[Reader-list] BURIED EVIDENCE - A report on Unmarked and Mass Graves in Kashmir

[Khurram Parvez]

INTERNATIONAL
PEOPLE’S TRIBUNAL ON HUMAN RIGHTS
AND JUSTICE IN INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR  (IPTK)

 

A Brief on

BURIED EVIDENCE

Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves in Indian-administered Kashmir

a preliminary report

 

Complete report, photographs, video clips available at: www.kashmirprocess.org

 

 

BURIED EVIDENCE documents 2,700 unknown, unmarked, and mass graves, containing 2,943+
bodies, across 55 villages in Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara districts of Kashmir, based on applied research conducted between
November 2006-November 2009. 

 

BURIED EVIDENCE is authored
by Angana P. Chatterji, Parvez Imroz, Gautam Navlakha, Zahir-Ud-Din, Mihir
Desai, and Khurram Parvez.

 

[Dr. Angana P. Chatterji is Convener IPTK and
Professor, Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies.

Advocate Parvez Imroz is Convener IPTK and Founder, Jammu and Kashmir
Coalition of Civil Society.

Gautam Navlakha is Convener IPTK and
Editorial Consultant, Economic and Political Weekly.

Zahir-Ud-Din is Convener IPTK and
Vice-President, Jammu
and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.

Advocate Mihir Desai is Legal Counsel IPTK and Lawyer,
Mumbai High Court and Supreme Court of India.

Khurram Parvez is Liaison IPTK and Programme
Coordinator, Jammu and Kashmir
Coalition of Civil Society.]

 

Findings

The
graveyards investigated by IPTK entomb bodies of those murdered in encounter
and fake encounter killings between 1990-2009. These graves include bodies of
extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary executions, as well as massacres
committed by the Indian military and paramilitary forces.

 

Of
these graves, 2,373 (87.9 percent) were unnamed. Of these graves, 154 contained
two bodies each and 23 contained more than two cadavers. Within these 23
graves, the number of bodies ranged from 3 to 17. 

 

A
mass grave may be identified as containing more than one, and usually
unidentified, human cadaver. Scholars refer to mass graves as resulting from
crimes against humanity, war crimes, or genocide. If the intent of a mass grave is to execute death with impunity, with
intent to kill more than one, and to forge an unremitting representation of
death, then, to that extent, the graves in Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara
are part of a collective burial by India’s military and paramilitary, creating
a landscape of  “mass burial.”

 

Post-death,
the bodies of the victims were routinely handled by military and paramilitary
personnel, including the local police. The bodies were then brought to the
“secret graveyards” primarily by personnel of the Jammu and Kashmir Police. The graves were
constructed by local gravediggers and caretakers, buried individually when
possible, and specifically not en mass, in keeping with Islamic religious
sensibilities. 

 

The
graves, with few exceptions, hold bodies of men. Violence against civilian men has
expanded spaces for enacting violence against women. Women have been forced to
disproportionately assume the task of caregiving to disintegrated families and
undertake the work of seeking justice following disappearances and deaths.
These graveyards have been placed next to fields, schools, and homes, largely
on community land, and their affect on the local community is daunting.

 

The
Indian Armed Forces and the Jammu and
  Kashmir Police routinely claim the dead buried in
unknown and unmarked graves to be “foreign militants/terrorists.” They claim
that the dead were unidentified foreign or Kashmiri militants killed while
infiltrating across the border areas into Kashmir or travelling from Kashmir
into Pakistan
to seek arms training. Official state discourse conflates
cross-border militancy with present nonviolent struggles by local Kashmiri
groups for political and territorial self-determination, portraying local
resistance as “terrorist” activity. 

 

Exhumation
and identification have not occurred in sizeable cases. Where they have been
undertaken, in various instances, “encounter” killings across Kashmir
have, in fact, been authenticated as “fake encounter” killings. In instances
where, post-burial, bodies have been identified, two methods have been used
prevalently. These are 1. Exhumation; and 2. Identification through the use of
photographs.

 

The report also examines 50 alleged “encounter”
killings by Indian security forces in numerous districts in Kashmir.
Of these
persons, 39 were of Muslim descent; 4 were of Hindu descent; 7 were not
determined. Of these cases, 49 were labelled
militants/foreign insurgents by security forces and one body that was drowned. Of
these, following investigations, 47 were found killed in fake encounters and one
was identifiable as a local militant.

 

IPTK
has been able to study only partial areas within 3 of 10 districts in Kashmir, and our findings and very preliminary evidence
point to the severity of existing conditions. If independent investigations
were to be undertaken in all 10 districts, it is reasonable to assume that the 8,000+ enforced disappearances since 1989 would
correlate with the number of bodies in unknown, unmarked, and mass graves.

 

Allegations 

The
methodical and planned use of killing and violence in Indian-administered Kashmir constitutes crimes against humanity in the
context of an ongoing conflict. The Indian state’s governance of
Indian-administered Kashmir requires the use
of discipline and death as techniques of social control. Discipline is affected
through military presence, surveillance, punishment, and fear. Death is
disbursed through “extrajudicial” means and those authorized by law. These techniques of rule are used to kill, and
create fear of not just death but of murder.

 

Mass
and intensified extrajudicial killings have been part of a sustained and widespread
offensive by the military and paramilitary institutions of the Indian state
against civilians of Jammu and
  Kashmir. IPTK asks that the evidence put forward in
this report be examined, verified, and reframed as relevant by credible,
independent, and international bodies, and that international institutions ask
that the Government of India comply with such investigations. 

 

We
note that the international community and institutions have not examined the
supposition of crimes against humanity in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. We note that the United
Nations and its member states have remained ineffective in containing and halting
the adverse consequences of the Indians state’s militarization in Kashmir.

 

We
ask that evidence from unknown, unmarked, and mass graves in
Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir
be used to seek justice, through the sentencing of criminals and other judicial
and social processes. As well, the existence of these graves, and how they came
to be, may be understood as indicative of the effects and issue of
militarization, and the issues pertaining to militarization itself must be
addressed seriously and expeditiously. 

 

The violences of militarization in Indian-administered Kashmir,
between 1989-2009, have resulted in 70,000+ deaths, including through
extrajudicial or “fake encounter” executions, custodial brutality, and other
means. In the enduring conflict, 6, 67,000 military and paramilitary personnel continue
to act with impunity to regulate movement, law, and order across Kashmir. The Indian state itself,
through its legal, political, and military actions, has demonstrated the
existence of a state of continuing conflict within Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.

 

Queries may be directed to: 

Khurram Parvez

E-mail: kparvez at kashmirprocess.org

Phone: +91.194.2482820

Mobile: +91.9419013553