rahti says with a grim face. He worked as a labourer- picking apples from orchards, cutting grass and loading apple boxes in the truck to support his family, but never gave up education. When he got a job in Airtel, earning Rs 12,000 a month, he enrolled for graduation. He was supposed to appear in the final year exams of graduation this year, but he couldn’t make it because he didn’t have the vision in his left eye. Now Ashraf, usually stays most of the time at home, confined to his own room, usually venturing out for prayers. He can’t work, study or play his favourite sport- cricket. “I feel like I am a burden now. Every evening, I cry my heart out,” he says. The family has spent more than 8 lakh on Ashraf’s treatment, most of which has been donated by his friends and the other residents. Besides the family had to take a debt of 3 lakh rupees from a local trader and more is required for continuing his treatment. “The pain of pellet, bullet wounds is nothing compared to the helplessness of not being able to help my family,” says Ashraf. http://twocircles.net/2017mar05/405821.html?fbclid=IwAR3T7YUxer5PlLIsA3US_tWoBmgF1LdXIWIeIJDuruv_v5ecpvM0dCqI0hs
2.
Youth martyred: Nov., 26, 2019: In occupied Kashmir,
Indian troops martyred three youth in
Pulwama district.. According to Kashmir Media Service, the troops martyred the
youth during a cordon and search operation in Drabgam area of the district.
Several people were injured when Indian troops used brute force and fired
bullets and pellets on mourners in different areas of Pulwama. The killings
triggered massive anti-India protests across the district. More details are
awaited. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/11/26/indian-troops-martyr-two-youth-in-iok-17/
3. Video: Nov., 27, 2019: Three sisters narrate, 25 masked men smashed their window and barged
into their house and grabbed their father Abdul Hameed Karim,, an administrator
in the postal services. They took their mother Uncle and father to unknown
location, . They destroyed everything owned by the family . The girls fear that
they might not see their father again. SHO denied any involvement. A video
prepared by a Western source details all this.
4. Israeli model: Nov., 28, 2019: Pakistan’s
government has expressed outrage over comments by India’s consul-general in New
York, who suggested at a recent event that India should build Hindu settlements in
Kashmir like those constructed by Israel in the Palestinian territories. “It
has happened in the Middle East. If the Israeli people can do it, we can also
do it,” said the consul-general, “It has been apparent all-along that
encouraged by the international community’s inability or unwillingness to
address the situation in the Occupied Palestinian territories, India is now
following the same colonial .“have only validated the fears of Kashmiri Muslims
that the real intent behind abrogation of special legislations was not
development, but changing demographics.”
The remarks “reflect a new brazenness with which Indian officials
are stating their agenda of a settler-colonial state and forced demographic
change in Kashmir.” strategy,” https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/pakistan-hits-back-at-indian-diplomat-s-israel-model-for-kashmir-remark-31730
5.
Kashmiri women: Nov., 28, 2019: Ahmad,
a class 7 student, was equally afraid. The police first dragged his sister by
the hair, and then thrashed her in front of Ahmad. His cousin's sister, Soliha
Jan, couldn’t bear the scene and tried to intervene. The police didn’t budge
and turned towards Soliha and beat her up as well. They kicked her in the
stomach and also hit her back, they say as her family recalls the horrifying
day in August. “Soliha vomited blood through her mouth and then fainted,” her
mother said. She then took her to a city hospital where she underwent an X-ray.
After a few more tests, the doctors advised that she be admitted to the
emergency ward While most of the
detainees ahead of the revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy were men, the valley’s
womenfolk also bore the brunt of state violence in multiple ways. For Soliha
and her family, that day was the worst amidst the enforced clampdown, “I
thought my daughter died when I saw her lying on the road,” her mother said. It
took two weeks for her to recover. The 16-year-old girl hadn’t expected such
harassment from the local police, “they don’t differentiate, didn’t even
realise that I was a girl,” she said. For the last three months, Soliha has
been suffering from nightmares of that incident and is finding it hard to
focus, “my exams are coming, and I haven’t been able to study.”Since the
incident took place, the family is afraid to talk to media. “We fear that
they will intimidate us if we will speak about it.” Such was the fear that
during their conversations with TRT World, the brother of the victim
stood guard outside his home, fearing that police might catch on and they'd be
harassed. But it
wasn’t torture alone. Kashmiri women also have to face the burden of navigating
India’s tiring legal system to seek the release of their sons. When the Indian
government clamped down on communication in Kashmir, families, and mothers of
detainees had to visit several jails to find where their sons had been put up.
A group of activists from India-including a social activist, Kavita Krishnan,
travelled to Kashmir in August, after the abrogation of Article 370, and spoke
to Indian media saying, “there was feeling a sense of betrayal, and people were
angry at being denied the special status. The misery of residents was further
aggravated as there was no communication, and the people were made to live like
in an open jail, the activists claimed.” After Shakeela Bano’s son Shahid*, a
16-year-old from Srigufwara Anantnag, was detained by police in Anantnag and
shifted him outside of Kashmir, she lost all hope that her son would be
released anytime soon.“My son is a kid, how can any justice system in the
universe put a minor under the Public Safety Act?” she asked.On August 4,
Shahid was picked up by police who assured the family that he will be released
the next morning. When the family went to the police station the next day, the
same day Kashmir's autonomous status was revoked, police told them that they
had shifted Shahid to Central jail Srinagar, 80kms from their place. After four
days, he was shifted outside Srinagar into India proper, without informing the
family. Shahid's PSA dossier shows that he was detained on charges of being
affiliated with Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist organisation after he completed
his 12th class examination. But the irony in his case was that he hadn’t even
attended his 12th class board examination. “When I came to know that our son
was shifted outside Kashmir, darkness fell before my eyes. Everything seemed
blurred,” said Bano. Shahid's family had to file habeas corpus in the
high court, and on September 20, the Supreme Court of India directed the
Juvenile Justice Committee of Jammu and Kashmir High Court to examine
allegations that children have illegally been detained. On October 1, the PSA
of Shahid was revoked, and he was released on 29th September, two months after
his initial detention. Bano, sitting next to her son, stares at him helplessly.
She fears that her son will not be able to live the life he could before.
Shahid, who is attending his 12th class board exams, now sits in his room but
doesn’t study, “I don’t feel like studying now, I don’t want to remain confined
in my room. I cannot believe that I am finally free,” he said. The restrictions imposed by the Indian
government have taken a heavy toll on access to healthcare and prevented many
from reaching hospitals for urgent care. Dr Omar Salim, a doctor from Kashmir,
protested in August outside a government hospital in Srinagar against the
restriction on phones and internet in Jammu and Kashmir. He felt the blackout
was preventing patients from receiving government health benefits. Ameena Jan, a 30-year-old from the summer
capital of Kashmir recently had to walk 10 kilometres to reach a hospital for a
checkup. Jan who is eight months pregnant couldn’t take her husband along
instead her mother had to walk with her amid teargas shelling which was going
in her area at that time, “it is impossible for men to leave this place and go
somewhere, when police see that they are from Soura, they arrest them.” Doctors
have told Jan that she is anaemic and has to take proper care of her health,
otherwise, it could lead problems for her baby, “but since the situation had
turned bad in Kashmir, I had no other way but to skip going to the hospital.”
For Jan, also having a proper diet in these conditions when her husband is not
able to earn anything is impossible. A few weeks before when Jan had a checkup
at the hospital, the tests revealed that the umbilical cord had got stuck
around the fetus’ neck. Jan is apprehensive that the condition she faced was
because of her situation.“My heartbeat would increase every time clashes would
occur.” She also harboured fears that the army and police might barge into her
home and take her husband when any clashes occur in the area.She is now
terrified about the prospect of going into labour.“I feel like we won’t be
allowed to reach the hospital on time,” she said. For all her life, Kulsum Jan
has been planning for her wedding.Kulsum's wedding date happened to be just
three days after the Indian government's moves to annex Kashmir. “It was not
possible to cancel the event on the last moment,” Kulsum says. She of course
had no idea that situation would become so unmanageable, Kulsum had to borrow a
dress from her cousin for her special day, “my cousin got married three days
before the article was scrapped, I had no other way but to wear her dress on my
marriage,” she said. Earlier when she sent her cousin to get a dress (lehanga)
from somewhere, he got stuck between police and stone-pelters and Kulsum then
had to skip out on the idea of getting a new dress. The 23-year-old couldn’t
even invite her cousins from other districts. “Because of the communication blackout,
it was impossible to call them or even go to their place.” Women in Soura say
that the males were not able to travel anywhere because of the fear of police
and army, “Any male who held an identity card of Anchaar area was either
arrested or assaulted,” said Kulsum. Her groom had to ask permission from
authorities when to visit Anchaar to take his bride. Humaira, another bride
faced a similar situation saying she had no idea when her bridegroom might
arrive. “I wasn’t prepared when he arrived. I wasn’t happy at all. I was more
concerned about his safety than about our wedding,” she said. https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/this-is-how-women-are-suffering-under-india-s-kashmir-crackdown-31692
6.
OIC on Kashmir:
Nov., 30, 2019: “Pakistan welcomes the holding of OIC’s Human Rights
Commission’s first-ever ‘Open Discussion’ on the worsening human situation in
Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, as part of its 16th Regular Session held in
Jeddah on November 25-28,” said a statement issued by the Foreign Office on
Friday. The session, held under IPHRC’s “Standing Mechanism to Monitor Human
Rights Situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir”, was attended by all the
commission members and a large number of the representatives of the OIC member
and observer states. Addressing the situation in IOK in all its dimensions, the
commission strongly condemned the blatant violation of human rights in the
territory. “There are credible reports of inflicting collective punishment. The
systematic and systemic human rights violations have a well-defined pattern
tantamount to ethnic cleansing and genocide of Kashmiris.” The
commission reaffirmed the right of self-determination of the people of occupied
valley under the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. It reiterated that
India’s steps of August 5 were illegal and void.It condemned the continued use
of pellet guns that killed and maimed innocent and unarmed civilians. The
commission also reiterated its endorsement of the recommendation of the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights to establish a Commission of Inquiry under the UN
auspices to comprehensively investigate all the allegations of human rights
violations. The commission assailed India for not allowing a fact finding visit
to the IOK despite repeated requests by the IPHRC, OIC and UNOHCHR. It agreed
to undertake a visit to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to meet the refugees,
political parties and other civil society representatives from Indian Occupied
Kashmir, after India’s repeated denial of allowing a fact-finding mission to
the occupied territory. The commission demanded India to allow the OIC and ICRC
to establish a ‘humanitarian corridor’ in IOK to reach out to the besieged
population for provision of basic food and medical supplies. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2109021/1-pakistan-welcomes-oics-principled-stance-kashmir-issue/
7. Kashmiri
Pundits: Nov., 30, 2019: A Delhi-based Kashmiri Pandit organisation,
while reacting to a statement of an Indian diplomat in the US for comparing
Kashmir with Israel, has said that it is very unfortunate that the ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party is misusing plight of their community to score points
over the Kashmir dispute. India’s Consul General in New York City, Sandeep
Chakravorty, addressing a gathering of Kashmiri Pandits said that the Modi
government would follow Israeli model to settle Hindus in occupied Kashmir.
Condemning the remarks of Chakravorty, the Kashmiri Pandit outfit,
Reconciliation, Return & Rehabilitations of Jammu & Kashmir Migrants,
in a statement in New Delhi said, “If the ruling BJP-led Indian government is
thinking in these terms then it is highly unfortunate.” It described Chakravorty’s
opinion as fissiparous and narrow-minded. The outfit said, “Kashmiri,
irrespective of religion, used to live together as one society. Our language,
culture and way of living are similar. We cannot be separated.” It appealed all
not to make such kind of statements which can vitiate the atmosphere. “We urge
the Indian government to punish such individuals and organizations, which time
and again give such statements and try to disrupt the communal harmony of
Kashmir,” it added. The organisation’s Chairman, Satish Mahaldar, in a media
interview in New Delhi said that BJP was playing a dirty game in Kashmir and
they were just trying to expose it. He claimed that the Indian government was
not doing anything to encourage inter-community dialogue and interaction. “Instead,
such statements are bound to deepen differences and ill-will,” he deplored. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/11/30/bjp-misusing-kashmiri-pandits-plight-says-outfit/
1. Blindness
in Kashmir: Nov., 21, 2019: The Lancet published an editorial expressing concern about the physical
and mental health of Kashmiris. Pointing to “gross human rights violations by
state security forces and armed groups,” in the region—often described as the
world’s most militarized zone—it lamented the suffering of civilians caught
between militants and tens of thousands of Indian troops British Medical Journal published a
letter from 18 Indian doctors observing that the communications blockade
imposed by the Indian government had led to “a blatant denial of the right to
health care and the right to life” in the Kashmir valley. An American
optometrist of Kashmiri origin, I was plunged into the conflict in 2016 when I
arrived in Srinagar, the region’s capital, for a family vacation. Thousands of
people were on the streets demanding freedom from Indian rule, and security
forces were responding to stone-throwing youths by firing so-called pellet
guns. Often used for hunting wildlife and pest control in the West, these
supposedly non-lethal weapons are in fact a type of shotgun. Each cartridge
releases between 300 to 600 lead-based pellets, each of which can easily
penetrate soft tissues and damage internal organs. When
used at close range, the tissue damage is similar that of a bullet from a
low-velocity conventional firearm and can result in permanent disability or
death. I visited hospitals to understand what was going on. I saw patients with
more than 100 pellets in their abdomen or skull. A fourteen-year-old girl who
was looking out of her bedroom window became unrecognizable within seconds due
to hundreds of pellets covering her entire face and penetrating her skull. A
24-year-old’s left eyeball fell out of his eye socket.India’s Central Reserve
Police Force would eventually admit to using over 1.3 million pellets in just
the first thirty-two days of those summer protests. This indiscriminate use of
supposedly non-lethal weapons resulted in over ninety deaths and 15,000
injuries that summer. Over 500 of these wounds resulted in vision loss in one
or both eyes. This harrowing exposure prompted me to aid the U.S. based
non-profit, Revive Kashmir, in starting Project Noor, which aids those visually
impaired by pellet guns. My team members and I began with basic training for
day-to-day survival in 2017. We taught patients how to eat, use their phone,
and walk with assistance. Hearing the patient’s stories convinced me, however,
that we needed to do more. Teenagers,
many of them villagers, had been robbed of the careers to which they aspired
and instead felt like a financial and emotional burden on their already
struggling families. Those who were studying had had to drop out of school and
none of those working could continue. Eventually, Project Noor expanded to
provide not only eye care and rehabilitation services, but also counseling and
financial help to pellet-gun injured victims in the Kashmir valley. In the
years since, the number of deaths, injuries and blindness of innocent
civilians, mostly children and young adults, has steadily increased. The Lancet
editorial noted that 1253 people had been blinded by pellet guns between 2016
and 2018. The damage has been compounded by a lack of resources for the visually
impaired. The traumatic injuries and deaths have also caused lasting
psychological harm and left many victims depressed and suicidal. Various other
international and national non-profit organizations have come forward to aid
patients with pellet injuries with surgical costs, medications and financial
support. But all of these efforts have been put to a halt by the state of siege
imposed on the eight million Kashmiris. For more than three months, a complete
lock-down of the region, an increase in armed forces in an already heavily
militarized zone, and suspension of telephone and internet use has prevented
any aid from reaching the people. Despite the communications shutdown, it is
clear that human rights violations and pellet-gun injuries continue to happen.
Medical supplies have become scarce, hospitals are difficult to reach because
of barricades across the main roads, and the administration has reportedly
stopped issuing death certificates. In consequence, we may not ever know how
many Kashmiris are dying. Given this harrowing reality, I am profoundly
saddened that so many of my colleagues in the medical profession have chosen to
ignore their Hippocratic oath and instead defend a regime that inflicts such
grievous harm on civilians. When will this regime and its supporters stop
turning a blind eye to the unnecessary human tragedy in Kashmir? https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/blindness-in-kashmir/
2.
Stone pelting: Nov.,21, 2019: The Home Ministry on Tuesday said security
forces had arrested 765 people in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of
Article 370 of the Constitution for their alleged involvement in stonepelting
incidents . https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/765-arrested-in-j-k-for-stone-pelting-since-abrogation-of-article-370/articleshow/72124903.cms
3. Sen. Warner: Nov., 23, 2019: Sen. Mark Warner To:jarad_us@yahoo.com.
Nov 22 at 10:02 PM .Dear Mr. Rashid, Thank
you for contacting me about the situation in the Indian state of Jammu and
Kashmir (J&K), and reports of disturbing humanitarian conditions. Following
the repeal of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on August 5, 2019, I have
heard from a number of constituents – many of whom have personal connections
to, or family in the region – expressing concern over ongoing conditions. While
I understand that India has legitimate security concerns in this region, I am
disturbed by actions taken by India following the repeal that among other
things, restricted communications and movement within J&K for its
residents. I have been closely monitoring the situation in J&K in my roles
as Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Co-Chair
of the Senate India Caucus. I have shared concerns with both the U.S. State
Department and the Government of India, and I will continue to push for
transparency, access for international journalists and human rights observers,
the lifting of communication restrictions and an inclusive political process. I
have long been a strong advocate for the U.S.-India partnership, which is
rooted in our shared values and security interests. It is critical that India
live up to its democratic principles by allowing freedom of press, information,
and political participation. I appreciate you contacting me about Jammu and
Kashmir. I will continue engaging on this situation, and encourage you to reach
out with any further concerns. Sincerely, MARK
R. WARNER United States Senator
4.
5. Visitors account: Nov., 23, 2019: DER
SPIEGEL has met with more than a dozen people in Kashmir, and their reports are
shocking and sometimes contradictory. Some fear the Indian state. Others are
hoping for protection. All, however, are afraid of what may be on the horizon.
One says: "We are experiencing the calm before the storm." There's a village full of broken windowpanes
in southern Kashmir. Residents say soldiers throw stones through the windows at
night, and claim fearful residents switch off their lights after sundown and
barricade themselves in the darkness of their homes. Almost nobody in the town
is willing to speak openly with journalists. There is a strong atmosphere of
paranoia, with many apparently wondering if the foreigner really is who she
says she is -- and not a spy. The woman who finally does invite us into her
home declines to provide her real name. She is 44 years old, wears a headscarf
and asks to be identified as Sakina. When talking about her son, she breaks
down repeatedly. She shows a photo of a young man of around 20 with long black
hair and a beard. Sakina: "We were too afraid to see what was going
on."“It was the night of August 7. We could hear noise from outside,
but we were too afraid to see what was going on. Instead, we went to bed, my
daughter and I slept in the kitchen and my father and my son in a room at the
front of the house. It must have been around three in the morning when five or
10 soldiers began hammering on our door.They stormed into my son's room and
pulled him out of bed. We wanted to know what he had done and where they were
taking him. But we didn't get an answer. The soldiers locked us in and fired
two shots. One of the shots hit the ground right here by the door, I can show
you the spot. Since my son has been gone, I feel numb. I'm cold and I shiver, even
when the sun is shining. The army forced its way into my home and took away my
child." Sakina's son wasn't the only one arrested by the soldiers. In
the days both before and after Kashmir's autonomy was revoked, the army
arrested men they considered potential troublemakers. According to reports, a
total of more than 4,000 were taken into custody. Some were flown out of the
region. Sakina's son is locked up in Agra, a city in northern India located
around 700 kilometers (400 miles) away.Two laws have essentially given security
forces a free hand. According to the Public Safety Act, people in Kashmir can
be held in custody for up to two years without trial, while the Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Act gives soldiers de facto immunity. There have been numerous,
serious allegations made against the army, including rape, torture and murder.
But according to the human rights organization Amnesty International, not a
single member of the security forces has yet had to answer for them before a
civilian court https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/deathly-silence-an-inside-look-at-kashmir-a-1296450.html
6.
7.
1. Two Young men martyred: Nov., 11, 2019: In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops , martyred a Kashmiri youth in Bandipore
district, today, taking the toll to two within 12 hours. The youth was killed
during cordon and search operation in Lawdoora area of the district. The
operation was going on till the last report came in. Earlier In occupied Kashmir, Indian
troops terrorism martyred a Kashmiri
youth in Bandipora district, today. The troops martyred the youth in a fake
encounter during a cordon and search operation in Lawdara area of the district. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/11/11/indian-troops-martyr-another-youth-in-bandipre/
2.
Hindutva pop: Nov.,
12, 2019: Some of the most violent expressions in
Hindutva pop focus on Kashmir, the Muslim-majority territory that is disputed
by Pakistan and that was stripped of its autonomy by Mr. Modi’s government in August. Popular lyrics call
for harsher action against Pakistan and separatist Kashmiri militants, and for
forced conversions and a Hindu settlement campaign in Kashmir. During Hindu festivals, the processions have
started blasting the music in Muslim neighborhoods in shows of intimidation. Most
of the songs prominently feature the call of “Jai Shri Ram!” Meaning “Hail Lord
Ram,” a major Hindu god, it has become the battle cry for Hindu nationalists.
Mobs have attacked Muslims who refuse to chant it along with them.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/world/asia/india-hindutva-pop-narendra-modi.html
3.
Hospitals: Nov., 13, 2019:
Attendants and patients Monday alleged that hospital authorities don’t operate
Central Heating System round the clock in the hospitals as a result they shiver
in present harsh chilly conditions. Principal, Government Medical College had
directed all its associated hospitals to run Central Heating System after the
snow furry that brought temperatures almost below to freezing point. Reports
said that some of the hospitals including Lal Ded and JVC Bemina run heating
system only for two hours in a day. https://kashmirobserver.net/2019/11/11/heating-system-for-2-hrs-only-attendants-patients-shiver-in-hospitals/amp/?fbclid=IwAR1zCTwQHBZYjgHKoPUuUmTTZLrhTV43r7fPwUDw3BwbJFI5eQIkFhUAkPY
4.
Fake news: Nov., 14, 2019: One of the
purposes of these websites is to influence public perceptions on
Pakistan by multiplying iterations of the same content available on
search engines, a study by NGO EU DisinfoLab has found. As many as 265 fake
local news websites in more than 65 countries, including the US, Canada,
Brussels and Geneva, are managed by Indian influence EU DisinfoLab has uncovered links
between zombie companies, dormant media outlets, and legally non-existent
organisations, lobbying the EU and also the UN by constantly targeting
Questionable news portals mentioned in the investigation include Times of Los
Angeles, Times of Portugal, New Delhi Times, New York Journal American, and
Times of North Korea. EU DisinfoLab’s investigation demonstrates how this
network of think tanks, NGOs, and media outlets has already translated into a
set of EU parliamentarians visiting the Kashmir valley on Oct. 30. The visit
was perceived by some as a sign of validation for the government’s move. It
came amidst international attention on curbs on free speech and allegations
of human rights violations in the
Kashmir valley. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/265-fake-news-websites-in-over-65-countries-managed-by-indian-influence-networks-study/article29967820.ece?homepage=true
, https://qz.com/india/1747796/fake-media-outlets-boosted-indian-kashmir-stand-in-eu-says-ngo/,
. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/265-fake-news-websites-in-over-65-countries-managed-by-indian-influence-networks-study/article29967820.ece?homepage=true
5.
Tom Lanton Human Rights Commission: Nov., 15, 2019: Vast majority of people in India are not engaged in
violence, India has imposed restrictions across the board, depriving people of
incomes and religious and civil liberties. Assam is also of concern US India
ties are based on freedom and democracy India seems to be moving away from
these objectives. Minorities are feeling grossly unsafe in India People in IOK
unable to go to mosques and also celebrate religious holidays. 10000 or mire
have been arbitrarily been detained. International community and Congress
should ensure the resolution of the dispute according to the WISHES OF THE
KASHMIRI PEOPLE. Demographic changes are now the Indian policy. Congress to support a resolution that
demands end of the siege and resolution of the dispute as per the wishes of the
Kashmiri people. India today more accurately resembles an authoritarian
regime rather than a democracy. There is yet to be justice for 2001 Gujarat
massacres and other such incidents. UNHRC report on Kashmir lists all that
India needs to do. Repeal AFSPA , PSA and other such laws. International
journalists and UN should be allowed in . Restrictions should be lifted. Indian actions in IOK has
compromised India’s quest to become a permanent member of UN Security Council.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPSDc_X3GYM#action=share
6.
Tom Lantos HRC: Nov., 15, 2019: The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a
bi-partisan commission, held the hearing on Thursday to examine the human
rights situation in Kashmir in its historical context, a statement issued at
the Commission’s website said. India had on August 5 revoked the special status
of Jammu and Kashmir by repealing Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and
announced its division into two Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and
Ladakh. These two UTs came into existence on October 31. India had also put the
occupied territory under severe military siege and communications blockade on
August 5. Indian-American
Congresswoman, Pramila Jayapal, at the hearing said that she was deeply
concerned by Indian government’s actions in Kashmir. “To detain people without
charge, severely limit communications and block third parties from visiting, is
harmful to our close and critical relationship,” the Democrat said. She was
joined by other Democrats Sheila Jackson Lee, David Trone and David Cicilline,
who criticised India’s actions after scrapping Kashmir’s special status.
Arunima Bhargava, commissioner from the US Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF), said that the rights of Muslim communities were
being curtailed because of Indian government’s actions. “Throughout the
country, political and community leaders are promulgating an ideology that
suggests that to be Indian is necessarily to be Hindu and views India’s
religious minorities as subordinate or foreign,” she told the hearing. “India’s
religious minorities currently stand at a precipice. If the Indian government
continues on its current trajectory, their livelihood, rights, and freedoms
could be in serious danger,” she pointed out. On occupied Kashmir, Bhargava
said, “USCIRF is concerned about reports starting in August that the Indian
government restricted freedom of movement and assembly in Jammu and Kashmir,
limiting people’s ability to attend prayers and participate in religious
ceremonies; forestalling any large gatherings, including for religious
purposes; and for certain communities, curtailing access to healthcare and
other basic services.”She said mobile and internet services were denied to
Kashmiris and healthcare was withheld by the Indian government. “USCIRF has
also seen reports of mosques being closed; imams and Muslim community leaders
arrested and detained; and violence and threats towards residents and businesses
in particular,” she told the Commission. Bhargava, who is of Indian descent,
said the restrictions in the region impacted the ability of people to “practice
their faith”, visit their places of worship and exercise their rights. She
claimed this was targeted at a certain community.. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/11/15/2nd-congressional-hearing-us-lawmakers-express-concern-over-indias-actions-in-iok/
7.
Amnesty
International: Nov., 16, 2019: India's federal investigation agency, the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI), has raided the local offices of human rights group Amnesty International in an investigation into alleged
violations of foreign funding rules. The raids were conducted at Amnesty
International's offices in Bengaluru and New Delhi after the CBI registered a
case against the group based on a complaint from India's Ministry of Home
Affairs, the statement added. Amnesty International, which has criticised some
actions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government in the past, was also accused of violations of foreign
funding rules last year. "Over the past year, a pattern of harassment has
emerged every time Amnesty International India stands up and speaks out against
human rights violations in India," the group said in a statement. Amnesty
International accused Modi's government of violating human rights in
Indian-administered Kashmir after it revoked the constitutional autonomy of the disputed
state in August and came down heavily on protesters in the aftermath. The
rights group also criticised the government's recent move to revoke the
overseas Indian citizenship of British writer Aatish Taseer, calling it
"discrimination based on gender and ethnic or national origin".
Amnesty International India's office was raided and its bank accounts were frozen by the ED last year. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/amnesty-international-offices-india-raided-federal-police-191115172007201.html
8.
Sifton: Nov., 17, 2019: John Sifton said this in a written
submission to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, which conducted a hearing
on human rights in Kashmir on Thursday. He said that the focus of his testimony
was how the US government could most effectively voice its concerns about these
issues to the government of India. John Sifton stated that since the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) won national elections in May, this year, and returned Prime
Minister Narendra Modi for a second term, government authorities have continued
harassing, and sometimes prosecuting, outspoken rights groups, human rights
defenders and journalists for criticizing the government, while failing to
credibly investigate increasing numbers of mob attacks, often led by BJP
supporters, against religious minorities and other vulnerable communities. John
Sifton said that the 14 February Pulwama incident, in which over 40 troops were
killed, led to a military escalation between India and Pakistan. He said,
following the incident, Kashmiri students and businessmen in various parts of
India were harassed or beaten up, even forcibly evicted from rental housing and
dorms. John Sifton in his testimony maintained that on August 5, the Indian
government revoked the special status of Kashmir. “Thousands were detained
without charge, including former chief ministers, political leaders, opposition
activists, lawyers, and journalists, and the internet and phones were shut
down. There were severe restrictions on movement and public gatherings were
forbidden. The government said these measures were necessary to prevent loss of
life during violent protests, but there were still credible, serious
allegations of beatings and torture by security forces.” He said while a number
of restrictions have since been lifted, hundreds remain in detention and mobile
phone services and internet access are still limited. Many parents are still
too scared for the safety of their children to send them to schools or
colleges, he added. The HRW official said India has advanced a narrative that
its main purpose in revoking Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, a longtime
goal of the BJP, was economic development. “So far, however, we have only seen
an intensification of the repression of Kashmir’s population,” he pointed out. He
said there has been a spike in protests in occupied Kashmir in recent years. He
said, Indian forces have often used excessive force to respond to protests,
including using pellet-firing shotguns as a crowd-control weapon, which have
caused several deaths and many serious injuries. “Indian troops have seldom
been held accountable for human rights violations that have occurred during
counter-insurgency operations. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)
continues to provide Indian soldiers effective immunity from prosecution for
serious human rights abuses. Since the law came into force in Kashmir in 1990,
the Indian government has not granted permission in any case to prosecute
forces’ personnel in civilian courts,” he deplored. John Sifton said, the
Indian government has also repeatedly imposed internet shutdowns in Kashmir,
restricting mobile and broadband internet services. He said, there have already
been 55 instances of shutdowns in the territory in 2019. “This is the legacy of
abuses that the people of Jammu and Kashmir have suffered. Successive Indian
governments have not been willing to confront these problems. And here we come
to the crux of the issue: until the Indian government acknowledges and
addresses how their own abuses impact the situation, problems in Kashmir are
likely to endure,” he remarked. The HRW official said this is where Congress
can act. He said members of Congress should communicate to Indian government
officials that their actions in Kashmir are adding to the human rights
problems. “Members of Congress should challenge Indian officials to reexamine
their rights-abusing practices in Kashmir. US officials should insist that
political leaders and others arbitrarily detained are released, that
restrictions on communications are lifted, and that independent observers,
including diplomats, foreign journalists, and rights activists, are able to
travel freely in Kashmir,” he maintained. On human rights
violations in India, John Sifton said, since the BJP first came to power in
2015, Indian authorities have been increasingly using sedition and criminal
defamation laws to stifle dissent in India. Journalists have been harassed, and
at times detained, for their reporting or critical comments on social media,
and faced increasing pressure to self-censor – including on matters connected
to Jammu and Kashmir, he said. “At the same time, the
authorities have failed to properly prosecute or end political patronage to
pro-BJP interest groups that have engaged in threats and violent attacks to
shut down speech that “offends” them. Mob violence against minorities,
especially Muslims, by extremist Hindu groups affiliated with the BJP have
continued amid rumors that they traded or killed cows for beef. Since May 2015,
50 people have been killed and over 250 injured in such attacks. Muslims were
also beaten and forced to chant Hindu slogans. Police have largely failed to
properly investigate the crimes, stalled investigations, ignored procedures,
and filed criminal cases against witnesses to harass and intimidate them,” he
said.
“India has continued to lead the world with the largest number of
internet shutdowns as state governments resorted to blanket shutdowns, either
to prevent violence and social unrest or to respond to ongoing law and order
problems. As of November, authorities in India had ordered 85 shutdowns,” the
Congressman added. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/11/16/human-rights-under-threat-in-iok-india-us-lawmaker/
9.
Indian
extremism: Nov., 18, 2019: a former Indian military general for
supporting rape of Kashmiri women during a TV debate, where he can be heard
saying “death in return for death, and rape in return for rape During a high-decibel debate on the Kashmiri
Pandit exodus on TV
9 Bharatvarsh, Major General (retd) SP Sinha screamed, “Maut ke
badle maut [death for death], balatkar ke badle balatkar [rape for
rape . he did an instant poll on the
channel and some from the audience, which included women, can be heard
supporting him. This is not the first instance where an Indian political leader
made a such statement. Earlier in the July,
BJP’s women wing leader encouraged
“Hindu brothers” to gang-rape Muslim women openly in the streets. “Muslim
mothers and sisters should have their honour looted as there is no other way to
protect India,” said Sunita Singh Gaur in a Facebook post. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2101409/1-watch-indian-ex-army-general-supports-death-death-rape-rape-iok/
10.
Indias secret war in Kashmir:
Nov., 18, 2019: HRW
report “INDIA'S SECRET ARMY IN
KASHMIR New Patterns of Abuse Emerge in the Conflict” Alongside Indian security forces, operating as a
secret, illegal army, have been state-sponsored paramilitary
groups, composed of captured or surrendered former militants described as
"renegades" by the Indian government. Many of these groups have been
responsible for grave human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture,
and illegal detention as well as election-related intimidation of voters. The extrajudicial killings, abductions and
assaults committed by these groups against suspected militants are instead
described as resulting from "intergroup rivalries." But civilians
have also been their victims, and the militia groups have singled out
journalists, human rights activists and medical workers for attack. They have
been given free rein to patrol major hospitals in Srinagar, particularly the
Soura Institute, the Sri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital and the Bone and
Joint Hospital. They have murdered, threatened, beaten and detained hospital
staff; in some cases these abuses have occurred in full view of security force
bunkers or in the presence of security force officers. They have also removed
patients from hospitals. These abuses constitute clear violations of medical
neutrality., In some cases, attacks by these paramilitary groups appear
to have been carried out on orders from security officers, Violations of human
rights and humanitarian law by the regular security forces - the army, the
Border Security Force (BSF) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) - have
also continued. These violations include the deliberate killing of detainees in
the custody of the security forces in Kashmir and reprisal killings of
civilians. Human rights groups and press accounts have registered reports of
such killings every month, but there is no sign that security personnel have
been prosecuted in a single case of summary execution. In the few high-profile
cases in which courts-martial have taken place, soldiers have been prosecuted
for abuses, such as the excessive use of force, which fall short of murder. Security
personnel in Kashmir have also been responsible for rape as a counterinsurgency
tactic. In response to international attention to the problem, the
Indian government has made public a number of prosecutions of members of
security forces for rape. However, reports of rape and other sexual assaults in
Kashmir persist. In many cases, these
incidents are never investigated by judicial and medical authorities competent
to determine culpability. The government
of India should disarm all state-sponsored militias not established and
regulated by law and prosecute members of such groups who have been responsible
for extrajudicial killings, assaults and other abuses. Other crucial steps
include the following: The
government of India should establish a civilian review board to oversee any
rehabilitation program for surrendered militants. This review board, which
should be headed by a civilian and include other civilian representatives,
should have access to records on surrendered weapons and vocational training
programs to ensure that the former militants are not compelled to serve in
state paramilitary forces not established and regulated by law or induced to
take part in security operations that violate international human rights and
humanitarian law; The Indian government should permit the U.N. Working Group on
Disappearances, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Special
Rapporteur on Torture and the Special Rapporteur on Summary or Arbitrary
Execution to conduct investigations in Kashmir; The government of India should
ensure that all reports of extrajudicial executions, deaths in custody, torture
and rape by security forces and unofficial paramilitary forces in Kashmir are
investigated promptly by a judicial authority empowered to subpoena security
force officers and official registers and other documents. Security personnel,
including police, army and paramilitary, responsible for these abuses should be
prosecuted in civilian courts. Only with such trials and appropriate
punishments will these forces receive the clear, unequivocal message that human
rights violations are not condoned by their superiors. Those found guilty of
abuse should be punished regardless of rank. The punishments should be at least
as severe as those specified under civilian law. The results of these
investigations and the punishments should be made public as a means of giving
the people of Kashmir a reason to believe in the government's commitment to
justice and the rule of law; Although the government of India has promised
since 1993 to establish a centralized register of detainees accessible to
lawyers and family members, this has never happened. In addition, security
personnel continue to defy court orders to produce detainees in court. The
government of India should take stern and swift action against all officers who
have obstructed or ignored judicial orders to produce detainees. All places of
detention should be made known to the court and be subject to regular
inspection by a magistrate. In addition, the securityagencies should require
that arresting officers provide signed receipts for all detainees to family
members, village elders or persons of similar status. The receipt would be
retrieved when the person is released;
In previous reports, Human Rights Watch has urged the government of
India to provide police training, perhaps after consultation with international
experts, on gathering adequate evidence for rape prosecutions. Explicit
prohibitions against rape should be included in training for all enlisted men
and officers in the police, paramilitary and military as a way of sending a clear
signal that rape is not tolerated by the state. Medical workers who have
examined and treated rape victims should be protected from abuse. Medical
facilities, including private licensed physicians, should be encouraged to give
testimony and introduce physical evidence in court with regard to rape and
other forms of sexual and physical abuse; State authorities and the
headquarters of the army and paramilitary operations in Kashmir should issue
public statements affirming the security of human rights monitors. The
statement should include explicit guarantees for the security of human rights
monitors to investigate incidents of abuse, record the statements of witnesses,
publicize their reports and petition the courts; State and military authorities
should also issue public statements affirming the security of medical personnel
and institutions and affirming the neutrality of hospital premises. Security
personnel should be trained in the principles of medical neutrality and those
violating those principles should be prosecuted. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/India2.htm
11.
1. Economic
losses: Nov., 6, 2019: "We don't
do much business these days. We have only a few hours to work…I close shop by
11 a.m. [local time (0530GMT)] and then leave for home," said Yaseen, who
sells Kashmiri shawls in Srinagar. "For the rest of the day, I keep my
shop closed to protest against the Indian government’s decision.” We believe
there is a business loss of Rs 10,000 crore [$1.4 billion] due to the lockdown
in Kashmir since Aug. 5. There has also been a loss of jobs for more than
100,000 people. Kashmir’s business sector is bleeding at the moment. The
tourism and IT sectors are mostly dependent on the internet, and right now,
they are suffering badly because there is no internet," said Aashiq The
absence of an internet connection has dealt a severe blow to the region’s tourism
and IT sectors, said Sheikh Aashiq, president of the Kashmir Chamber of
Commerce and Industry https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/daily-life-in-kashmir-suffers-amid-lockdown/1636018
2. Ai: Oct., 6, 2019: For the past three months, about 8 million
people in the disputed territory of Kashmir have been under a “lockdown”
imposed by the Indian government, according to Amnesty International. The
organization says Kashmiris have been subjected to curfews, phone and internet
shutdowns, arbitrary detention, deadly force against protesters and a lack of
medical coverage. “The story of Kashmir is the story of a brutally oppressed
pro-democracy struggle,” Mir said. “It is a slave revolt. It is a classic
struggle of indigenous people against an ideologically-motivated, brutal,
limitless occupation. This is not just violence against people's bodies, it’s
violence against people's psychology. It’s violence against children. It’s
crimes against people's future.” The audience watched several news videos
detailing the human rights violations perpetrated by the Indian government in
the region https://kjzz.org/content/1284766/tempe-activists-send-message-indian-government-free-kashmir
3. Women: Nov., 7, 2019: A
mother unable to get updates from the hospital about her premature newborn. A
bride who couldn't have the wedding of her dreams. The photojournalist who
risks double harassment by security forces due to her profession and her
gender. Life has been a struggle for ordinary Kashmiris Kashmiri women are
suffering from the lockdown in their own less visible way. Zahida Jahangir's
son was born premature and weak. He was rushed from the clinic where he was
born to the neo-natal intensive care unit in a children's hospital across town.
The lockdown made it nearly impossible to visit her son or even communicate
with the hospital. Zahida was separated from her son for the first 20 days of
his life, and though he is now healthy, the experience has created what she says
is a pain only a mother could know and left her with regrets that will last a
lifetime. Kulsuma Rameez's wedding was scheduled for during the lockdown and
she was unable to go shopping for the wedding dress she dreamed of. Instead she
was married in a borrowed dress at a small ceremony attended by a few relatives
and neighbors. After the ceremony, she had to walk to her new home as the roads
were blocked. Photojournalist Masrat Zahra was covering the first Friday
protest since the lockdown when a police officer threatened to kick her. She
notes that Kashmiri women can't leave their homes without a male companion out
of fear they'll be harassed by soldiers. Nevertheless, she is undeterred.
Ateeqa Begum has lived alone ever since her only son 22-year-old Fasil Aslam
Mir, the family's sole breadwinner, was detained on his way home after fetching
medicines for her on the day the lockdown began."My son has been shifted
to a jail in an Indian city and I have no means to travel there to see
him," she said.A doctor at a hospital in Indian Kashmir's main city,
Sabahat Rasool says she's seen the lockdown forever alter lives. She tells the
story of a pregnant woman who refused to be admitted to the hospital because
she had no way to tell her family that she wouldn't be coming home and didn't
want them to worry that she had been kidnapped. She was brought in unconscious
the next day."She survived but lost her unborn baby," Sabahat said.https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/11/06/world/asia/ap-as-kashmir-women-photo-gallery.html
4.
1. Youth martyred: Oct., 30, 2019: In
occupied Kashmir, Indian troops martyred
a Kashmiri youth in Islamabad district. The troops martyred the youth in a fake
encounter during a cordon and search operation in Bijbehara area of the
district. On the other hand, Indian troops resorted to indiscriminate firing
after an army bunker was attacked by unidentified gunmen in Drubgam area of
Pulwama district. The troops cordoned off the area and launched searches to nab
the attackers. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/10/30/indian-troops-martyr-youth-in-iok-3/
2. Blinded
children: Oct., 30, 2019:“Watching cartoons on TV, playing with my
friends on the street, reading books for hours — this is what I dream of now,”
says nine-year-old Asif Ahmad Sheikh, a Class 5 student from Anantnag.“I used
to teach sewing and tailoring to girls in my village, but not anymore. Because
of the injuries, I could not write my class 10 board exam,” says 17-year-old
Ulfat Hameed, a Class 10 student from Baramulla.“When I went to a hospital in Srinagar, there were so many
people that the doctors sent me back home as they did not have beds available,”
says Bilal Ahmad Bhat, 17, another student from Baramulla. https://www.dawn.com/news/1513749?fbclid=IwAR2UMEnMz84kpK9IbkgtIEyefxDn0cQKR1AdKVReUfVraG8a_96vMZuIt5c
1.
LoC
violations: Oct., 21, 2019: Nine soldiers of the Indian Army were
killed and several others injured as the Pakistan Army responded to New Delhi’s unprovoked
ceasefire violations along the Line of Control,. DG ISPR Major said Pakistan destroyed two Indian bunkers
after Indian forces deliberately targeted civilians in Jura, Shahkot and
Nousheri sectors. one Pakistani soldier and three civilians were
martyred in the exchange of fire, while two soldiers and five civilians
suffered injuries. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2083613/1-nine-indian-soldiers-killed-several-injured-loc-exchange-ispr/
2.
Undeclared War: Oct., 21, 2019: PM AJ&K said that India had imposed an undeclared war on
the liberated territory by pounding over a dozen villages from Noseeri to
Nagdar in Neelum valley, Leepa and Khuairatta sectors of Kotli district. the
international community, including the United Nations, should take strict
notice of India’s aggression. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2083715/1-india-imposed-undeclared-war-loc/
3.
Clamp down: Oct., 22, 2019: I have witnessed multiple clampdowns in my 10 years as a
journalist in Kashmir, but this year has been the worst. Life was turned upside down,
for everyone. The silence of a caged and disempowered people is a silence of
simmering rage. All communication channels were blocked. A silence spread over
the Kashmir Valley and the struggle to tell the story began .With bits and pieces of
information, journalists began to write stories, but there was no way to send
them to anyone. For the first two weeks, some journalists, including myself,
sent flash drives containing stories, photographs and video footage to New
Delhi via passengers flying out of the region..A few newspapers managed
to publish, despite having no phones, internet or distribution network.
Everything was disrupted. In Kashmir, no news is not good news. For civilians in Kashmir, normal life
is non-existent. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3033708/reporting-silence-siege-kashmir
4. US hearings:
Oct., 23, 2019: The United States on Tuesday renewed
calls on India to ease its clampdown in Kashmir as several lawmakers voiced
anger at actions by a country that usually enjoys strong US support. Alice
Wells, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, said that the
United States “remains concerned” about the impact of India’s actions in the
Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley. “We have urged Indian authorities to respect
human rights and restore full access to services, including internet and mobile
networks,” she told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee. Representative Ilhan Omar, a prominent first-term Democratic lawmaker and
one of the few Muslims in Congress, charged that Kashmir is part of a pattern
against Islam by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Brad Sherman, Chairman of
the panel, said that the hearing will focus on the occupied valley where
thousands of people had been detained ever since India revoked Article 370..
“Many political activists have been arrested and daily life, the internet, and
telephone communications have been interrupted,” said Sherman in a statement.
He said that food, medicine and other essentials will also be reviewed in the
hearing. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have expressed
concern about human rights in Kashmir in recent months. https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/544767-us-voices-kashmir-concern-as-lawmakers-raise-tone-on-india
5.
Youth martyred: Oct., 23, 2019:
In occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their fresh act of
state terrorism martyred three Kashmiri youth in Pulwama district, today. The
troops martyred the youth during a cordon and search operation at Rajpora in
Tral area of the district. The operation continued till last reports came in.
On the other hand, a Junior Commissioned Officer of the Indian Army was killed
after being fired upon by unidentified gunmen in Nowshera area of Rajouri
district, today. Soon after the attack, the troops cordoned off the area and
launched searches to nab the attackers. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/10/22/indian-troops-martyr-three-kashmiri-youth-in-pulwama/
6.
Kashmir lockdown: Oct., 24, 2019: There was an eerie silence on the drive toward the Shopian
district in southern Kashmir, as stray dogs and cattle walked past on a recent
overcast afternoon. But the silence was suddenly shattered as a convoy of
heavily armed vehicles passed by shielding top officials of the paramilitary
forces. When these trucks show up around these parts, children and young men
disappear. As we arrived in Shopian on Oct. 17, a local resident of this
fertile apple-growing region led us to the house of Firdaus Jaan, whose two
grandsons, Junaid, 13, and Ahmed, 22, were picked up by the
paramilitary forces on Oct. 14, joining the
thousands of young men and minors who have been arbitrarily detained
amid a brutal crackdown in Kashmir since the Indian government revoked the
special autonomous status of the region on Aug. 5. Jaan, 92, tried to protect
her grandson Junaid, who cried as 20 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) men
dragged him out of the house. She would not let go of him until an officer hit
her with a stick. Jaan said the paramilitary forces entered the village by the
hundreds and rounded up young men and children. Soon they began beating them,
along with older residents, asking about the whereabouts of militants who had
burned a migrant laborer’s apple truck. Jaan’s neighbor Mohammed Yusuf Butt,
who has acres of apple orchards, was despondent, suicidal. That same night his
son, Shikir
Ahmed Butt, went to the police station to inquire about the apple
truck that had been burned. The Shopian police detained him and told his father
that they would be slapping the draconian Public Safety Act against his
30-year-old son. The act allows for detention for up to two
years without trial or due process. “They have taken my only son, my
apples are rotting in the farms, and then they accuse us of shielding
militants,” Mohammed told me. “First they took away our rights, now they accuse
us of shielding militants.”Thirty minors were picked up in Shopian on Oct. 14,
according to residents interviewed. Gulshan, 50, kept approaching the Shopian
police station, where her husband was begging for the release of their two
sons, Raees Ahmed, 11, and Liyaquat Ahmed, 14. They both
attend a school in Srinagar but had come home to help the family with the apple
harvest. “We are scared to send our children into the orchard, the CRPF is
camping there, they see our children and detain them,” Gulshan said. She
doesn’t know whom to fear more: the militants or the military forces. When I
arrived at the Shopian police station to verify the claims of the family, Nazeer
Ahmed, the second in command, told me he had no idea about the arrests; his
phone had not been working for four days, he said. His colleagues exchanged
smiles. Under constant surveillance and
facing brutal repression and arbitrary detention, Kashmiris seem to be in
constant mourning. In the streets in downtown Srinagar, some families sat
quietly mourning the absence of their children. Mudassir Majeed, a 19-year-old
studying business administration, arrived home on Aug. 4 to help his father, a
sheep trader. The next morning, as he was helping his father herd the sheep
from the truck, paramilitary forces dragged him into a van. When his father
reached the police station, he was told his son had been sent to jail in the
North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and they cited the Public Safety Act. “I
dread when my son comes out, they will label him a terrorist,” Mudassir’s
father told me. Nusrat Jahan, a doctor at the largest government hospital in
Srinagar, tells me the population is suffering from borderline depression. “I
have choked in the bathroom when cancer patients scream in pain and there is no
morphine available to administer,” he said. “I have treated pellet injuries on
10-year-olds, and it feels as if I was operating on my own son. Our anger is spilling
over. Ask the psychiatric ward. Patients are asking for drugs that can kill
them in their sleep.”On Oct. 19, I visited houses in Khanyar and Rainawari in
Srinagar. The areas are known for their protests, and every household told me
of a detained child. Mubasshir Peer, a chemist who
lives in Rainawari, told me that more than 300 children were picked up on the
night of Oct. 18, a few weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke at the United Nations. I was also able to interview Mohammad
Shafi, one of the most senior members of the National Conference, a political
party whose leaders have been under house arrest since Aug. 5. “Even if there
is a day when the democratic process is ushered in Kashmir, what will any of
our parties promise the people of Kashmir?” he asked. “That New Delhi will take
decisions on their behalf while they lock Kashmiris down like lambs. Look at
this government, it arrested an 80-year-old academic yesterday who just sat on
the street with a placard.” He was referring to the arrest of 18 female
academics and activists, including the wife of the former chief justice, Hawa
Bashir, who sat on a silent
protest in Srinagar to ask for the return of civil liberties. The women, including an 82-year-old academic with a pacemaker,
were taken to jail and then released a day later on the condition that they
would neither protest nor speak of Article 370 of the Indian constitution,
which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. It all reinforces the distressing silence in
Jammu and Kashmir. When I asked people why they weren’t going to work, their
response was fear. A government employee told me Kashmiris are keeping their
children indoors. “We fear that they will take our children away,” he said.
"I can tell you this is the apocalypse Kashmir feared. We are all lifeless
here.” His 18-year-old nephew, Saquib Nazeer, has been
lying in a hospital with 174 pellet wounds, including four in his heart, he
told me. He is on life support. Kashmiris are avoiding Indian TV. The news
reports showing “normalcy” fill them with rage. I watched as a journalist from
the channel India Today talked about a new era of peace in Kashmir. (The same
journalist was called out on Twitter a week ago for anchoring a 30-minute
program praising a
genocidal speech by a member of the paramilitary force). Kashmiri radio just plays songs — the announcers have been off
the air since Aug. 5. Newspapers don’t publish editorials — only the official
version of the story makes it to print. As
I wrote this, “Boycott all Muslims” was trending in Indian Twitter. Most tweets
are amplified by followers of Modi and his ministers. Some ask for a genocide
against Muslims, others ask for the blood of Kashmiris. I think about the words
of Nusrat Jahan, the doctor. Soon all Kashmiris could be either in jails or
mental asylums. The world’s apathy — and the apathy of many Indians — is only
perpetuating a climate of fear, silence and repression the region hasn’t
witnessed in decades. But it’s time to take notice. On Tuesday, participants at
a U.S. congressional hearing about human rights in South Asia singled out
India’s actions in Kashmir. Francisco Bencosme, Asia
Pacific advocacy manager at Amnesty International, said his
organization had documented
“a clear pattern of authorities using administrative detention on
politicians, activists and anyone likely to hold a dissenting opinion before
and after Aug. 5” in Jammu and Kashmir. More of us need to speak up. The world must hear the deafening
silence from Kashmir. Looking the other way for strategic relations is not an
option. Kashmir and her children are waiting for justice. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/23/indias-crackdown-kashmir-has-paralyzed-silenced-entire-communities/
7.
AI submission: Oct., 24,2019: Amnesty International USA Submitted to the Subcommittee on Asia, the
Pacific, and Nonproliferation House Foreign Affairs Committee For a hearing on
“Human Rights in South Asia: Views from the State Department and the Region”
October 22, 2019 India The Government of India is desperately trying to crush
dissenting voices and human rights work in India. The raid and subsequent
freezing of accounts of Amnesty India is a recent evidence of a pattern of
demonizing and criminalizing organizations and individuals, who have raised
their voices against human rights violations. On 25 October 2018, Amnesty India
endured a ten-hour-long raid as a group of officers from the Enforcement
Directorate, a financial investigation agency under the Ministry of Finance,
entered the premises and locked the gates behind them. Some of the staff were
ordered to not leave, shut their laptops and not use their mobile phones. Most
of the documents asked for during the search were available in the public
domain or were already filed with the relevant government authorities. Details
of our current structure, which was the focus of much of the questioning, have
been available on our website since 2014. This action was taken in the absence
of a formal complaint— a clear violation of fair trial guarantees. With their
accounts frozen, Amnesty India’s vital human rights work was significantly set back.
The Indian government is also attempting to tarnish Amnesty International’s
reputation in India through selective leaks of evidence gathered during the
investigations by the authorities to certain pro-government media outlets
effectively weaponizing the media against it. Not only this, other
organizations and individuals who work on human rights and justice are being
targeted in a chillingly similar manner leading to arbitrary arrests or fear of
reprisal. India’s 2010 Foreign Contributions Regulation Act was ostensibly
introduced to address concerns about the risks to the “national interest” posed
by foreign funding and foreign organizations. The Law lists individuals and
organizations that are barred from receiving foreign funds; it requires
licenses to be renewed every five years and provides for suspension of licenses
and freezing of bank accounts during investigations. In practice, it has been
used to target organizations who criticize the government and demand
accountability. For example, groups who have criticized infrastructure and
mining projects and those seeking justice for the anti-Muslim violence in
Gujarat in 2002 faced repeated questions about their work, threats of
investigations and blocking of foreign funding. In 2014, an Intelligence Bureau
report leaked to the press accused “foreign funded” NGOs like Greenpeace,
Cordaid, Amnesty International and ActionAid of “serving as tools for foreign
policy interests of western governments”, of having a negative impact on the
country’s economic development and of being part of a “growth retarding
campaign” to discredit India at international forums. In 2016, the government
cancelled the licenses of thousands of NGOs for allegedly undertaking
“activities not conducive to national interest”. We also note that those who
work with and for advancing the rights of […] Dalits, Adivasis, LGBT
communities and women, are being systemically targeted as well, in such raids
across India. Often, this has resulted in arrests of key activists and
journalists. Ten prominent activists, including Sudha Bharadwaj, Shoma Sen and
Arun Ferreira, were arrested under draconian anti-terror legislation in Bhima
Koregaon, Maharashtra state. A Dalit activist, Chandrashekar Azad “Ravan”, was
held in administrative detention for 10 months without charge or trial. Women
human rights defenders, who face reprisals for their human rights work and are
subjected to gender-based discrimination, faced a torrent of online violence
and abuse in India this year. Journalist Rana Ayyub and activist Gurmehar Kaur
were threatened with sexual violence for exercising their right to freedom of
expression. And offline, the civic space continued to shrink as the central
government used the controversial Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010
as a political tool to harass organizations critical of its views and actions.
On June 18, 2019, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a criminal
case against the Lawyers Collective for allegedly violating the Foreign
Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA). Indian authorities have cited financial
‘irregularities’ and activities that are against ‘public interest’ and
‘national interest’ to cancel NGOs’ foreign funding licenses under the FCRA.
Some organizations that have been targeted using this law are the Lawyers
Collective, People’s Watch, Sabrang Trust and Navsarjan Trust, whose licenses
remain suspended or cancelled. While the FCRA makes it extremely difficult for
rights organizations to access funding, companies and political parties
receiving foreign funds are held to far less restrictions and rarely face
repressive consequences. Amnesty International India’s interactive website
‘Halt the Hate’ has found that reports of alleged hate crimes have witnessed
the steepest rise in numbers since 2016. In the first six months of 2019 alone,
181 incidents of alleged hate crimes have been recorded by the website, nearly
double than previous three years’ half-yearly counts. This highlights a very
alarming trend in the country. Between January and June 2019, over two-third of
the victims suffered harm on account of their Dalit identity followed by their
Muslim (40), Adivasi (12), Christian (4) and their actual or perceived sexual
orientation or gender identity (6). Some of the alleged hate crimes against
Dalits related to denial of access to public property such as roads, water,
crematorium, schools etc. Cowvigilantism related hate crimes and honor killing
were reported in 17 cases. In Assam, more than 1.9 million people have been
left out from the final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which
was published late August. Amnesty International expresses its deep concerns
about the functioning of the 100 or more Foreigners Tribunals, which will
decide whether those excluded from the NRC list are Indian citizens or not.
Amnesty International has strongly urged the Assam Government to ensure that
the Foreigners Tribunals function with utmost transparency and are in line with
the fair trial standards guaranteed under national and international law.
Instances of the Foreigners Tribunals declaring citizens as ‘irregular
foreigners’ over clerical errors—such as minor differences in spellings of
names or age in electoral rolls, or slight contradictions between answers given
in cross-examinations and what is written in the documents—are appallingly
common. Assam is on the brink of a crisis which would not only lead to a loss
of nationality and liberty of a large group of people but also erosion of their
basic rights – severely affecting the lives of generations to come. Amnesty, in
its 2018 briefing, ‘Between Fear and Hatred: Surviving Migration Detention in
Assam’ documented the inhumane conditions of the detention centres in Assam and
the ill-treatment suffered by persons declared as foreigners and held in these
detention centres. Many persons Amnesty spoke to in 2018 reported that fellow
detainees were suffering from mental health problems. The facilities for
treatment of mental health disorders within the prisons are highly inadequate.
It also found that detainees face indefinite detention in overcrowded prisons
where there is no segregation of detainees from convicts and undertrial
prisoners. Former detainees interviewed by Amnesty had also said that the
prisons were overcrowded with hardly any space to move or even turn around.
Currently, there are 6 detention centres across Assam, and the state government
is planning to set up 10 more centres. The Assam government in July 2019 had
said that 25 people who were declared as foreigners died in detention due to
illness. As many as 25 of these deaths occurred in the last three years. In a
recent television interview, Union Home Minister, Amit Shah said there will be
a nation- wide National Register of Citizens (NRC) before 2024. The extension
of NRC risks the mirroring of discrimination and arbitrary deprivation of
nationality, as observed in Assam to the rest of India which stands to result
in wide-scale statelessness. Amnesty International India calls on the
government to adhere to international human rights norms and stop the use of
NRC as a political tool to render people, who have been living in India for
decades and have established strong links with the country, stateless. On
August 5, 2019, the Government of India unilaterally revoked Article 370 of the
Indian Constitution. Article 370 guaranteed special autonomy to Jammu &
Kashmir and gave it independence over matters excluding foreign affairs,
defense and communication. This was followed by the enactment of the Jammu
& Kashmir Reorganization Act that aims to bifurcate the state of Jammu
& Kashmir into two separate union territories on 31 October 2019. Union
territories, as opposed to states, are governed by the central government. All
these amendments and changes were made amidst a complete communication clampdown,
curfew on movement and mass detentions of political leaders in the region. In
September and October 2019, Amnesty International spoke to the people of Jammu
& Kashmir, including those detained in the context of the larger clampdown,
as well as with the lawyers representing detained persons; medical
professionals working in both government and private hospitals in the capital
city of Srinagar; journalists and editors of local media; and representatives
of the regional political parties. Amnesty International reviewed photographs
and documents presented as evidence of many specific events described during
the interviews. At the time of conducting these interviews, while both mobile
phone and landline services were restored in the Jammu region, only landline services
were restored in Kashmir. Amnesty International documented a clear pattern of
authorities using administrative detention on politicians, activists and anyone
likely to hold a dissenting opinion before and after August 5. While the
Central Home Ministry claims it has no information on the name and locations of
detainees, media reports suggest that the number of detentions runs in
thousands. The Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) police recently accepted that
about 144 children, as young as nine, have been taken into custody. In wake of
the Block Development Council elections slated to be held on October 24 in
Jammu Kashmir, few political detainees were released by the authorities on the
condition that they must not indulge in any political activities and speeches. Political
leaders are made to sign bonds for their release from detention undertaking
that they will not make any comment/issue statement/make public speech/hold or
participate in public assembly for a period of one year. Political speech
cannot be prohibited under international law unless it constitutes a direct
threat to public order, which has not been adequately demonstrated by the
Government of India. These conditions also place unwarranted restrictions on
political leaders, especially when most of them have been advocating for peace
in the region. For instance, the last words of Omar Abdullah, the former chief
minister of J&K before he was placed on house arrest, were a request for
the public to maintain calm and not to take the law into their own hands.
Moreover, the blanket nature of this condition does not fulfil the conditions
of legality and proportionality as required under the international law.
Instead, it stifles public debate and hampers political discourse. The cases
documented by Amnesty international India clearly show the government’s
witch-hunt to curb dissenting voices in Kashmir, including those of duly
elected leaders which is against the representative and participative thread of
India. An atmosphere of fear and reprisal has ensured silence from many
quarters. This has been compounded through arbitrary detentions often without
any kind of documentation, access to lawyers and recourse to justice. Amnesty
International interviewed 5 young men who had been arbitrarily picked up by the
security forces during raids in separate incidents since August. All of them
reported use of excessive force by the security forces during their detention.
Several of these cases amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment, absolutely forbidden under international law. Amnesty International
was told that after the story of their torture was telecasted by the
international media channel BBC in early September, security forces went back
to the homes of those tortured. Their homes were raided and their families were
threatened of consequences in case they talk to anyone. Amnesty International
during its research observed that the reality on the ground in Kashmir is very
different from the narrative of ‘normalcy’ set forth by both the government and
national news in India. One of the main reasons for this was the complete
dependency on the government information in the absence of ground reports from
local Kashmiri media. In several interviews with local journalists, editors and
publishers conducted by Amnesty International India, it was repeatedly
expressed that they felt threatened, intimidated or coerced into silence
leading to the stark absence of voices from Kashmir. Amnesty International
India believes that the intimidation and coercive attacks from security forces
faced by journalists in Kashmir severely affects their independence in
reporting and verifying the events unfolding in Kashmir since August 5, 2019.
Freedom of press is crucial for holding institutions accountable and the
present situation raises grave concerns of human rights violations that may
occur yet remain unreported due to Government of India's near-total control
over information coming out of Kashmir. Most importantly, this clampdown is
effectively silencing the truth.
8. US House hearings Part II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8UH4v-mv4. US House
hearings on human rights in South Asia, Vol II; Ms. Kaul: .RSS is akin to
Nazis: Kashmir is not a communal issue it has been communalized; Jummu massacre
is an enlarged version of Janllianwala massacre; the question is about the
consent of the people; Ms. Chatterji- Hindu majoratism is driving events in
Kashmir; Shan and Modi were part of Gujarat massacre they have not apologized;
the intent of this change is potentially genocidal;
Mr. Bencosme- India threatened AI and raided offices etc. other NGO were also
targeted; they have documented human rights violations in Kashmir; they have
documented health issues n Kashmir; Dr. Mahmood- Kashmiri have been imprisoned
by India; we are facing a very brutal regime; mental health is threathened; Ms.
Houlahan- there have been numerous violent gender based incidents including
rape and group rapes ; Mr. Levin- situation is very dire in occupied Kashmir;
Assam tribunals do not meet international standards; Ms. Wild- no justification
for the clamp down ; something has been hidden ; 370 abrogation is not a step
to better women rights; union territory is a step backwards; Ms. Omar- Indian
actions are wrongly termed as for the betterment of women rights; Mr. Lieu:
violence against Christians is State sponsored; all other religions are
persecuted; when the State sues violence and is also upholding justice is
exactly why Kushneris want the matter to be internalized; Ms. Jayapal: laws are
used to arbitrarily hold people or even kill people
9.
Weekly update 7 :
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Oct., 15, 2019 to Oct.,21,2019
1.
Afaan: Oct., 15,
2019:
Afaan, spent a
fortnight in a prison in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOK), after police
booked him under a stringent Public Safety Act (PSA). He was charged of
protesting against Indian decision of revoking the special status to the
region. A fortnight in a prison cell has completely changed Afaan, says his
father Manzoor Ahmed Ganai. The Juvenile Justice Committee of the State High
Court has confirmed the arrest of 144 juveniles. “He
(Afaan) is very depressed and frightened. His whole body aches and there are
visible scars on his back,” Ganai, told Anadolu Agency. A report prepared by the
IOK Coalition of Civil society (JKCCS) and the Association of Parents of
Disappeared Persons (APDP), mentions how the detention of children was adding
to the chaos. .https://tribune.com.pk/story/2080010/torture-detention-children-adds-rage-kashmir/
2. Women’s protest: Oct., 16, 2019: In occupied Kashmir, Indian
troops arrested several women after subjecting them to brute force during an
anti-India demonstration in Lal Chowk area of Srinagar, today.. A large number
of women including rights activists and leading academicians carrying placards
gathered at the Pratap Park in Srinagar. As they started the march,
the police swooped in on them and arrested several women including the daughter
and the sister of former puppet Chief Minister of occupied Kashmir, Farooq
Abdullah, during the protest against the revocation of Kashmir’s special
status. Ms Hawa Bashir, the wife of former Chief Justice of IOK High Court,
Bashir Ahmed Khan, was also among the detainees. The protesters were dragged
and subjected to torture by the police. This was the first anti-India protest
of its kind in Lal Chowk area, the center of Srinagar, after 5th August 2019. https://kmsnews.org/news/
3. Detentions: Oct., 17, 2019: Wani is one of
thousands of people reportedly detained in mass arrests in the disputed
Himalayan region, which has faced a security crackdown since India’s prime
minister, Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, revoked the Muslim majority state’s
semi-autonomous status in August. Wani’s parents traveled around 1,000km (620
miles) by bus to visit him in Agra central jail last week. “You have no idea
how I arranged the money for the travel,” his father, Ghulam Nabi Wani, said.
“He has changed so much physically, he has become weak and he shivers while
talking.” https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/oct/16/kashmir-families-live-in-fear-as-loved-ones-are-detained-far-from-home
#FReeKashmir #SaveKashmir
4.
Youth martyred: Oct.,
17, 2019: In occupied Kashmir, Indian martyred three Kashmiri youth.
The youth
were killed in a fake encounter by the troops during cordon and search
operations in Pazalpora area of Islamabad district. The martyred youth have
been identified as Nasir Chadro, a resident of Arwani, Aaqib Ahmad Sheikh of
Redwani and Zahid Ahmad from Bijbehara. https://kmsnews.org/news/
5. Children: Oct., 19, 2019: Children
in Kashmir are prevented from accessing urgent medical care. Basic necessities
— including baby food, milk and medicines are in short supply. Parents are not
sending their children to school for fear they will be injured, detained or
killed and have no way of communicating with them. Armed forces have illegally
detained Kashmiri children and abused them, physically and sexually. Children
have been shot in the eye by soldiers firing pellet guns and even marble
slingshots. A 17-year-old boy recently died of tear gas and pellet gun
injuries. Women in labor cannot access obstetric care for safe delivery,
putting their newborns at risk. Fathers are randomly detained by the military;
many disappear, leaving children behind. Local children’s organizations are
being paralyzed by the blackout and lockdown while international organizations
tasked with promoting children’s well-being, like UNICEF and Save the Children,
have yet to initiate meaningful programs to address this crisis https://www.insidesources.com/children-are-the-largest-casualty-of-the-kashmir-crisis/
6.
Fear: Oct., 19, 2019: Kashmiris
are afraid to talk to the media and other outsiders, this is because if they do
talk the Armed Forces either send to jail a family member or use violence.
According to a report from Frontline People in the hinterland underscored the
point that the forces had warned them of “reprisals” if they talked to the
media about the “cycles of night raids and illegal detentions, including that
of minors” Recently, a
Turkish state international news channel came out with a report of torture of a
26-year-old boy from Hirpora village in Shopian, 65 kilometres south of
Srinagar. As per this report, the boy was blindfolded, pushed into a vehicle
and taken to the Army’s 66 Rashtriya Rifles B Company camp at Chowgam. At the
camp, the report said, he was “stripped naked, waterboarded and forced to drink
copious amounts of a horribly smelly liquid” before the soldiers tied him to a
pole and inflicted blows on him and administered electric current. https://frontline.thehindu.com/dispatches/article29724488.ece?homepage=true
7.
8.
9.
Weekly update 6 :
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Oct., 8, 2019 to Oct.,14,2019
1.
Youth martyred: Oct., 10, 2019: In occupied
Kashmir, Indian troops martyred two
Kashmiri youth in Pulwama district, today.The troops martyred the youth
identified as Ufaid Farooq Lone and Abbas Ahmad Butt during a cordon and search
operation in Awantipora area of the district. Violent military operations are
going on in Ganderbal, Bandipore, Kupwara, Baramulla, Srinagar, Islamabad,
Kulgam, Shopian, Ramban, Doda, Kishtwar and other areas of the territory for
the past 12 days. https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/10/08/indian-troops-martyr-youth-in-iok-2/
2.
LoC killings: Oct., 10, 2019: The Foreign Office (FO) on Tuesday
summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner Gaurav Ahluwalia to record a strong
protest against the "unprovoked ceasefire violations" by Indian
forces along the Line of Control (LoC) on October 6 and 7. An elderly woman had
died and three other civilians had sustained injuries in the firing in Chirikot
sector along the de facto border. https://www.dawn.com/news/1509718/pakistan-summons-indian-envoy-to-protest-killing-of-civilian-in-loc-ceasefire-violation
3.
Apple:
Oct., 11, 2019: Farmers in Indian-administered Kashmir say
restrictions on communication and movement are having a devastating impact on
their businesses. Communications lockdown has resulted in a major portion of
the apple harvest to rot, the apple industry is the mainstay of the Kashmiri
economy. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/kashmir-farmers-struggle-india-restrictions-191009144145230.html
4.
UN: Oct., 12, 2019: Over 50 countries in the UN,
including Turkey, as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), on
Tuesday called on India to end human rights violations in Indian-administered
Jammu and Kashmir."The worsening human rights and humanitarian situation
in Indian Administered Jammu & Kashmir, especially following decisions
taken on August 5, 2019, requires urgent attention by the Human Rights Council
and human rights mechanisms," the countries said in a joint statement.
They also called for the immediate lifting of the curfew, ending the
communications shutdown, and the release of political prisoners in Jammu and
Kashmir. They also demanded were an immediate halt to the excessive use of
force, especially the use of pellet guns, and unhindered access of human rights
groups and the international media. They also asked for implementation of the
recommendations of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’
(OHCHR) Kashmir reports, including establishment of a UN commission of inquiry
to investigate "egregious human rights violations.". https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/un-asks-india-to-end-rights-breaches-in-jammu-kashmir-/1578339
Weekly update 5 :
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Oct., 1, 2019 to Oct.,7,2019
1. Minors detained: Oct., 2, 2019: Indian authorities in occupied Kashmir have detained
144 minors, including a nine-year-old, since the government removed the
region's special status in August, a police list seen by AFP showed on Tuesday.
Sixty of the minors are under 15, according to the document submitted to a
committee appointed by India's Supreme Court to look into allegations of
illegal detentions. Reasons given by the police for detaining the minors
include stone pelting, rioting and causing damage to public and private
property, the committee said in its report. https://www.dawn.com/news/1508397/9-year-old-among-144-minors-detained-in-occupied-kashmir
2.
Youth martyred: Oct., 2, 2019: In occupied
Kashmir, Indian troops martyred one more
Kashmiri youth in Ganderbal district, today. The troops martyred the youth
during a cordon and search operation in Ganderbal town. The operation which was
jointly launched by the Indian Army and paramilitary forces on Friday continued
till last reports came in. Seven youth including three in Naranag area of
Ganderbal district were killed by the troops on Saturday. Meanwhile, according
to the data compiled by the Research Section of Kashmir Media Service, the
troops martyred 16 Kashmiris including a woman and two young boys during the
last month of September. Of those martyred six youth were killed in fake
encounters. The killings rendered one woman widowed and two children orphaned.
During the period, 281 people were injured due to the firing of bullets,
pellets and teargas shells on peaceful protesters by Indian troops and police
personnel. As many as 157 people including Hurriyat activists and youth were
arrested. Twenty five residential houses were destroyed during siege and search
operations during the month.https://kmsnews.org/news/2019/10/01/indian-troops-matyr-one-more-youth-in-iok/
3.
Courts in
limbo: Oct., 4, 2019: Thousands of people have been detained in
Indian-administered Kashmir following a government move to strip the region of
its special status. Worried family members have been flocking to the courts -
but to little avail, reports BBC Hindi's Vineet Khare . Without a lawyer, Mr Lone is
unsure of how to proceed - he has already submitted a habeas corpus petition to
quash the charges against Shabbir. Habeas Corpus, which translates from Latin
to "you may have the body" is a writ that traditionally requires a
person detained by authorities to be brought to a court of law so that the
legality of the detention may be examined. More than 250 petitions have been
filed since 5 August, but none are being heard as the
court has assigned only two judges to hear them. Apart from a lack of lawyers, the
court is down to nine judges from the usual 17. "I don't know what else to
do," said a despondent Mr Lone, adding that he is now taking care of
Shabbir's family - his wife and two young children - and their 80-year-old
mother. Tariq (name changed) who was also at the Srinagar court, said he was
looking for a lawyer to represent his father-in-law who was arrested on 7
August. He said the 63-year-old was taken away by security forces close to
midnight and spent several days at the local police station before being moved
to Srinagar Central Jail. The dismal state of affairs in the Srinagar high
court was raised in the Supreme Court, and even prompted chief justice Ranjan
Gogoi to announce that he would visit Srinagar to see for himself if the situation
was as bad as reported. He has not announced a date to do so as yet. But what
it means is thousands of Kashmiris remain detained in prisons around the
country. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49848899
4. US Senate: Oct., 5, 2019: In what could become the first
step towards legislative action by American lawmakers against India on the situation
in Jammu and Kashmir, the United States Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations has added an appeal to end what it calls a “humanitarian crisis” in
Kashmir in its report ahead of the annual Foreign Appropriations Act for
2020.The amendment was proposed by Senator Chris Van Hollen, who visited Delhi
this week as a part of a congressional delegation that discussed the Kashmir
situation as well as India-U.S. bilateral relations, trade ties and defence
purchases with key officials. According to the report, which was submitted to
the Senate by Lindsey Graham, senior Senator and key Republican leader known
for his close ties to President Donald Trump, the committee on Appropriations
“notes with concern the current humanitarian crisis in Kashmir and calls on the
Government of India to: fully restore telecommunications and Internet services;
lift its lockdown and curfew; and release individuals detained pursuant to the
Government's revocation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution.” What makes
the report as well as the tough language on Kashmir more startling is that the
document was submitted on September 26, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi was
still in the US, and came just a few days after his joint address at the
‘Howdy, Modi!’ event in Houston with Mr. Trump, as well as their bilateral
meeting in New York. “This amendment, which was accepted unanimously by the
bipartisan committee, is a strong expression of concern by the Senate about the
situation in Kashmir and sends the signal that we are closely monitoring the
human rights situation there, and would like to see the Government of India
take those concerns seriously,” Mr. Van Hollen told The Hindu here, adding that
he had “hoped to share his concerns privately” with Prime Minister Modi, but
had not been able to meet him.. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/in-a-first-us-lawmakers-take-a-step-against-india-on-kashmir/article29598290.ece?homepage=true
5. Normalcy: Oct., 5, 2019: And for the hundreds and thousands of those of us who are
made to sit caged in the Kashmir Valley, the rulers continue to sing that all's
okay lullaby This, when everyone is
getting caged for those caged. In 2018,
Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) released a report titled -
Terrorized: Impact of Violence on the Children of Jammu and Kashmir. This
report is the assessment of the violence against children in Jammu and Kashmir
in the last fifteen years (2003 to 2017).It also focuses on the grim reality
that there are nil or near- nil legal and normative processes or practices
protecting children's rights in Jammu and Kashmir, as minors have been booked
under the repressive Public Safety Act (PSA). To quote from this report -
"Children in Jammu and Kashmir are living in the most militarized zone of
the world, with the presence of 7, 00,000 troopers, which exposes them to the
risk of all grave six violations against children as laid out in United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child…The period from 2003 to 2017, witnessed
not less than 318 killings of children (in the age group of 1 to 17) in various
incidents of violence in Jammu and Kashmir. The killing of 318 children
constitutes 6.95% of the civilian killings in last fifteen years, as 4571
civilians have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir in the same period (2003 -
2017). In the same period, i.e. from 2003 to 2017, at least 16,436 killings
were recorded in Jammu and Kashmir, and the majority of them included alleged
militants numbering at least 8537 killings. The numbers indicate that in the
last fifteen years Jammu and Kashmir in an average year has witnessed at least
1,095 killings, which belies the government's claims of 'return to
normalcy'…The pattern of killings of children in the fifteen-year period
suggests that children were direct targets of state violence, as part of its
stated offensive to curb uprising and militancy. At least 144 children were
killed by Indian armed forces and state police in Jammu and Kashmir, which
alone accounts for nearly half, i.e. 44.02 percent, of the total children
killed. Most of the children, at least 110 of them, killed in state violence
were shot dead in different incidents of violence, and not less than 8 children
died due to injuries inflicted from pellet shot-guns fired by government
forces. Twenty-seven children died to due drowning either caused due to the
negligence of armed forces in Wular lake tragedy or being chased by government
forces during a protest, where victims find no way of escape from the armed
forces and forced to jump into water bodies, resulting in their death." In 2018, I heard the Head
of the Journalism Department of the Islamic University of Science and
Technology ( IUST, - situated on the outskirts of Srinagar, in Awantipora)), Dr
Ruheela Hassan, speak at a seminar held at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (Centre
for Media Studies), focusing on the difficulties faced by the journalists in
the Valley - To quote her from the report - " The struggle of media in
Kashmir throughout its evolution is witness that the media in Kashmir has never
enjoyed real freedom. Be it the Dogra Rule in 1924, nationalist government
(1947-1953), Sheikh Abdullah (1948 - 1953), Ghulam Mohamad Bakshi (1953-1963),
Ghulam Mohamad Sadiq (1964-1971), National Conference (1975-1982/1986-1990),
media in Kashmir has never breathed in free air. At one time, the state was
resistant to granting permission and when the permission was granted their
freedom was curbed, strict laws and regulation like Jammu and Kashmir Press and
Publication Act of 1932 were introduced and implemented to ban publications,
seize printing presses, or demand heavy securities from the journalists…After
India gained independence, it guaranteed freedom of speech and expression to
all its citizens including the citizens of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, but
nothing changed for the press. Older laws were amended and new laws were
implemented to muzzle the press. …The inordinate circumstances in Kashmir from
1990s further worsened the scenario. Not only the freedom of expression was
endangered, but there were now increased threats to the life of journalists.
Their freedom of movement and right to assess information was also snatched.
Several journalists lost their lives and many were put behind bars. Journalists
also fought several battles with the state... Dr Ruheela Hassan had detailed,
"a survey has revealed that 77% of the valley journalists said that they
have faced restrictions of one form or other while performing their
professional duties. 21 % of the valley
journalists have been booked or summoned by the stake or national authorities
(mostly booked under draconian laws like OSA, PSA, security of the state).
20 journalists killed.. Several kidnapped and illegally detained .More than 25
injured. 80%
of valley journalists believe that no freedom of expression is enjoyed by them
as guaranteed." http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=95173
Source: https://kmsnews.org/news/
Weekly update 4 :
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Sep., 24, 2019 to Sep.,30,2019
1. Samir Ahmed: Sep., 24, 2019: On 6 August, a graphic designer for the Rising Kashmir
newspaper, Samir Ahmad, (in his early 20s) had remonstrated with a CRPF man
near his home in the Manderbag area of Srinagar, asking him to allow an old man
to pass. Later the same day, when Samir opened the door to his house, CRPF
fired at him with a pellet gun, unprovoked. He got 172 pellets in his arm and
face near the eyes, but his eyesight is safe. It is clear that the pellet guns
are deliberately aimed at the face and eyes, and unarmed, peaceful civilians
standing at their own front doors can be targets. (South Asian Wire). news@southasianwire.com
2. Children
detained : Sep.,24,2019: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-india-49772269/the-detained-children-of-kashmir
video of children being detained by Indian Occupation Forces in Indian Occupied
Kashmir , https://tribune.com.pk/story/2063006/3-helpless-kashmiri-families-fear-children-occupied-valley-report/
3. Yawar Ahmad Butt: Sep., 25, 2019: In occupied Kashmir, a
teenage boy lost his life after he was thrashed, humiliated and subjected to
ruthless torture by Indian troops at an Army camp in Pulwama
district.The 15-year-old boy, Yawar Ahmed Butt, a resident of Chandgam,
Pulwama was shifted to Srinagar's SMHS hospital in an injured condition where he
succumbed .His familymembers said that the boy
was detained and beaten by the troops at the Army camp.He was asked to
report to the camp next day. https://www.urdupoint.com/en/kashmir/troops-torture-claims-teenagers-life-in-iok-719222.html
4. Women: Sep., 26, 2019: team of 5 women visited Kashmir from
September 17th-21st 2019. We wanted to see with our own eyes how this 43 day
lockdown had affected the people, particularly women and children. The team
consisted of Annie Raja, Kawaljit Kaur, Pankhuri Zaheer from National
Federation Indian Women, Poonam Kaushik from Pragatisheel Mahila Sangathan and
Syeda Hameed from Muslim Women’s Forum. This Report is our chashmdeed gawahi
(eye witness account) of ordinary people who have lived for 43 days under an
iron siege.Shops closed, hotels closed, schools, colleges, institutes and
universities closed, streets deserted was the first visual impact as we drove
out from the airport. To us it seemed a punitive mahaul that blocked breathing
freely. The picture of Kashmir that rises before our eyes is not the populist
image; shikara, houseboat, lotus, Dal Lake. It is that of women, a Zubeida, a
Shamima, a Khurshida standing at the door of their homes, waiting. Waiting and
waiting for their 14, 15, 17, 19 year old sons.Across all villages of the four
districts, peoples’ experiences were the same. They all spoke of lights, which
had to be turned off around 8PM after Maghreb prayers. 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. 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. ‘What questions?’, no one dared ask. The
two have been detained since then. ‘We insist that men should go indoors after
6 PM. Man or boy seen after dusk is a huge risk. If absolutely necessary, we
women go outside’. These words were spoken by Zarina from a village near
Bandipora district headquarters. ‘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 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’. The living are inadvertently tortured by the dead. ‘People
die without warning or mourning. How will I inform my sisters about their
mother’s death?’ Ghulam Ahmed’s voice was choked. ‘They are in Traal, in
Pattan. I had to perform her soyem without her children’. The story was the
same wherever we went. People had no means of reaching out to loved ones. 43
days were like the silence of death. Public transportation was zero. People who
had private cars took them out only for essential chores. Women stood on
roadsides, flagging cars and bikes for rides. People stopped and helped out;
helplessness of both sides was their unspoken bond. ‘I was on my bike going
towards Awantipora. A woman flagged me. My bike lurched on a speed breaker. She
was thrown off. I took her to the nearby hospital. She went in a coma. I am a
poor man how could I pay for her treatment? How and who could I inform?’ These
daily events were recounted wherever we went. At a Lalla Ded Women’s Hospital
in Srinagar several young women doctors expressed their absolute frustration at
the hurdles that had been placed in their way since the abrogation of Article
370. ‘There are cases where women cannot come in time for deliveries. There are
very few ambulances, the few that are running are stopped at pickets on the
way. The result? There are several cases of overdue deliveries that produce
babies with birth deformities. It is a life long affliction, living death for
parents”. Conversely, we were told that several women are delivering babies
prematurely due to the stress and khauf (fear) in the present condition. “It
feels like the government is strangling us and then sadistically asking us to
speak at the same time,’ a young woman doctor said as she clutched her throat
to show how she felt. A senior doctor from Bandipora Hospital told us that
people come from Kulgam, Kupwara, and other districts. Mental disorders, heart
attacks, today there are more cases than he could ever recall. For emergencies
junior doctors desperately look for seniors; there is no way of reaching them
on phone. If they are out of the premises, they run on the streets shouting,
asking, searching in sheer desperation. One orthopaedic doctor from SKIMS was
stopped at the army imposed blockade while he was going for duty. He was held
for 7 days. Safia in Shopian had cancer surgery. ‘I desperately need a check up
in case it has recurred. Baji, I can’t reach my doctor. The only way is to go
to the city, but how do I get there? And if I do, will he be there?’ Ayushman
Bharat, an internet based scheme, cannot be availed by doctors and patients.
Women in villages stood before us with vacant eyes. ‘How do we know where they
are? Our boys who were taken away, snatched away from our homes. Our men go to
the police station, they are asked to go to the headquarters. They beg rides
from travellers and some manage to get there. On the board are names of ‘stone
pelters’ who have been lodged in different jails, Agra, Jodhpur, Ambedkar,
Jhajjar.’ A man standing by adds, ‘Baji we are crushed. Only a few of us who
can beg and borrow, go hundreds of miles only to be pushed around by hostile
jail guards in completely unfamiliar cities.’ At Gurdwaras we met women who
said they have always felt secure in Kashmir. ‘Molestation of women in rest of
India about which we read is unheard of in Kashmir’. Young women complained
they were harassed by army, including removal of their niqab‘. Army pounces on
young boys; it seems they hate their very sight. When fathers go to rescue
their children they are made to deposit money, anywhere between 20000 to
60000’. So palpable is their hatred for Kashmiri youth that when there is the
dreaded knock on the door of a home, an old man is sent to open it. ‘We hope
and pray they will spare a buzurg. But their slaps land on all faces,
regardless whether they are old or young, or even the very young. In any case,
Baji, we keep our doors lightly latched so they open easily with one kick’. The
irony of these simply spoken words!. Boys as young as 14 or 15 are taken away,
tortured, some for as long as 45 days. Their papers are taken away, families
not informed. Old FIR’s are not closed. Phones are snatched; collect it from
the army camp they are told. No one in his senses ever went back, even for a
slightly expensive phone. A woman recounted how they came for her 22 year old
son. But since his hand was in plaster they took away her 14 year old instead.
In another village we heard that two men were brutally beaten. No reason. One
returned, after 20 days, broken in body and spirit. The other is still in
custody. One estimate given to us was 13000 boys lifted during this lockdown.
They don’t even spare our rations. During random checking of houses which
occurs at all odd hours of the night, the army persons come in and throw out
the family. A young man working as SPO told us. ‘We keep a sizeable amount of
rice, pulses, edible oil in reserve. Kerosene is mixed in the ration bins,
sometimes that, sometimes koyla’.Tehmina from Anantnag recently urged her
husband, ‘Let us have another child. If our Faiz gets killed at least we will
have one more to call our own. Abdul Haleem was silent. He could see the dead
body of his little boy lying on his hands even as she spoke these words. ‘Yeh
sun kar, meri ruh kaanp gayi,” he tells us. A thirty year old lawyer from Karna
was found dead in his rented accommodation. He was intensely depressed.
Condolence notice was issued by Secy Bar Association. Immediately after that he
was taken into custody. Why? We spoke to a JK policeman. All of them have been
divested of their guns and handed dandas. ‘How do you feel, losing your guns?’
‘Both good and bad’ came the reply. ‘Why?’ Good because we were always afraid
of them being snatched away. Bad because we have no means now to defend
ourselves in a shootout. One woman security guard said ‘Indian govt wants to
make this a Palestine. This will be fought by the us, Kashmiris’. One young
professional told us, ‘We want freedom. We don’t want India, we don’t want
Pakistan. We will pay any price for this. Ye Kashmiri khoon hai. Koi bhi
qurbani denge’. Everywhere we went there were two inexorable sentiments. First,
desire for Azadi 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 Govt. ‘So, what is the worth in their
eyes, of us, ordinary Kashmiris?’ Since all their leaders have been placed
under PSA 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 (who had seen many children’s corpses with wounds from
torture) asking for immediate stop to this brutalisation of innocents. Their
children’s lives should not be snuffed out by gun and jackboots. As we report
our experiences and observations of our stay in Kashmir, we end with two
conclusions. That the Kashmiri people have in the last 50 days shown an amazing
amount of resilience in the face of brutality and blackout by the Indian
government and the army. The incidents that were recounted to us sent shivers
down our spines and this report only summarises some of them. We salute the
courage and resoluteness of the Kashmiri people. Secondly, we reiterate that
nothing about the situation is normal. All those claiming that the situation is
slowly returning to normalcy are making false claims based on distorted facts. https://www.change.org/p/india-the-kashmir-referendum-petition/u/25115588?cs_tk=Aii5nOAxkpYzCPB0j10AAXicyyvNyQEABF8BvMaYE8rynUgbgEtbSFOR62w%3D&utm_campaign=6e53293609bd451f8b5eda00bc5ecb4a&utm_medium=email&utm_source=petition_update&utm_term=cs
Weekly update 3 :
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Sep., 16, 2019 to Sep.,22,2019
1. Electric shocks: Sep., 16, 2019: The soldiers came
after midnight, Abid Khan says, his hands trembling, one of around two dozen
young men in just one part of occupied Kashmir who say they have been tortured
by the Indian army. Khan, 26, from
Hirpora village in Shopian district, says he was dragged out and blindfolded
along with his brother, who has learning difficulties, on August 14. “They gave
electric shocks to my brother right on the road outside. I heard him scream
painfully,” Khan told AFP,
showing marks on his arms, legs and buttocks. Once inside the nearby Chowgam
army camp, Khan said soldiers stripped him naked, tied up his legs and wrists,
suspended him and beat him with rods. The camp major, Khan said, accused him of
inviting Riyaz Naikoo from Hizbul Mujahideen — one of several armed groups
fighting Indian rule — to his recent marriage. “I kept repeating that was not
true,” Khan said. “Then they gave me electric shocks again on my genitals and
wounds. One of them said 'I will make you impotent'.” After being released at
dawn and barely able to stand, Khan says he kept vomiting for 10 days and only
managed to start moving around again after 20 days.“I can't eat properly
anymore,” he said. “I don't go into the room my wife sleeps in anymore [...]
It's better to die with a bullet than undergo such torture.” People in Hirpora say they often hear screams
from the army camp at night.
Three other villagers told AFP they were
also tortured. In total, around two dozen young men in the villages of Shopian
told similar stories. “The army is making
examples of two or three young men from each village,” said one resident of
Shopian who has compiled a list. The pattern
is often of soldiers raiding homes, taking identity cards and mobiles and
telling young men to report to the camps to retrieve them. One 21-year-old, who declined to be named but shared with
AFP photos of his wounds, said he has reported to the Pahnoo camp three
times since August 27 and was abused each time. An
officer accused him of giving food to Kashmiri fighters and then offered him
money for information, he said. Another time, he was grilled about a former
classmate who is now a fighter. “They gave
me electric shocks inside a dark room for about two hours,” the man said,
showing scars on his forearm. Obaid Khan, also
21, from Gugloora village said he had to go to the same camp to retrieve his ID
and phone on August 26. “Eight soldiers kept beating me with rods
for a long time. Before they let me go, they asked me to come back with names
of stone throwers in my village,” he said, referring to protesters who clash
with security forces. Sajjad Hyder Khan, a local official in Pinjoora village,
told AFP he has seen a list of 1,800 people detained by police and
soldiers from Shopian alone, one of the four districts in the southern Kashmir
Valley. https://www.dawn.com/news/1505539/they-gave-me-electric-shocks-in-a-dark-room-screams-in-the-night-in-occupied-kashmir
2.
HRW:
Sep., 16, 2019: Human Rights Watch on Monday urged the
Indian government to “immediately release detained Kashmiris who have not been
charged with a recognizable offense”. HRW’s latest report, India:
Free Kashmiris Arbitrarily Detained, documents the
detention of over 4,000 Kashmiris, including politicians, activists, separatist
leaders, lawyers, and journalists, who have been held in detention camps since
India stripped occupied Kashmir off its special status on August 5. Approximately
400 elected officials and political leaders, as well as former chief ministers
of Jammu and Kashmir belonging to the National Conference and the Jammu and
Kashmir People’s Democratic Party have also been detained. The human rights
watchdog states that many detainees have not been allowed to contact their
families or lawyers.“Anyone who has been detained in Kashmir without evidence
of a crime should be immediately and unconditionally released,” According to an official document seen by
Reuters, as of September 6, the authorities had arrested more than 3,800
people, and of them, 2,600 had been released. “The government should release a
list of all detainees and their whereabouts,” the human rights watchdog
urged .”The court also ordered Indian
authorities to allow others, including the daughter of the detained former
chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, to visit their relatives.“The persecution of
mainstream workers is shocking beyond belief,” Mattu told the media, adding
“Several of my party men are under detention.” The Indian security forces have
detained the family members of suspects, in cases when they failed to locate
the suspects, citizens of the occupied valley told HRW. “This amounts to
collective punishment, in violation of international human rights law,” the
report states. The report asks the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council to urge
India to end the collective punishment on Kashmiris and act on recommendations
in the report of the UN high commissioner for human rights.“India
is making a mockery of its human rights commitments by denying Kashmiris a
voice in their future, jailing political leaders, and suspending basic
freedoms,” Ganguly said. “The government’s heavy-handed measures are only
making a bad situation worse.” https://tribune.com.pk/story/2057683/3-hrw-urges-india-immediately-release-detained-kashmiris/
#FReeKashmir
3. Torture videos:
Sep., 18, 2019: In video recorded interviews, the
victims allege that the Indian army subjected them to immense physical pain and
psychological pressure. Khan, 26, said that on the night of August 13,
Indian army soldiers tortured him inside a camp and filmed parts of it. He had
passed out after being administered electric shocks. What happened during that
unconscious state is what worries “What if they had committed be-satree and filmed that too?
It is better to die in that case,” he said, using the Kashmiri expression be-satree
that broadly defines various forms of sexual violence. He said a group of
soldiers led by an officer entered his home in Hirpora, Shopian, about 65
kilometres south of Jammu and Kashmir's capital Srinagar. Several army vehicles
were waiting on the road outside the house. A few soldiers grabbed his youngest
brother Suhail, he said, and gave him an electric shock in the chest with the
help of a handheld device. “Suhail passed out in the courtyard and was let off.
They pushed me into a vehicle and took me to the camp, blindfolded,” said Abid.
At the camp, designated as 66 Rashtriya Rifles B Company, at Chowgam, about
eight kilometres from his home, Abid said he was stripped naked, water-boarded
and forced to drink copious amounts of a “horribly smelly” liquid. “Two of them
punched me in the gut until I vomited and urinated,” he said. Khan said his
hands and ankles were tied with a rope. He was then hung from a pole. He said
four soldiers took short run-ups and struck his buttocks, hips and back with
batons. “As I struggled in pain, my wrists and ankles got bruised. The bruises
became worse after every beating,” he said. Faded baton marks are still visible
on his buttocks, 32 days after the beating. Khan showed these reporters a video
of his swollen and blackened buttocks his family members had filmed the day
after the torture.“They passed electric current through my body after dunking
me in water. They did it several times. At one point, when I could take it no
more, I feigned fainting. But another electric shock startled me. I prayed for
death. Within no time I had passed out,” Khan said. After each brief reprieve,
he said “worse would follow”. “When I regained consciousness, they hit my
private parts with a stick.“One officer told me ‘I will end your life now.’ "He
drew a red-hot iron rod close to my penis but stopped short of touching it. I
cried a lot. His colleague told him ‘don’t do it. He has been married recently.
After all she is our sister too’. They pulled skin near my private parts with a
plier. It still hurts when I urinate. Once my entire body was bruised they
rubbed salt into the wounds. These mountains are witness to my ordeal. They
have heard my cries,” he said. Before the
torture began, Khan said, an army officer told him that he had invited Riyaz
Naikoo, the most-wanted Kashmiri rebel commander, to his wedding in July. The
officer accused him of building a hideout for militants in his home, which
stands in the middle of an eight-acre apple orchard. “I told him go and
bulldoze my home to the ground and if you find there is a hiding place
anywhere, set the entire thing on fire. But if there is none, build me a fresh
house. The [army] Major became angrier. He wanted me to confess, anything,”
Khan said. “He then told me to confess that Naveed Baba [a militan] has
been hiding in the home of my neighbour Peer Sajad. I told him why would I
falsely accuse somebody of something I know nothing about?” Khan said that on
August 13 he was taken to an army medical facility where several injections
administered to him at intervals “made the pain disappear and me
light-headed”.“I could even sit on my bruised buttocks,” he said. Two
“kindhearted Sikh medics” shouldered him to the gate of the camp. Khan was
released in the evening and his family members were waiting for him outside the
entire day. He said the officer threatened him that if he were to visit any
doctor or file a complaint with the police, all his family members would be
detained. His wife, father, brother and the village head were asked to sign some
papers, he added. At home, he started vomiting intermittently and the pain
recurred. “I told my family we should visit a hospital. At first, they didn’t
agree but when the pain became unbearable we went to SMHS Hospital in Srinagar
at 1am so that nobody saw us leaving,” he said. His hospital medical record
reads: “Trauma due to assault by security forces”. His buttocks were swollen
and had turned purple. After 10 days of treatment, an acquaintance advised him
to leave the hospital so as to avoid being noticed by Criminal Investigation
Department personnel. “Had we stayed the police might have filed an FIR [a
report for criminal investigation]. We are very scared,” Khan said. Locals say
four other youths were detained and beaten up at the same camp. Although they
have been released, none of them was present in the village at the time when
these reporters went to their respective homes. The sister-in-law of one of
them said he too had been given electric shocks and beaten with sticks but “not
as severely as One such raid was
conducted on the home of Idris Malik of Bagander locality in Shopian town at
midnight on August 7 by the soldiers of the same 66 RR camp at Chowgam. At the
camp, Malik said he was told that “your neighbour”, a militant who hails from the
same locality, has been injured. “They said ‘who has been taking medicine to
him?’” Malik said. “How would I know? They beat me up the entire night with
sticks and gave me electric shocks. My hands and ankles were tied with a rope
and I was hung upside down from a bar. My face was covered with a cloth and
several buckets of water were thrown at it. At one point I felt so cold that I
feared my blood would freeze,” he said. “In the morning leashed dogs were
brought in to scare me. I was made to stand in the open and stare open-faced at
the sun. My mouth dried up and when I asked for water they put a stick in my
mouth and said it should stay in the mouth,” Malik said. The 27-year-old
courier worker said he was told to inform on “incidents”, apparently meaning
militants’ activities or stone throwing protesters, in his locality.“I told
them I am scared of both sides. When I got sick of the beating I even told them
that yes we are all militants, my father is a militant,” he said. He was
released in the evening the next day after medics administered the unknown
injection which made the pain go away. He was also given some pills and lotion
was applied on his wounds. The injuries on his ankles have not healed fully.
Tiny black spots beneath the kneecap, he said, are the places where the current
was passed through his body. His hospital medical record dated August 8 reads,
among other things, “multiple trauma on buttocks”. Obaid’s father Muhammad
Ashraf said that on the night of August 26 the soldiers raided his house and
took away his son’s ID card, asking him to present himself at the camp the next
day. Ashraf and a neighbour, who accompanied Obaid to the camp, were seated and
served tea while Obaid was taken to a room he said was dark.“I was beaten for a
pretty long time with sticks and gun butts. From the neck to the feet no part
of my body was spared. They punched my face and head. My wrists and ankles were
tied with a wire and then they gave me electric shocks,” Obaid said. Ashraf
said his son was “almost dead” when they let him go. “We took him to the
sub-district hospital in Shopian. The doctors said he is under severe
pressure,” the father said and added that the army has withheld Obaid’s ID
card, asking him to provide a list of stone-throwers and militant sympathisers
in his area. “He can hardly sleep since the day he was detained. The sound of
vehicles scares him. He fears they are coming for him again. It is worse than
hell for us,” Ashraf said. A 21-year-old man in Pinjoora village of Shopian
said his ID card too was taken away during the night raid on August 8 and he
was asked to report at the Pahnoo camp the next day. At the camp, the soldiers
stripped him naked and beat him up after tying him to a pole. “With a blade
they made long cuts in my legs. The Major asked me to become their informer and
provide information about Omar Dhobi and Shakir Pal [both militants]. I told
him I don’t have any information about them. He said ‘you have no other
option.’” him.https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/india-s-torture-methods-new-claims-emerge-from-disputed-kashmir-29879
Weekly update 2 :
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Sep., 10, 2019 to Sep.,17,2019
1. UNHRC: Sep., 10,
2019: The United
Nations human rights chief on Monday said she was "deeply
concerned about the impact of recent actions" by the Indian government on
the human rights of Kashmiris. In her introductory
address
for the start of the Human Rights Council's latest session, Michelle
Bachelet aired concerns over India's actions against Kashmiris as
well as unlawful killings and injuries of Palestinians by Israeli security
forces. "While I continue to urge the governments of India and Pakistan to
ensure that human rights are respected and protected, I have appealed
particularly to India to ease the current lockdowns or curfews; to ensure
people's access to basic services; and that all due process rights are
respected for those who have been detained," she urged."It is
important that the people of Kashmir are consulted and engaged in any
decision-making processes that have an impact on their future." https://www.dawn.com/news/1504391/un-rights-chief-deeply-concerned-about-impact-of-indian-govts-actions-on-rights-of-kashmiris
2. Communications:
Sep., 11, 2019: The troubled region
where some 10 million people live had been placed under a security lockdown on
5 August, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi stripped it of its autonomy and
downgraded its status. The isolation is exacerbated by an unprecedented
communications blockade: landline phones, mobiles and the internet were
suspended. Kashmir sunk into what a local editor called an "information
black hole". More than a month later the
blockade remains in place. The woman had put pen to paper after she came across
a Facebook post from a freelance Kashmiri journalist who was visiting Delhi. On
a whim, he had posted a message on the social networking site, saying people
from his home district in Kashmir could send him messages for their families
with their addresses. He would, he wrote, "try his best to reach every
address" on his return. Two days later, Mr Sayed flew back to Srinagar
with 17 such messages on his phone from people around the world. They were
addressed to family and friends who lived in three districts of southern
Kashmir, the most restive region in the Muslim-dominated valley. Many had sent
digital messages. Others had written letters on paper, photographed them and
sent them via Facebook Messenger. The Delhi-based woman - who is not a Kashmiri
- was one of them. In her letter, the anxiety triggered by the communications
blackout is evident. She writes of how her "fingers have turned sore"
dialing numbers in Kashmir without success, and "frantically at night I
get up to check my messages, dial a few numbers and go through the pictures of
my holiday in Kashmir over and over again". Back in Kashmir, Mr Syed
became an itinerant messenger. He drove out of Srinagar to deliver the messages
to homes in shuttered towns and villages. His lifeless mobile phone had turned
into a carrier of precious tidings. India has more than a billion mobile phone
subscribers and 560 million internet subscribers - it is one of the world's
fastest growing digital markets. In comparison, there are only 23 million
landline phones. But in Kashmir people are applying for new landline
connections or trying to restore unused ones. As the shutdown entered its
second month, more such phones sputtered back to life. But people complain that
they are often not able to get through to "working" lines. On the
streets security forces have set up free makeshift phone booths - a plastic
table, a few chairs and a working Chinese-made phone - and some police stations
are offering free calls. At one booth, Manzoor Ahmed's dilemma was illustrative
of how the blockade is hurting people and livelihoods. The 55-year-old shawl
trader was trying to call customers outside Kashmir who owed him money.
"They sent me cheques. I went to the bank [some of the banks are open],
but they said they have no connectivity and are not able to process the
payment. So I am walking around town and looking for a phone to call my
customers and ask for a bank transfer," he says. "It was a very
emotional time," says Ms Masrat. "Everyone in the room was
sobbing." Another time, a man arrived and called his son to inform him
that his grandmother had died some days ago. And when even landlines are
difficult to get through to, Kashmiris living elsewhere in India and abroad are
flooding a local news network with messages to their families.,Gulistan News, a
Delhi-based satellite and cable news network, has been receiving messages and
videos that it plays on a loop during and between news bulletins. It also
carries messages from locals in Kashmir. The network says it has run hundreds
of messages of cancelled weddings - this is peak wedding season in Kashmir - on
an extra scrawl on its English and Urdu language bulletins, as well as video
messages from people living outside the region. One morning last week, Shoaib
Mir, 26, arrived in the network's office in Srinagar with a curious request:
could they help him track down his missing father?
The 75-year-old from Bemina, some 12km (7.5 miles)
away, had gone out for a morning walk the previous week and disappeared. Mr Mir
says they searched far and wide and drove miles before filing a missing
person's report at a police station. "There are no people on the roads,
everything is shut, and the police are busy enforcing the shutdown. Maybe a
video message from me with my father's photograph will help track him
down," he says. While the channel has helped connect families, it
struggles to do its work. The shutdown has hurt local media like never before.
It has made newsgathering difficult. A courier from a news network flies to
Delhi every day carrying three to five 16GB pen drives containing footage and
news. The material is then edited and broadcast from the office in Delhi.Local
newspapers have shrunk to six to eight pages from the usual 16 or 20. For
weeks, some 200 journalists crowded around 10 internet-enabled desktops at a
makeshift government media centre in Srinagar. Here, they access email, send
stories, pictures and video. Couriers download news from the wires onto their
pen drives and run to the newspapers to help them fill the pages. Anuradha
Bhasin, executive editor of Kashmir Times, has petitioned the Supreme Court
challenging the information shutdown and curbs on the movement of journalists.
She calls it a "grave violation of human rights". The shutdown, she
says, also means that media cannot report on developments and residents of
Kashmir don't get access to information available to the rest of Indians https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49631186 s
3. hutdTorture: Sep., 11, 2019: The Indian
soldiers descended on Bashir Ahmed Dar's house in southern Kashmir
on August 10, a few days after the government in New Delhi stripped the
disputed Himalayan region of its autonomy and launched a crackdown. Over the
next 48 hours, the 50-year-old plumber said he was subjected to two separate
rounds of beatings by soldiers. They demanded that he find his younger brother,
who had joined rebels opposing India's presence in the Muslim-majority region,
and persuaded him to surrender or else "face the music". In a second
beating at a military camp, Dar said he was struck with sticks by
three soldiers until he was unconscious. He woke up at home,
"unable to sit on my bruised and bloodied buttocks and aching back",
he said. But it was not over. On August 14, soldiers returned to his house in
the village of Heff Shirmal and destroyed his family's supply of rice and other
foodstuffs by mixing it with fertiliser and kerosene. In more than 50
interviews, residents in a dozen villages in Kashmir told The Associated Press
that the military had raided their homes since India's government imposed a
security crackdown in the region on August 5. They said the soldiers
inflicted beatings and electric shocks, forced them to eat dirt or drink filthy
water, poisoned their food supplies or killed livestock, and
threatened to take away and marry their female relatives. Thousands
of young men have been arrested The
abuses in the night-time raids by troops began in early August as New Delhi
took action on Kashmir, according to interviews with at least 200 people. The
change in status nullified decades-old constitutional provisions that gave
Jammu and Kashmir state, as it is officially called, some political autonomy
and land inheritance rights. In the village of Parigam, the family of baker
Sonaullah Sofi was asleep when army troops raided his home. The soldiers took
his two sons into a street, hitting them with gun butts, iron chains and
sticks, Sofi said."Helpless, I heard my sons scream as soldiers started
beating them up mercilessly in the middle of the road," Sofi said. Soon,
soldiers brought 10 more young men to the village square, seeking names of
anti-India protesters, said Muzaffar Ahmed, Sofi's 20-year-old son, recounting
the August 7 incident."They hit our backs and legs for
three hours. They gave us electric shocks," Ahmed said,
lifting his shirt to show his burned and bruised back."As we cried and
pleaded [with] them to let us go, they became more relentless and ruthless in
their beating. They forced us to eat dust and drink water from a drain."
Since the crackdown began, at least 3,000 people, mostly young men, have been
arrested, according to police officials and records reviewed by the AP. About
120 of those have been slapped with breaches of the Public Safety Act, a law
that permits holding people for up to two years without trial, the records
showed. Thousands of others have been detained in police lockups to be screened
for their potential to join protests. Ahmed, the baker, said the soldiers
finally left at dawn, leaving them writhing in pain. He and his elder brother
along with at least eight others were then bundled into a single ambulance and
taken to a hospital in Srinagar. For years, human rights groups have accused
Indian troops of intimidating and controlling the population with physical and
sexual abuse and unjustified arrests. Indian government officials deny this,
calling the allegations separatist propaganda. Abuses alleged by rights groups
since 1989 have included rape, sodomy, water boarding, electric shocks to the
genitals, burns and sleep deprivation. The UN last year called for an
independent international investigation into allegations of rights violations
like rape, torture and extrajudicial killings in Kashmir. India rejected the
report as "fallacious." Parvez Imroz, a prominent rights lawyer,
said the new reports of abuse in the security forces' ongoing campaign were
"disturbing”. Fear and anger are palpable in the villages that dot the
vast apple orchards, especially after sundown, when the soldiers
come. Abdul Ghani Dar, 60, said soldiers have raided his home in the village of
Marhang seven times since early August, adding that he sends his daughter to
another location before they arrive. They say they've come to check on my son
but I know they come looking for my daughter," Dar said, his eyes welling
with tears. Residents of three other villages said soldiers had
threatened to take girls away from their families for marriage."They're
marauding our homes and hearths like a victorious army. They are now behaving
as if they have a right over our lives, property and honour," said Nazir
Ahmed Bhat, who lives in Arihal. In early August, soldiers came to the home of
Rafiq Ahmed Lone while he was away."The soldiers asked my wife to
accompany them for searching our home. When she refused, she was beaten up with gun
butts and sticks," Lone said https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/netanyahu-announces-post-election-plan-annex-jordan-valley-190910155523634.html
4. Anchar Protest: Sep.,
12, 2019: Prayers had barely finished when the
teargas was fired and a trail of smoke arched in the sky. Security forces had
launched another assault on Anchar, the only major pocket
of resistance in Kashmir.
“Others have only heard the word doomsday, we have lived a doomsday,” said
Fazi, a grandmother who lives in Anchar, a suburb of Kashmir’s main city, Srinagar,
situated on the banks of a lake of the same name. Teargas and pellets were
fired into a park near to the shrine where crowds were attending prayers, she
said. Residents rushed to the frontline on Anchar’s outskirts, barely 500
metres away, to push back against security forces. She said the assault, on 30
August, lasted five hours. “It was like rain. There were pellets everywhere,
smoke everywhere,” she said. Saima and
two of her sisters – 14-year-old Maysara and 12-year-old Qurat – were wounded by
pellets during the assault. A metal pellet pierced Maysara’s eye. She was
smuggled to her aunt’s home elsewhere in Srinagar and underwent treatment in
hospital. Qurat was wounded in the head. Saima was hit on the neck and arms.
“First I felt like hot sand was thrown on me and then I felt my neck is
burning,” said Saima. She was treated at the shrine late in the evening by
doctors who had been smuggled into the neighbourhood. They administered
painkillers and injections to prevent infections. “I don’t know how [Maysara]
is, whether she is still admitted or she has been discharged,” said Subhan. The
communications blackout means people have no idea if their relatives are safe.
Fazi’s 22-year-old grandson, Bilal, was blinded in his right eye by a pellet.
“The bleeding was not stopping, so we sent him to the hospital but doctors said
they cannot save his eye,” said Bilal’s father, Mohammad Ramzan. “The doctors
recommended that we should take him to a specialised eye hospital outside
Kashmir.” He was smuggled out of the city. Ramzan has no idea where his son is
or if he is safe. More than 100 pellets
were lodged in his body, neck and head, he said. “It was very painful. When I
was hit it was like a hundred needles had pricked me.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/11/kashmiri-suburb-indian-control-anchar-srinagar
5. Custodial death: Sep., 12,2019:
Handwara, Indian-administered Kashmir — At dawn on September 3, the Indian police raided the house
of Zareena Begum in north Kashmir's Handwara district and arrested her
24-year-old son Riyaz Ahmad Thickrey, a daily wage labourer. Begum, who's
partially blind, couldn't fathom the arrest, which looked like a sudden
abduction. Far away in the remote forests of Handwara, 96 km away from Srinagar
city, Begum's mud hut is perched on a low-lying hill. For the next few hours,
she roamed from terrain to terrain, calling her son's name, hoping that he may
return soon. But on September 4
at midnight, the police picked up Riyaz's uncle Shabangi from his home. Once
they reached the police station, Shabangi enquired about Riyaz. “They said he
[Riyaz] is in the toilet,” Shabangi told TRT World. The
toilet, he said, was in front of the police lock-up. As Shabangi opened the
toilet door, he was startled to see Riyaz lying face down on the floor,
completely motionless. The police told him that Riyaz had hung himself to death
in the toilet and it was a case of suicide. Terrified at the sight, he looked
for traces of blood and found none on the spot. Although the police maintain
that their "preliminary investigation" suggests that Riyaz committed
suicide, the family cries foul, and counters the claim saying he's been
murdered in police custody.The police sent Riyaz's body for post-mortem. A
court inquiry was initiated and on the morning of September 5, the body was
returned to the According to the
region's prominent human rights organization, the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of
Civil Society (JKCCS), most of the probes ordered to investigate 108 cases of
human rights abuse since 2008 — including nine custodial killings — have failed
to initiate even a single prosecution and the families still await justice.
6.
Missing Son: Sep., 13, 2019:
When my son Yasir went to fetch bread in the morning and didn’t return
promptly, I started pacing with worry outside the house. What if the security
forces manning every corner had roughed him up, or even worse? My fear is the
fear of every single person living in shock in Kashmir
and wondering “What next?” Eventually he returned, explaining that the delay
was due to long queues at the only bakery open in the entire area. But unlike
Yasir, my son Javaid has never returned. Nothing can make you used to the
terror of nocturnal raids by security forces. It was 18 August 1990, and we
were living in Srinagar,
at the height of an uprising against the Indian occupation. In the early hours
of the morning, a neighbour came to tell
us that my son Javaid, only 16 years old, had been taken away by the National Security
Guard – one of many paramilitary forces
operated by the Indian government in the valley. At first I wasn’t fearful, as
I knew this was a case of mistaken identity. My son had never quarrelled with
anyone, let alone been part of any armed uprising. As the day passed, my
anxiety increased as efforts to trace him failed. I ran from one police station
to another, from one known torture centre to another detention camp to be told,
“Do not worry, he will be released”. He did not return. From 1997 until today, Javaid’s file,
along with those of all Kashmiri victims of armed forces in the
India-administered region, has remained secret. Not a single permission has
been granted by the central government to prosecute any official facing
allegations of grave human rights abuses. They threatened me, they tried to buy
me, they suggested I was a bad mother for neglecting my other children and for
taking my infant daughter with me to wait endlessly in front of police stations
and the courts, they spread rumours about my motives, they harassed me, they
raised false charges against me – they wanted me to give up. But I never
stopped asking “Where is my son?” Between 8,000 and 10,000 Kashmiris have been
victims of enforced
disappearance. I was never a political person but
the fire of my own suffering and the anguish of other parents prompted me to
start the Association of
Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP).
I started visiting the families of the disappeared in every part of Kashmir to
listen, offer support and encourage action. Ours is not a conventional
organisation of activists but a community of sufferers who share pain, support
each other and live with hope that our disappeared children will be returned.
From informal gatherings to hunger strikes in public, from vigils in parks to
seminars at educational institutions in both Kashmir and India
and visits to universities and the UN, we are seeking the answer to our
questions – Where have you taken our sons? Where are our husbands. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/12/son-kashmir-disappeared-india-truth-fate-siege
7. Asrar’s death: Sep., 13, 2019: Indian officials insisted Asrar Ahmad
Khan was killed by a stone, but medical records show he was struck by a tear
gas canister and then shot in the face with pellets. A 17-year-old boy was playing cricket in a Srinagar park when,
according to witnesses and his family, a paramilitary convoy made up of eight
military vehicles pulled up. Six
of the cars moved on but Indian security forces poured out from the two that
remained behind.“They fired a tear gas canister that hit Asrar’s head” the
teenager’s father, Firdous Ahmad Khan told TRT World. Asrar’s friends and cousins, who were at the park on August 6
evening, described the incident as “unprovoked”. “There was no protest. In fact
there never is a protest in our locality,” Adil Ahmad, the teenager’s elder
cousin, said. He added that after he was hit by the canister Asrar was further
struck by a hail of shotgun pellets fired by Indian forces. Firdous Ahmad Khan
describes his son Asrar as a well behaved and studious child.“He was very
obedient towards his elders. He never talked in a loud tone,” he said. For 29
days, Asrar remained in critical condition at the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of
Medical Sciences (SKIMS), where doctors treated him for injuries caused by the
tear gas canister and shotgun pellets. On September 3, Asrar died .His death
certificate, obtained by TRT World, recorded the death as being due to “pellet
injury with shell blast injury”. decision.Because of the clampdown it was near
impossible for Asrar’s friends and family to challenge the official narrative
of his death. However, medical records clearly demonstrate that the Indian
narrative was inaccurate. Asrar’s x-rays show dozens of pellets embedded in his
skull and a picture of the teenager taken soon after receiving his wound show
his face pockmarked with fresh pellet-sized scars. https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/witnesses-and-medical-evidence-rebut-indian-account-of-kashmir-teen-s-death-29692
8. Arrests:
Sep., 14, 2019: Authorities in Indian
Kashmir have arrested nearly 4,000 people since the scrapping of its special
status last month, government data shows, the clearest evidence yet of the
scale of one of the disputed region’s biggest crackdowns. In an attempt to
stifle the protests that the reform sparked in Kashmir, India cut internet and
mobile services and imposed curfew-like restrictions in many areas. It has also
arrested more than 3,800 people, according to a government report dated Sept. 6
and seen by Reuters, though about 2,600 have since been released. More than 200
politicians, including two former chief ministers of the state were arrested,
along with more than 100 leaders and activists from an umbrella organization of
pro-separatist political groups. The bulk of those arrested - more than 3,000 -
were listed as “stone pelters and other miscreants”. On Sunday, 85 detainees
were shifted to a prison in Agra in northern India, a police source said.
Rights group Amnesty International said the crackdown was “distinct and
unprecedented” in the recent history of the region and the detentions had
contributed to “widespread fear and alienation”. “The communication
blackout, security clampdown and detention of the political leaders in the
region hasmade it worse,” said Aakar Patel, head of Amnesty International
India. In the 24 hours before
the report was compiled, more than two dozen people were arrested, mainly on
suspicion of throwing stones at troops, the data showed. The data did not include those under informal house arrest, nor
people detained in a round-up of separatists that began in February after a
bomb attack by a Pakistan-based militant group on Indian troops. Days before India’s move to strip Kashmir of special status, one
prominent separatist leader told Reuters that more than 250 people with links
to the movement were already in detention. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-kashmir-detentions/thousands-detained-in-indian-kashmir-crackdown-official-data-reveals-idUSKCN1VX142
Weekly update 2 Sep., 10, 2019 to Sep.,17,2019. Human rights
violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir, rape, extra judicial killings, curfew,
communications lockdown, https://javedrashid.blogspot.com/2019/09/weekly-update-human-rights-violations.html
Weekly update 1 :
Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir from Aug., 5, 2019to Sep.,7,2019
Medicines in short supply
Extract from: Hospitals In
Kashmir Short Of Supplies, September 1, 20198:21 AM ET LAUREN FRAYER, https://www.npr.org/2019/09/01/756427938/hospitals-in-kashmir-short-of-supplies
Kashmiri doctors say a
curfew and Internet shutdown have left hospitals dangerously low on supplies.
The government denies that, and has arrested doctors who complained. It's been
nearly four weeks since India cut phone lines and Internet in its only
Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir. It did this to prevent protests right
before it revoked the state's autonomy. But doctors and human rights groups say
these measures may now be endangering lives, as NPR's Lauren Frayer reports
from New Delhi.
FRAYER: His 80-year-old
grandfather managed to get treatment and is now resting at home in Kashmir,
though Mehboob has no way of checking on him. The student insisted on giving
only his first name to protect his family. This week, Kashmiri doctors held a
one-day strike. They, too, say hospitals are running short on supplies and are
unable to process insurance claims. Fearful of arrest - and thousands of
Kashmiris have been in recent weeks - the doctors held signs that read, this is
not a protest. This is a request.
FRAYER: This urologist,
Omar Salim, told local TV that low-income patients are eligible for free
treatment, but that without the Internet, he hasn't been able to verify their
medical records. Patients have been forced to buy their own drugs, he said. And
they can't afford to do that for much longer. . Spokesman Raveesh Kumar told reporters in
Delhi
MEENAKSHI GANGULY: They have not been able to
reach their loved ones. But additionally, the Internet is also something that
people depend on now to check in on medical records or give access to
insurance. So it is becoming a big challenge. .
FRAYER: It turns out
Younis is a cancer survivor himself. Last year, a bunch of Kashmiris crowd funded
to raise money for his treatment. Now his cancer is in remission. And he's
trying to pay it forward by carrying three giant duffel bags filled with
medicine back to those who need it in Kashmir. Lauren Frayer, NPR News, New
Delhi.
Meenakshi
Ganguly reports: “This is
not a protest. This is a request,” read the placard
Dr. Omar Salim was holding outside a government hospital in Srinagar last week.
He wanted the Indian government to lift the shutdown on
phones and internet in Jammu and Kashmir state, in place
since August 5. He felt the blackout was preventing patients from obtaining
government health benefits. For this, the police promptly detained him,
according to various reports.
Salim is not alone in raising concerns
that the security lockdown in
Kashmir – which has restricted basic
freedoms – is preventing people from getting
proper health care.
In an August 16 letter in the medical journal BMJ,
19 doctors from across India asked the government to ease restrictions on
communication and travel, saying they were “a blatant denial of the right to
health care and the right to life” because they made it difficult for patients
and staff to reach hospitals without hindrance. The British medical journal Lancet also
raised concerns over the health and safety of Kashmiris under the lockdown.
Indian authorities claim the
restrictions are necessary to save lives by preventing violent protests.
However, the government’s broad and indefinite denial of basic communications
not only violates the right to share and receive information, it also infringes
on other rights, such as ensuring the highest obtainable standard of health.
For example, a journalist from Kashmir wrote about his sister who suffered a miscarriage:
“The doctors at the hospital regret that the ban on communication prevented
them from real time communication to the senior gynecologist that could have
saved the baby.” On August 9, a stillborn baby was born to
parents who, with the suspension of transport, had to walk to a district
hospital after developing complications.
From chemotherapy to dialysis, patients
are struggling to access lifesaving treatment on time.
Salim explained that poorer patients are unable to receive free medical care
under a government insurance scheme because that requires phone or digital
connectivity to access records
The Indian government’s actions in
Kashmir cannot be at the expense of Kashmiris’ rights. Shutting down doctors
who speak out is not going to solve the real problem of lives at risk. Instead,
the authorities should take all necessary steps to ensure people are able to
obtain health care and emergency services.
the
world.
Journalists
in the region complain of harassment by authorities, with many accusing
security forces of deleting their camera footage and pressure to report
"normalcy"."This is a unique situation. None of us had seen
anything like this in the past. Even in the worst of times in Kashmir, we were
able to file our stories," said Muzaffar Raina as he waits to access his
email at a Media Facilitation Centre in the main city of Srinagar.
Since the night of August 4, the region's
seven million residents have been placed under a curfew and denied telephone
and internet access. Raina says the situation is "unprecedented". The restrictions were
imposed to prevent backlash over India's Hindu nationalist
government's decision to strip the country's only Muslim-majority state of its
limited autonomy, triggering the worst political crisis in the region in more
than 70 years.
Raina said the curbs are in place "to prevent the truth from
going out". "For the first few days, I was not able to send
anything," he said, adding that a friend working for a television channel
then offered to help.
"I would make a video of the text. My friend would use his OB
[outdoor broadcasting] van to send the video to his office, where someone would
send it to my office in [New] Delhi, where they would type the story," he
said.
Peerzada Ashiq, who reports for The Hindu newspaper, also said he
could not send his report or contact his office for the first few days, until
he mailed his story in a flash drive to New Delhi.Like Raina, Ashiq also sought
a friend's help to send the story through the OB van.
Many journalists complained of being harassed by the security
forces patrolling the streets. S Ahmad, who works as a videographer for an
international TV channel, told Al Jazeera that he was forced to delete footage
from his camera by the security officers after he recorded a protest in
Srinagar. "I was made to delete my footage at least three times. You give
them a proof of the organisation you work for, but the forces don't
listen," he said.
Ahmad said a paramilitary trooper told him to film "the
normalcy" and not the protests. "They are dictating how we should
work."We risk everything to tell a story. People trust us with their
stories and it is heartbreaking to let them down in such a state."
A journalist from south Kashmir's Pulwama district, the hub of
Kashmir's rebellion, said he has not filed any story since August 4, the day
the latest clampdown started."The forces do not allow us to work. People
are reluctant to talk because they blame us for not showing the true
story," he said on condition of anonymity. "So I preferred to be
locked in my home. Taking out a camera was tough in this
"The local media is avoiding reports about the human rights
violations, even skipping reports about local protests, clashes, large-scale
arrests and detentions, not daring to question the official propaganda, and
sticking to government handouts, even if they fail to make sense on the
ground," it said. Many journalists said it is not the same for journalists
from outside Kashmir. "Many national journalists, some of whom are
supported by the Indian government, are able to move freely and meet officials
and go anywhere," said a KWJA member on condition of anonymity."But
curbs are only on us.
Life in the Occupied
Kashmir Valley:
Srinagar,
and indeed the entire Kashmir
valley of seven million people, is under lockdown
and saturated with security forces who have blocked off traffic in large parts
of the city. There is also a general strike, called by no one, but observed by
everyone, so that virtually all schools, colleges, and shops are closed. The
internet and mobile phone networks are dead.
I
came to Srinagar two weeks after a constitutional blitzkrieg by India’s Hindu
nationalist BJP government that sought to impose a radical new status, and
effectively annexe this disputed territory. Kashmir is part of the ‘unfinished businesses
of the partition and decolonisation of British India in 1947 – a Muslim
majority princely state whose Hindu ruler acceded to independent India rather
than Pakistan under the fog of war. In Kashmir
valley, which is over 95 per cent Muslim, Indian rule is manifestly resented,
and there is widespread support for azaadi (independence), often erupting into
street protests, stone-pelting, and strikes that last for days I’ve
travelled to many conflict zones over the years, including Jaffna during the civil
war, and I’ve never seen anything quite as oppressive and claustrophobic.
I have been off-grid in Srinagar for
two days now, but I still keep reaching reflexively for my phone. For everyone
else here, it is day 18 of groundhog day. Every day is just like yesterday:
there’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, no phones, no internet, no idea when
it’ll end, and the security forces are watching suspiciously from every corner.
For weeks now, people haven’t been able to speak to relatives abroad or even
the rest of India.
New Delhi’s approach to Kashmir, and
indeed to the other ethnic separatist insurgencies in sensitive border areas
has long been about asserting firm military domination over a hostile
population. But beyond the sticks of counter-insurgency, Indian rule always
rested on a number of carrots designed to win popular consent, including
economic development schemes, political autonomy under local elections, and a
special status within India’s federal structure. It is another matter that
these provisions are largely formalistic, have been whittled down over the
years, and have generated a pliant pro-India political elite who are viewed
with scorn by the public
For long, mainstream Indian
political leaders had grudgingly accepted the inevitability of negotiations
with Pakistan and the Kashmiris themselves, in order to arrive at a final
status agreement. Kashmir is, after all, no ordinary internal insurgency, but
the subject of an international dispute, so that leaving aside the instrument
of accession signed by the Maharaja, or Nehru’s failed promise of a plebiscite,
India’s de facto control of the Kashmir valley rests on the basis of a military
ceasefire line dating from 1948
Amit Shah’s bill, announced for the
first time ever in parliament on 5 August, passed through the upper house the
same day, the lower house the next day, and was signed into an Act by the
president three days later, while most of Kashmir was under lockdown and its
leaders in jail. Barring a judicial challenge, it will become the new reality
on 31 October. The 12 million people of Jammu and Kashmir were informed of this
fate after the fact, and learned of it through television news.
Everyone knows this is collective
punishment and imprisonment, carried out by Hindu nationalists who make no
bones about the fact that they hate Muslims and want to drive them out. With
the moderates locked up and publicly disgraced by their erstwhile patrons, the
options presented to Kashmiris are now are much simpler – they are the extremes
of total capitulation or total defiance.
also wanted to talk.
Torture
Two Kashmiri brothers show the BBC the
injuries they sustained from what they said were beatings by Indian army
officers.
Villagers living in known anti-India
regions in Kashmir claim that Indian army officer have beaten them with sticks,
given them electric shocks, and filled their mouths with mud when they
screamed, according to a BBC
report from the region.
Two unnamed brothers living in a
village known to be a hub of anti-India militant groups told the BBC's Sameer
Hashmi that they were woken up and gathered alongside nearly a dozen other men
from their village, and beaten up even as they protested their innocence.
Here's what one of them told the BBC:
"They beat us up. We were asking
them: 'What have we done? You can ask the villagers if we are lying, if we have
done anything wrong?' But they didn't want to hear anything, they didn't say
anything, they just kept beating us.
"They beat every part of my body.
They kicked us, beat us with sticks, gave us electric shocks, beat us with
cables. They hit us on the back of the legs. When we fainted they gave us
electric shocks to bring us back. When they hit us with sticks and we screamed,
they sealed our mouth with mud.
One of the men then said that they
asked the soldiers to: "Just shoot us."
"I was asking Allah [God] to take
me, because the torture was unbearable," he continued.
The BBC did not name the men, noting
that they declined to reveal their identities for fear of persecution. It also
did not name the six villages it visited, but said they were in southern
Kashmir and were known hubs for anti-India resistance.
Here are details of the other
allegations reported by the BBC:
·
One man said he was pushed to the
ground and beaten with "cables, guns, sticks, and probably iron
rods," by 15 to 16 soldiers, and that they "pulled my beard so hard
that I felt like my teeth would fall out."
·
A man whose brother had joined the
Hizbul Mujahideen, a prominent anti-India and pro-Pakistan militant group in
Kashmir, had his hands and legs tied, was hung upside down, and beaten
"very badly for more than two hours."
·
Another man said Indian security forces
ordered him to take off his glasses, clothes, and shoes, and proceeded to beat
him "mercilessly with rods and sticks" for almost two hours when he
said he didn't know and couldn't name any anti-India protesters in his village.
·
"Whenever I fell unconscious, they
gave me shocks to revive [me]," the man said.
·
India has detained some 3,000 people,
from activists to local politicians, in what authorities say are pre-emptive
and designed to maintain regional stability.
·
India has also imposed a state-wide
communications blackout on the region — a common strategy to stop people from
organizing protests or spreading unflattering news about India.
·
Internet and phone lines remain cut,
and soldiers continue to seal off large chunks of roads in Kashmir. Local
journalists are unable to report the
news.
A
man in Kashmir showed the BBC photos of these bruises from what he said were
beatings by Indian security forces.BBC
Living through Kashmir’s Communications
Blackout
“Human rights are being snatched away
as we speak.” By Pranav Dixit , Last updated on September 3, 2019, at
4:42 a.m. ET, Posted on September 2, 2019, at 9:10 p.m. ET
For 29 days, the residents of Kashmir,
the conflict-ridden state in northern India, have been living in a black hole.
On midnight, Aug. 4, India's Hindu nationalist government abruptly wiped out
the legal autonomy that the disputed region has enjoyed for decades, and shut down the
region’s internet. It isn't the first time that internet services have been
shut down in Kashmir. According to the
Software Freedom and Law Centre, a New Delhi–based digital advocacy
organization, this was the 55th internet shutdown in Kashmir in 2019 alone. But
Kashmiris who spoke to BuzzFeed News said that the scale of this particular
blackout was unprecedented — in addition to mobile internet services, landline
and broadband services are frozen, and most local television channels have been
turned off.
Four weeks into the blackout, life in
Kashmir has come to a standstill, with pharmacies running out of essential
medicines, newspapers unable to function, and
strict curfews making it impossible to move around after dark. And the
situation doesn’t seem to be improving: On Friday, India imposed fresh restrictions on Kashmir, telling
people to stay off the streets.
To better understand what is happening
to ordinary people, BuzzFeed News spoke to five Kashmiris who have been in and
out of the region: a college student desperately trying to reach her parents, a
restaurateur who turned his Instagram into a communications hub, a man
desperately trying to ship medicine to his father-in-law, a startup founder cut
off from the marketplace, and a college student trapped indoors.
Here are their stories.
Amirah,
college student, New Delhi
I moved to New Delhi from Kashmir a
month ago for an undergrad degree in political science. When the internet and
telephone blackout happened, my mental health plummeted. I kept dialing phone
numbers constantly, but I couldn't contact Mom and Dad in Kashmir. I don’t know
if they are OK. The last time I spoke to my parents was five minutes before
they shut down the phones and the internet in Kashmir on August 4. We knew
something was going to happen, but nobody knew what. "Don't panic,"
my mom told me before she hung up.
In Kashmir, we're used to having the internet shut down
frequently. But usually, it comes back in a few days, and the phones still
work. For the first two days I held on. On the third day, I started panicking.
I felt numb. I didn't go to college that day. Everybody around me who had
families in Kashmir was freaking out too. We just kept talking to each other
for emotional support.
I stayed in Kashmir for nine days before coming back to
Delhi, and it was like living in a black hole. We weren't allowed to step
outside our houses because there was a curfew. We had no contact with the
outside world. At one point, the Indian military wouldn't even let us walk on
the street immediately outside my house. We didn't know if people living across
the street from us were OK. We didn't know whether our relatives who live
around the Valley were OK. Eid was especially hard. It's our biggest festival
and everyone usually visits each other's houses each year at this time, but
this year, nobody did.
I think one of the worst parts of living through this
blackout has been the way nationalist news channels in India have covered the
situation in Kashmir by trying to portray it as normal. It's propaganda.
Javid
Parsa, restaurateur, New Delhi
Kashmir is my home and it's in trouble. Why wouldn't I
help my people? Dealing with medical emergencies seemed to be an obvious
priority to try and help out with. I have a sizable following on Instagram,
so I decided I could use it as a platform to help my people out.
The communications blackout has spawned a medical
emergency in Kashmir. Each day, I get three or four people traveling to Kashmir
messaging me and offering to carry and deliver medicines and other essentials
to people's families who are stuck there unable to ask anyone for help. Just
yesterday, we found five patients in Southern Kashmir who urgently needed blood
pressure medication. Thanks to my Instagram, we were able to find a guy driving
there from Delhi who was able to carry the medicines and deliver them.
Unfortunately, thanks to the blackout, the people who do receive these
medicines have no way of letting me know right now.
There have been a couple of times when I've had to buy
medicines myself and hand them over to someone traveling to the region, but to
be honest, given what's happening, it's not a big deal. If the internet and
telephones continue to remain shut, however, and pharmacies and hospitals in
Kashmir run out of medicines, we might need to find some way to connect the
larger Kashmiri community working in Delhi and other cities in the country and
raise donations to buy medicines for people there.
The most worrying part for me right now is how silent
most people in the rest of the country are about the communications blackout in
Kashmir. Human rights are being snatched away as we speak.
Zameer,
marketer, Dubai
I live in Dubai, but my father-in-law, who has had
chronic lymphocytic leukemia for the last six years, lives in Kashmir. It's a
kind of blood cancer for which he needs specialized, expensive medication each
month, without which he cannot survive.
So far, we've been paying a pharmacy in New Delhi, one of
the few places in the country that actually stocks this medicine, to ship it to
him in Kashmir, but ever since the internet and telephone blackout, they
haven't been able to. He ran out of his last dose on August 8, three days after
the blackout started. He's in no condition to travel to Delhi to get it.
Javid has been using his Instagram to help people with
medical emergencies in the valley. He's also a friend from college. I was
desperate, so I had the pharmacy ship my father-in-law's medication to him in
New Delhi. And thanks to someone he found through Instagram, he was able to
send it to my father-in-law's house. He missed his dose for more than 15 days,
but he's gotten it now.
I feel extremely lucky, but my story is probably an
exception. I don't know how many families out there have had to suffer because
of the blackout. Every single one of them has a story to tell — if only they
could talk to the world.
Sheikh
Sami Ullah, startup founder, Srinagar
I'm the founder of a one-year-old startup that handles
deliveries and shipment logistics for more than 200 artists in Kashmir who sell
handicrafts on Instagram — and the blackout has not only frozen my business but
also robbed them of their livelihoods.
Every month, we deliver more than 15,000 items across the
country. Ever since the blackout started, we've delivered nothing. We earn
around Rs. 20 lakhs (nearly $30,000) each month. This month, we've earned
nothing.
I sunk every single penny I earned into this business,
and I'm on the hook for a loan from a bank. I'm not sure how I'll pay it back
if this blackout doesn't clear up — and right now; it's showing no sign of
getting better. I think if this goes on for another month, I'm going to have to
give up being an entrepreneur and find a job just to sustain myself and pay my
loan.
I spent 15 days in Srinagar during the blackout and felt
completely paralyzed, mentally and physically, because of the communications
blackout and the strict curfews. When I came back to Delhi, it felt like I was
in another world in another time.
I’m hoping. I’m praying. It’s all I can do right now.
Hadiya
Ahmed, college student, Dubai
I'm a third-year psychology student in Dubai. My parents
are Kashmiri and I go back once or twice a year. I was there for a month before
and two weeks after the blackout.
It was 11:05 p.m. on August 4 when they shut off the
internet and 1:10 a.m. on August 5 when they turned off phone calls and SMS. I
remember because I was on a call with someone who was supposed to fly out the
next morning, and then it snapped off. It felt kind of normal; because it
wasn't the first time they did it. We thought it would be for a day or two, but
it went on. I never found out if my friend made it out or not.
With no stepping out of the house, it felt like solitary
confinement. I was this close to losing my mind. I mean, it's 2019. How
can you survive without phone calls and the internet?
Losing Kashmir’s autonomy broke my heart. I had a lot of
anxiety and panic attacks and I barely ate anything for a week. Nobody
celebrated Eid because nobody felt like it.
On the third day, it stopped feeling "normal."
I tried to read books, but I couldn't. I thought I could tolerate it, but not
having anybody to talk about it with makes you feel like standing on top of the
world and screaming and telling people that you're dying.
Eventually, our television turned off too, because there
wasn't any way to pay the bill online. It was seven of us in one house — my
granddad, uncle, his wife, and three kids. The kids went mad. The youngest is
11 and usually spends most of her time watching YouTube videos. The 16-year-old
usually plays PUBG and Minecraft a lot, and the eldest, who is 20, is always on
social media and watches a ton of movies and TV online, and they couldn't do
anything.
The worst part of having the landline phones disconnected
was that it cut us off completely from older relatives like my maternal
grandmother who lives by herself. We worried about her constantly and didn't
really have a way to check on her. Eventually, to visit her, we would leave the
house at 4 a.m. to visit her to avoid the Indian army's curfews on the roads.
First fatality:
- A man died in Indian Kashmir nearly a month after being
injured in a protest, officials said on Wednesday, confirming the first such
death since India revoked the region’s autonomy. Relatives pray next to the
grave of Asrar Ahmed Khan, who died on Tuesday night after succumbing to wounds
during a protest on August 6, in Srinagar, September 4, 2019. REUTERS/Danish
Ismail Asrar Ahmed Khan, 18, from the
region’s main city Srinagar, died on Tuesday night in hospital, succumbing to
wounds he suffered a month ago, officials said. Some protesters said Khan was
hit by a tear gas canister, though authorities suspected a stone struck him,
Singh said. Media have reported at least two other deaths during protests, but
authorities have denied that.
Torture: Sep., 6,
2019: Haleema
had to begin her journey at dawn, travelling through deserted roads from her
home in southern Kashmir's Shopian district and waited at a park outside the
central jail in Srinagar, the main city in the Muslim-majority region.Two hours
past noon, Haleema was still waiting and uncertain if she would be allowed to
meet her husband, Bashir Ahmad."He was picked 20 days ago," she said,
"like they pick everyone else.""They don't need a reason and we
cannot ask questions," she said. The number of detentions and arrests made
across Indian-administered Kashmir in the past month, since New Delhi abrogated
Article 370 of the Indian constitution that granted the
region a limited autonomy, is not known as officials have remained
tight-lipped. Al Jazeera show that,
since August 5, there have been 588 incidents of stone throwing, 458 of which
were reported from the main city of Srinagar where some of the old parts of the
city are still under restrictions. Official figures show that 3,500 people have
been arrested and 350 of them have been booked under the Public Safety Act
(PSA) - a law that allows lengthy detentions without trial. The figures
say that only 135 people have been wounded in the last month. At his home in Srinagar's Anchar
neighbourhood, 54-year-old Mohammad, who identified himself only by his first
name, said he fears for the future of his children. "Our children will
suffer," he said. "If we remain silent now, what will happen to
them," the father of four said. Anchar, a neighbourhood on the northern
edge of Srinagar, has been a major flashpoint for the past month as families
defended the neighbourhood from multiple raids by Indian police and
paramilitaries. Bano, a 30-year-old nurse, said she treated nearly 300 young
men and women from Anchar who had been wounded by pellet guns because residents
feared they would be detained if they went to hospitals for treatment. "On
Friday (August 30), more than 200 people were injured. I treated these people
with my limited equipment and took out pellets from their bodies inside the
mosque," she said. Later that evening, a doctor and a male nurse from
a nearby hospital sneaked into the neighbourhood with a box of medicines. "We
managed to help the injured, some youth had 100 and some had 200 pellets in
their bodies. But when someone is hit in the eyes, it is impossible to do
anything," she said adding that many of the injured are lying at home and
have yet to receive proper treatment. Bano said she used a forceps, eyebrow
tweezers and a knife to operate on the wounded. "I also took out pellets
from the bodies of four women," she said. Youths have set up groups to
keep a night vigil on the neighbourhood's entrances. Aijaz, 25, said he is part
of the daily guard duty to defend the front lines of Anchar and participated in
protests during the past month."We are not resisting for our own
selves," he said, "but for the future of Kashmir"."We were
praying on Friday at the mosque and forces came and fired pellets on the
worshippers," he said. Aqib's cousin was also wounded as he tried to
escape a chase and fell after jumping a barricade. His arm and leg were
fractured. "Even the ambulances were not allowed to come here and help the
wounded. We do not go to hospitals because we fear they will detain us and send
us to jails outside for years. We will die here but we won't leave this
place," he said. Nusrat, a young
female resident, said she was frightened even inside her home where she lives
with her seven sisters and parents."They target everyone, man or woman,
young or old," she said."At night, we don't dare to sleep because we
fear the night raids and more fear for women and young girls."On Friday,
they had cut off water and electricity supply to punish us. We are not pelting
stones but they provoke us," she said. The water supply was later revived.
"They want to exhaust us, they want us in submission," said
45-year-old Nazir Ahmad, a resident of Rainawari. "But they are
wrong". The lockdown has also taken a toll on Kashmir's economy, which has
gone into freefall. At the park outside
the central jail, Shazia had travelled from northern Handwara town, nearly 80km
from Srinagar, to meet her brother. "My brother is an imam," she
said. "He was arrested for using a loudspeaker during his sermon".Shazia
said her brother has been booked under the PSA, a law described as
"lawless" by Amnesty International. She said her eight-year-old niece
had cried for days as she insisted on seeing her father. "We came so she
could see her father," Shazia said.
Hospitals; Sep., 7, 2019: For the past two weeks, Mohamad Shafi has been at the bedside of
his 13-year-old son Rafi, who has been admitted to the nephrology ward of a
state-run hospital in Indian-administered Kashmir's main city of Srinagar. Shafi is
tired and has hardly had much sleep, but the 54-year-old is prepared to stay at
the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Science (SKIMS) hospital for as
long as it takes.Rafi suffers from a chronic kidney ailment and needs dialysis
every 15 days, a medical procedure that cannot be done at his village in
Tangdar area of Kupwara, a frontier district some 100 kilometres northwest of
Srinagar."We can't go anywhere for now. My son needs medical care which
isn't available in Tangdar. So we are planning to stay at the hospital until
the situation improves," Shafi told Al Jazeera. On the nights of August 20
and 21, Shafi took his ailing son to the hospital. He said he was stopped at
multiple security checkpoints set up by the Indian security forces along the
way. "We were supposed to get his dialysis done on August 15 itself, but
couldn't do it. Due to the restrictions, everything was shut and we were scared
to go out," said Shafi."But when he fell sick, we pleaded with a
neighbour who owns a vehicle to bring us here." Shafi said that dialysis
for his son costs 2,800 rupees ($25) each time. While the government-run
hospital treats patients at a subsidised price, it does not provide the
medicine required for this procedure. Patients are supposed to buy the medicine
needed for dialysis from outside the hospital. Amid the lockdown, the medicine
is not always available at the nearby pharmacies.A medical staff member at
SKIMS hospital, who did not want to be identified, told Al Jazeera that many
patients at the hospital have run out of money to buy the critical medicines. At the Sri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital
in Srinagar, Surendar Prasad Goyal and his daughter, Priya, who are from Chhattisgarh
state in central India, wait anxiously outside the operation theatre.Earlier
this week, Goyal's 16-month-old grandson Lucky suffered a serious accident at
the brick kiln he and his daughter worked at in Anantnag district of Kashmir.While
doctors carried out surgery on Lucky immediately after he was admitted, he is
still not stable. Goyal said he was able to reach Srinagar by ambulance at the
district hospital in Anantnag. While he had the money he needed for the
surgery, he is not sure how long will it last."We have been out of work
for days. Whatever little we had saved has been used to pay for the medicines
and other bills," he told Al Jazeera. Mumtaza Dar from Beeru
village in Budgam district was scheduled to undergo surgery at the SMHS
hospital on August 10, but she could not make it to the hospital due to the
restrictions placed by the Indian authorities. Forced to delay her medical
needs, the chronic piles patient bled for weeks. As her condition at home
worsened, her family hired a vehicle to take her to Srinagar last weekend. A doctor at the SMHS hospital, who did not
want to be named, said the inflow of patients had dipped by less than half as
people were delaying going to the hospital because of the uncertainty over the
lockdown. The doctor also told Al Jazeera that at least 60 victims of pellet
gun attacks had been treated at his hospital in the last month https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/chaos-crisis-kashmir-hospitals-month-long-lockdown-190905205741695.html
Media muzzling:
Sep., 8, 2019
India's government is muzzling Kashmir's media as part of the
lockdown it imposed on the disputed region a month ago, according to a new
report by two rights networks. The study comes after Delhi revoked Kashmir's
special autonomy on August 5 and sent in tens of thousands of extra troops to
reinforce the half a million already there.
Published earlier this week, the study said reporters were being
subjected to surveillance, informal investigations and harassment for
publishing reports considered adverse to the government or security forces. Titled
"News Behind The Barbed
Wire",
its findings reveal "a grim and despairing picture of the media in
Kashmir, fighting for survival against the most incredible of odds." It
also highlighted that recent editorials in major Kashmir papers covered only
harmless topics, such on the benefits of Vitamin A and "Should you consume
caffeine during summer?"
"This is intrinsically undemocratic and harmful, as it
privileges the voices of authority and weakens those who speak truth to
power," the report said of the situation faced by the media in Kashmir. Published
by the Network of Women in Media, India and the Free Speech Collective, the
report was prepared by two journalists who spent five days in Indian Kashmir
and spoke to more than 70 journalists, local administration officials and
citizens. The government has also restricted movement and curtailed phone and
internet services, ostensibly to control unrest in a region where separatists
have waged an armed rebellion against Indian rule since 1989.
Since August 5, at least 500 protests and incidents of
stone throwing have occurred and some 4,000 people have been detained,
according to multiple sources. Five civilians have also died, the army said this
week, blaming the deaths on stone-pelters and militants. https://news.yahoo.com/india-throttling-kashmir-media-report-says-102513182.html
1. Curfew: Sep., 9, 2019: India
on Sunday imposed curfews in several parts of the contested Kashmir region,
after clashes between security forces and Shi'ite Muslims taking part in a
procession, officials and eyewitnesses said. At least 12 locals and six troops
were injured on Saturday evening, officials told Reuters, as the worshippers on
the traditional mourning procession of Muharram clashed with troops trying to
stop it. Troops used tear gas and pellet guns on the crowd, which insisted on
carrying on with the procession, one in a series held at this time of the year,
and pelted stones at security forces, an Indian official who declined to named
told Reuters. "The clashes continued till late night during which the
troops fired tear gas and pellets," he added The most recent clashes occurred in Rainawari
and Badgam, two Shi'ite majority areas of Srinagar, Indian-administered
Kashmir's main city. The five km (3 mile) procession route that passes through
the city centre has been barricaded by armed troops wearing helmets and bullet proof
vests. On Sunday, police vans fitted with loud speakers announced curfew-like
restrictions in Srinagar's city center Lal Chowk and adjacent areas, according
to two Reuters witnesses."People are advised to stay indoors and not
venture out of their home," the police announced. Suhail Ahmed, a Rainawari resident, said that
there have been frequent clashes in the area for last three to four days as
troops have been trying to block the procession.
