GENEVA: Amnesty International has said India’s response to international concerns about human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir is worrying “The Indian Government has setouts a 40 page response to our report published recently and I have to say it is Very disappointing,” said Ms. Yvonnie Furlingen of Amnesty “We can no Longer ignore what is going on in Kashmir, the situation is very grave.
The report comes in for the UN Commission on Human Rights where Pakistan is expected to ask the international community to buck its call for an independent fact finding mission to Jammu and Kashmir
An eight-member Indian delegation led by the Cabinet Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad is scheduled to arrive in Geneva other members include the Deputy Foreign Minister, Salman Khursheed The former Foreign Minister, IK Gujral, Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi, Prof Khusro and Dr. Farooq Abdullah, several loose conations will undo badly be added on Dr Mohan Singh is expected to address the commission as a special (Missing Sentences) however will be maintained through sustained attacks by the nongovernmental community. According to some assessments, Pakistan will move at the very last moment with a one line resolution calling for an independent inquiry into facts.
Amnesty, high-profile human rights organization, has said India’s stated commitment to transparency does not stretch to special mechanisms of the United Nations to investigate independent reports of torture and death perpetrated by the state’s low keepers
India has not allowed the UN special reporter on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and the UN special reporter on torture as well as the UN working group on enforced and involuntary disappearances to Visit Jammu and Kashmir,” the report said
Tulingen said Amnesty, which is stepping up pressure on the international community to investigate violations in five countries – India. Algeria, Turkey, Columbia and Indonesia India will not be able to answer specific questions about deaths in custody and disappearances posed by the special UN envoys.
The Amnesty official said, “We are aware of the politics of the UN Commission but we are no longer willing to be way laid by it.” She added that lice organization had a clear mandate to denounce human rights violations worldwide that stretched beyond the politics of the commission. In the past, countries have grouped together to balk attempts by the commission to send fact finding missions, among India’s friends are Iran, Iraq and China as well as some other dictatorships in Asia.
Amnesty’s 100-page report lists violations of human rights, disappearances, deaths and torture in custody in Jammu and Kashmir and recommends: independent and impartial investigations into the growing list of allegations.
“The government is not alone in violating human rights standards armed opposition groups have committed numerous abuses themselves.” Amnesty says.
Three Indian security forces are operating in the state and “allegations of human rights violations have implicated all three forces, but most concern the Border Security Force,” the report said.
Security forces boasted to visiting journalists that they can act with total impunity.
Thousands of Kashmiris have been killed in “encounters,” hundreds of people have died in custody after arrests in “crackdown operations” to identify suspected militants and sometimes mutilated bodies of victims are returned to the families without any explanation, the report says. “The Government continues to deny responsibility for the bulk of cases, despite eyewitness evidence in a number of cases that victims were in government detention before their disappearance, Amnesty says.
For its report the organization has examined press reports from India, eyewitness accounts, legal affidavits before the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, judgments from that court, reports from lawyers and the police.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 10, 1995
