UN calls for independent probe into Kashmir deaths
Separatist movement has seen extraordinary violence
IT HAS been a couple of weeks since three masked men on a motorcycle pumped bullets in Srinagar’s most popular editor, Shujaat Bukhari. Since then there has been no clue as to why someone would want to kill him. Kashmir’s separatist movement has seen extraordinary violence and thousands of deaths that include those of security personnel in the past 20 years, but there have been very few targeted killings and even fewer of journalists.
Bukhari’s death became the precipitating reason for the central government to end the unilateral ceasefire it had declared during the month of Ramadaan, a move Bukhari had supported editorially in his newspaper, Rising Kashmir. He had asserted that the ceasefire had the potential to create spaces for a dialogue between the government and the separatists.
His death has triggered events that do not bode well for either the violence-wracked state or fraught ties between India and Pakistan.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that shared power with a regional party, PDP, in the states of Jammu and Kashmir for the past three years decided to withdraw support from its senior partner and demanded that the state should be put under governor’s rule. BJP spokesperson Ram Madhav claimed that the spurt in violence during Ramadaan, especially the killing of Bukhari and the threat to media had made the alliance “untenable”. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti resigned immediately.
The BJP-PDP alliance was a case of difficult cohabitation. Both were ideologically opposed to each other and that resulted in a spike in violence in beautiful Kashmir, which had seen peace in preceding years. The BJP government believed in pursuing a muscular policy against the militants, whom it chooses to describe as Islamic terrorists.
Quite visibly the policy failed to take off and led to the collapse of the coalition and return of the army on to the streets of the state capital.
The resumption of the army operations in the Kashmir valley comes at a time when the UN Human Rights Council report critiqued the Indian government’s spotty handling of the Kashmir valley. The report was promptly trashed by the Indian government, which found many holes in respect of facts, semantics and timing.
However, New Delhi may find it difficult to wish it away. Indian commentators close to the government have savaged Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra‘ad el-Hussein, saying he had violated the UN resolution and not taken cognisance of the terror organisations proscribed by the UN and blandly described them as merely “armed groups”.
The UN body was not allowed to visit Kashmir and assess on its own the human rights violations they have documented in their report.
For that matter, nor could they visit Pakistan, which linked the UN body’s trip to their part of Kashmir to Indian permission to go to Srinagar and nearby areas.
The Human Rights Council used a methodology of keeping track of all the reports available in the public domain. It is a detailed denunciation of the way the Indian government handled the situation in Kashmir, which has been a contentious state ever since the partition of India.
The state of Kashmir has been claimed by Pakistan, which supports the movement for “azadi” (freedom). India has fought three wars over Kashmir, but there has been no resolution to this intractable British legacy. The UN Human Rights Council in its report demands that the cross-border firing between the two countries that has resulted in scores of deaths on both sides of the border should cease immediately.
A few weeks before the report was released, the two governments reactivated a ceasefire agreement of 2003, but firing continues at the border.
The UN report also demands that the restrictions imposed by the two governments against the UN body travelling to Kashmir be lifted immediately. These recommendations are the easy ones; the others directed against Indian government are more severe and could cause great embarrassment to a nation that takes pride in being a constitutional democracy.
The report suggests to the UN Human Rights Council: “Consider the findings of this report, including the possible establishment of a commission of inquiry to conduct a comprehensive independent international investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir.”
The Indian government, like many other offending countries, would never allow the council to probe these violations. Myanmar refused to investigate the atrocities committed against the Rohingyas, and so did the Sri Lankan government with respect to claims of genocide committed against the Tamils in the northern region. The Human Rights Council report wants the Indian Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which gives immunity to armed personnel from any prosecution in the event of their involvement in acts of violence, to be revoked in Kashmir.
The report also recommends an “independent, impartial and credible” probe into the deaths of all civilians after a militant commander, Burhan Wani, was killed in 2016 and the Kashmir valley saw large protests.
Furthermore, it wants an investigation into the obstruction of the provision of medical services to the victims during the 2016 unrest, arson attacks against schools and incidents of excessive use of force by security forces including serious injuries caused by the use of pellet-firing shotguns.
The HRC report also suggests a probe into all cases of abuse committed by armed groups in Jammu and Kashmir including the killings of minority Kashmiri Hindus since the late 1980s.
In other words, it wants the Indian government to retrace its steps and find the reasons for the aggravation of violence in the verdant valley since the 1980s. The decades before were peaceful and Kashmir was the preferred the honeymoon destination of the Indian middle class.
The HRC report wants “reparation and rehabilitation” for those who have come to grief due to security operations. This is a tough one for a government that is busy showing its army as a victim of stoning and working in generally difficult conditions. The Indian army top brass had even overlooked the conduct of a major who had tied a local Kashmiri to the bonnet of his Jeep and used the young man as a human shield during the local elections to ostensibly scare the alleged stone-throwers.
The Indian government has taken a tough stand against the HRC report, but there is a feeling in the foreign policy establishment that the matter requires better handling.
They fear that if some of the issues are not addressed, India could find itself facing international opprobrium with respect to violence in Kashmir.