Srinagar: Based on the report released by rights groups, Hurriyat Conference (M) has termed torture being inflicted by Government forces on the people of Kashmir as an eye-opener for all those who believe in sanctity and dignity of the human life and spirit.
The report has also been endorsed by former UN special rapporteur, Juan E. Mendez.
The 560—page report prepared by the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) released on Monday here focuses on the torture perpetrated in Jammu and Kashmir by the Indian State since 1990 and mentions solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, and sexualised torture including rape and sodomy, used as torture techniques against Kashmiris.
In a statement issued here, the Hurriyat Conference said that the report which focuses on just 432 cases includes 24 women, out of these 12 had been raped by Indian armed personnel. 301 victims were civilians, and 258 of them had no affiliations with political or other groups and 27 were minors when tortured.
At least 50 victims were said to have been tortured as a measure of punishment, while 118 said they were tortured to extract information about relatives who were militants. 44 suffered from some form of psychological difficulty after being subjected to torture.
In 326 cases, the victims were reportedly beaten; in 231, they were electrocuted. More than a hundred victims said they were stripped naked, put through roller treatment (using a heavy roller to apply pressure on the legs), restrained in stress positions, or hung upside down. The report also mentions cases of forced labour and has stated that GoI has been using torture as an “instrument of control”.
While describing these incidents shocking, the Hurriyat Conference said that the “grotesque human rights violations” including those mentioned in the report are committed due to legal, political and moral impunity extended to the armed forces, not a single prosecution has taken place in any case of human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Hurriyat Conference has sought immediate attention of world bodies including United Nations Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, Asia Watch, International Council for Red Cross (ICRC) as well as Human Rights groups of India towards the report urging them to take strong note of the shocking revelations made in the report and build pressure on New Delhi to stop brutal human rights violations in Kashmir that includes innocent killings, mass arrests, inflicting worst torture on youth after arresting them so that such violations taking place in Kashmir are stopped forthwith.
The Hurriyat Conference said that torture was nothing new in Kashmir and from past several decades such incidents were taking place where in youth, women and elderly have been brutally tortured by the government forces while as many women subjected to sexual abuse. Those who say ‘Kashmir torture’ is a thing of the past should update themselves by going through the incident of the death of a youth Rizwan Asad Pandit (28) son of Asadullah Pandit, a resident of Awantipora “who was killed in Police custody on March 19.’ “His body with injury marks, deep burn on his thighs and swollen tummy was handed over to his family,” the spokesman said.
