Washington: The Indian embassy here has questioned the credibility of a report released by a New York based group, charging New Delhi with sponsoring counterinsurgency in held Kashmir, resulting in the deterioration of the Human Rights situation there.
The Human Rights group *Asia Watch’ in its report entitled “India’s Secret Army in Kashmir: New patterns of abuse emerge in the conflict”, accused the Indian government of arming and protecting irregular Militias to carry out its counterinsurgency operations. The group called upon the international community to press India to disarm all irregular militias, fully investigate all reports of abuse and punish those responsible and provide access to held Kashmir for special UN Human Rights bodies. However, Deputy Chief of the Indian mission Shyamala B Cowsik, in a letter to Asia Watch Executive Director Sidney Jones, said: “The report consists of baseless accusations and wildly exaggerated accounts of alleged Human Rights abuses by Indian security forces in held Kashmir.” She expressed her inability to respond to the report in any meaningful fashion because of the time factor.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 12, 1996
