What is the value of one Kash­miri life in the val­ley of Kash­mir, called “heaven on earth”? Who will re­turn the vi­sion in one eye of 18 month old Hiba Jan? Will In­dia ever lis­ten to the call of the UN Sec­re­tary Gen­eral for res­o­lu­tion of the po­lit­i­cal con­flict of Kash­mir? Will the dra­con­ian AF­SPA be with­drawn? The All Party Hur­riyat Con­fer­ence An­nual Re­port on Hu­man Rights -2018 asks these and many other search­ing ques­tions.

While the United Na­tions chief An­to­nio Guter­res has once again asked In­dia and Pak­istan to find a peace­ful so­lu­tion to the vexed Kash­mir is­sue, the 2018 An­nual Hu­man Rights re­port on Kash­mir, re­leased last week by the All Party Hur­riyat con­fer­ence is a se­vere in­dict­ment of the vi­o­la­tion of hu­man rights and the con­ven­tions of war by the more than a quar­ter of a mil­lion In­dian armed forces sta­tioned in Kash­mir.

“The 30-page re­port records 543 deaths, in­clud­ing 161 civil­ians, 127 se­cu­rity forces and 255 armed Kash­miri youth, dur­ing the year 2018.  Be­sides this, 19 men and 8 women were killed on the other side of the line of di­vide.”

The UN sec­re­tary gen­eral met the Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia twice and that of Pak­istan on three oc­ca­sions, to em­pha­size the need for di­a­logue but no­body is talk­ing to the real stake­hold­ers –the Kash­miris. The APHC has “de­manded the es­tab­lish­ment of a com­mis­sion of in­quiry to con­duct com­pre­hen­sive and in­de­pen­dent in­ter­na­tional in­ves­ti­ga­tion into al­le­ga­tions of hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in Kash­mir.”

Kash­miris are be­ing ad­dressed through the bar­rel of the gun and a plethora of dra­con­ian laws. They face the bur­den of “un­bri­dled pow­ers be­sides le­gal im­punity through laws like Armed Forces Spe­cial Pow­ers Act ‘AF­S­PA’, Dis­turbed Ar­eas Act ‘DAA’ and Pub­lic Safety Act ‘PSA’.

The Kash­mir sit­u­a­tion is an is­sue of rights and a hu­man is­sue, In­dia through its armed forces deals with this po­lit­i­cal ques­tion by “in­dulging in killing of in­no­cent peo­ple, ex­tra­ju­di­cial ex­e­cu­tions, tor­ture, out­rag­ing mod­esty of women, de­struc­tion of prop­erty, il­le­gal de­ten­tion, de­nial of the right to protest and sup­pres­sion of right to speech and ex­pres­sion of the peo­ple mak­ing the life in Kash­mir hor­ri­ble and mis­er­able.

Ac­cord­ing to the UN, the Kash­mir con­flict “has robbed mil­lions of their ba­sic hu­man rights.”

The chair­per­son of the APHC -Mir­waiz Mo­ham­mad Umar Fa­rooq, in the pre­am­ble of the re­port says, “Hu­man rights are uni­ver­sal and every­one needs to be ed­u­cated on these and un­der­stand that no mat­ter where they are born and who they are, by virtue of be­ing born as hu­mans some rights au­to­mat­i­cally be­come a part and par­cel of their life in a so­cial set up.” But, who is lis­ten­ing ex­cept the oc­ca­sional voice of the UN?

The high­light of the re­port is that like the pre­vi­ous years, Kash­miris took to the streets in protest against the army’s cor­don and search op­er­a­tions dur­ing which the forces “ran­sack houses and dam­age ve­hi­cles” and there is enough ev­i­dence on so­cial me­dia where “gov­ern­ment forces can be seen dam­ag­ing pub­lic prop­erty.”

The re­port notes that in 2018, on 14 June, “United Na­tions broke its si­lence on the con­tin­u­ous atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted on the peo­ple of Kash­mir. The United Na­tions High Com­mis­sioner for Hu­man Rights is­sued a de­tailed re­port on the sit­u­a­tion of hu­man rights in Kash­mir.”  The Azad-Kash­mir chap­ter of the APHC high­lighted the plight of Kash­mir at the 37^th ses­sion of the UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil in Geneva.

“The re­port of the UN High Com­mis­sioner fo­cused on wide­spread and se­ri­ous hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions by In­dian forces in Jammu and Kash­mir. The re­port also men­tions about the state gov­ern­men­t’s fre­quent use of com­mu­ni­ca­tion block­ades and sus­pen­sion of mo­bile and in­ter­net ser­vices, as well as re­stric­tions on free­dom of ex­pres­sion, tar­get­ing of me­dia and jour­nal­ists. It men­tions that in 2016-17 wide­spread protests, long pe­ri­ods of cur­few, fre­quent strikes, and ar­son at­tacks on schools all had a cu­mu­la­tive im­pact on stu­dents and their right to ed­u­ca­tion.” The re­port also called for a com­mis­sion of In­quiry to con­duct “a com­pre­hen­sive in­de­pen­dent in­ter­na­tional in­ves­ti­ga­tion” into In­dian hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in sev­enty years of con­flict. Ac­cord­ing to the UN, the Kash­mir con­flict “has robbed mil­lions of their ba­sic hu­man rights.”

The APHC re­port also talks about the re­port of the All Party Par­lia­men­tary Group on Kash­mir in the British Par­lia­ment, which while it vir­tu­ally en­dorsed the UN find­ings, it rec­om­mended, “ that the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia must re­peal the Armed Forces Spe­cial Pow­ers Act (AF­SPA) and en­able pros­e­cu­tion of armed forces and se­cu­rity per­son­nel in the civil­ian ju­di­cial sys­tem; that the Gov­ern­ment of Jammu and Kash­mir must ur­gently re­peal or amend the Pub­lic Safety Act (PSA); that the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia must ini­ti­ate a com­pre­hen­sive pub­lic in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the iden­ti­ties of bod­ies in mass and un­marked graves; that the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia should im­me­di­ately ban the use of pel­let fir­ing shot­guns; that the Gov­ern­ment of Jammu and Kash­mir must open its pris­ons to in­ter­na­tional in­spec­tion; and that the Gov­ern­ments of In­dia and Pak­istan should work to re­sume reg­u­larised visa-reg­u­lated civil­ian travel across the Line of Con­trol and re­unite sep­a­rated fam­i­lies”.

The 30-page re­port records 543 deaths, in­clud­ing 161 civil­ians, 127 se­cu­rity forces and 255 armed Kash­miri youth, dur­ing the year 2018.  Be­sides this, 19 men and 8 women were killed on the other side of the line of di­vide.

Out of 161 civil­ians (140 men and 21 women) killed, 67 civil­ians were killed by In­dian forces dur­ing cor­don and search op­er­a­tions (CASO), post-en­counter clashes or by fir­ing live am­mu­ni­tion and pel­lets.  34 civil­ians were killed by un­known gun­men. 32 civil­ians were killed in fir­ing or shelling across the line of di­vide in Jammu & Kash­mir. 3 civil­ians were killed by armed youth for be­ing In­dian army in­form­ers, 14 civil­ians were killed by blasts that oc­curred by grenades, shells or by mys­te­ri­ous blasts. 3 civil­ians lost their life by car­diac ar­rest due to shock due to the ha­rass­ment and fear of the se­cu­rity forces. 1 civil­ian died due to suf­fo­ca­tion caused by tear smoke shells. 2 died in Po­lice cus­tody. 1 civil­ian was used by forces as hu­man shield. 1 per­son lost his life due to stone in­jury dur­ing a stone-pelt­ing in­ci­dent. 3 civil­ians were crushed by gov­ern­ment forces ve­hi­cles.

Metal pel­lets fired by the In­dian mil­i­tary, os­ten­si­bly to main­tain peace and keep pro­tes­tors at bay, have af­fected 16000 peo­ple and blinded hun­dreds in­clud­ing a 19-month old baby Hiba Jan who has lost vi­sion in one eye.

As per the re­port, dur­ing 2018, nearly 4,524 civil­ians were in­jured with at least 724 of them suf­fer­ing eye in­juries. April 2, 2018 was a fate­ful day when at least 63 civil­ians were hos­pi­talised with pel­let and bul­let in­juries. On No­vem­ber 25, 40 per­sons were in­flicted with pel­let and bul­let in­juries in Shopian and 17 peo­ple re­ceived in­juries in Laddi vil­lage alone on 2 Sep­tem­ber.

In 2018, 0ver 5,600 Kash­miris, mostly youth were de­tained at var­i­ous po­lice sta­tions in the val­ley. In vi­o­la­tion of Supreme Court of In­dia guide­lines, 2200 po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers with the only crime of de­mand­ing the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, are lodged in jails out­side the val­ley and in many cases out­side the state.

Though the High Court has or­dered re­lease of the PSA de­tenues, the po­lice au­thor­i­ties in­stead of re­leas­ing them, have slapped PSA afresh and then jailed them.

In Jammu Cen­tral Jail Kot­bal­wal, po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers and un­der-tri­als are mal­treated, sub­jected to psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture and lodged in soli­tary con­fine­ment.  Proper food and med­ical care to Kash­miri lead­ers, ac­tivists and al­leged stone pel­ters in the Ti­har prison in Delhi is a huge cause for con­cern.

The re­port of the UN High called for a com­mis­sion of In­quiry to con­duct “a com­pre­hen­sive in­de­pen­dent in­ter­na­tional in­ves­ti­ga­tion” into In­dian hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in sev­enty years of con­flict.”

Free­dom of re­li­gion which is guar­an­teed by in­ter­na­tional law and de­c­la­ra­tion on elim­i­na­tion of all forms of in­tol­er­ance and dis­crim­i­na­tion based on re­li­gion or be­liefs is bla­tantly vi­o­lated in Kash­mir.

In the year 2018, Fri­day Prayers could not be of­fered for as many as 16 times dur­ing the year and re­stric­tions im­posed on con­gres­sional prayers at Kash­mir’s His­toric Grand Mosque (Jama Masjid)  in Sri­na­gar, as per the re­port. The Kash­mir’s chief re­li­gious cleric Mir­waiz Dr. Molvi Mo­ham­mad Umar Fa­rooq and Chair­man APHC was barred  17 times dur­ing the year from per­form­ing his re­li­gious oblig­a­tions by ar­rest­ing him and curb­ing his move­ments. For 113 days, he was un­der house ar­rest. The state gov­ern­ment also banned the Muhar­ram pro­ces­sion on 8th and 10th Muhar­ram (19 and 21 Sep­tem­ber, 2018) across Sri­na­gar.

The or­di­nary Kash­miri peo­ple, with even no con­nec­tions with in­sur­gents, have been ter­rorised by In­di­a’s se­cu­rity forces. Im­pos­ing cur­few at the drop of a hat, peo­ple are de­prived the right to peace­ful as­sem­bly and fear­ing the state, the me­dia does not cover hu­man rights protests, with many hav­ing been as­saulted by the se­cu­rity forces.

The re­port says that the state’s se­cu­rity forces “sup­press civil lib­er­ties and in­flict col­lec­tive pun­ish­ment on the en­tire pop­u­la­tion.”

Ac­tivists hold­ing a can­dle­light vig­ils and protests dur­ing the Hu­man Rights week from 3 to 9 De­cem­ber were ar­rested in a mas­sive crack­down which in­cluded not only the re­sis­tance lead­er­ship but also busi­nessper­sons who sup­ported the ob­ser­va­tion of Rights week. Through­out the year, the Hur­riyat lead­er­ship was not al­lowed to step into the streets and kept un­der house ar­rest.

The con­flict on Kash­mir is not a frozen one but con­tin­ues to con­sume hu­man lives un­abat­edly since 1947, reads the re­port. Peo­ple in Kash­mir are liv­ing a life with fear. Af­ter the on­go­ing move­ment started in 1989, Kash­miris have been killed, mas­sa­cred, raped, tor­tured, dis­hon­oured, and hu­mil­i­ated. The in­sta­bil­ity in Kash­mir and the con­tin­u­ous cur­fews dis­rupt daily life; schools, col­leges, and uni­ver­si­ties re­main closed for in­def­i­nite pe­ri­ods due to cy­cle of vi­o­lence. In­dian armed forces are com­mit­ting war crimes in the Val­ley and are en­gaged in an armed ag­gres­sion against the peo­ple de­mand­ing their right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.

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The peo­ple of Jammu and Kash­mir, like other peo­ples of the world, have the right to be mas­ters of their own des­tiny and live a life of dig­nity ful­fill­ing their so­cial, re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tions.