Flagrant use of torture in IOK

A well-respected rights group, Jammu-Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), released on Monday a damning report on human rights abuses in Occupied Kashmir, pointing out that India is using torture as a "matter of policy" and "instrument of control". No surprise then that it goes on to note "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." The very fact that IOK is the world's most militarized zone speaks of New Delhi's policy towards the Kashmiri people. The report also makes the startling disclosure that the world's largest democracy has not even bothered to ratify the UN Convention against Torture. The JKCCS has regularly been issuing its research-based reports on Indian brutalities in Kashmir. It was first to expose thousands of unmarked graves in Kashmir, demanding that they be investigated to determine who the dead were and how they were killed. New Delhi, of course, was not going to launch an investigation into that crime of state-sanctioned torture. Some other rights organisation within India, though, came up with corroborating evidence about the existence of unmarked graves. These graves have given a lie to Indian claims that the Kashmiri freedom movement is not indigenous but a Pakistan instigated 'cross-border terrorism.'
Since the uprising began in 1989, an estimated 100,000 people, an overwhelming majority of them civilians, have lost their lives. International human rights groups as well as the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons have accused Indian security forces of gross offenses, including torture, custodial killings, abduction, rape, and blinding protesters with the use of pellet guns. The JKCCS describes in great detail the horrendous torture methods used by the security forces, such as stripping the detainees naked, rolling a heavy log in their legs, water-boarding, electrocution including of genitals, burning of the body with hot objects, sleep deprivation, and sexual torture, including rape and sodomy. The group laments that despite global attention and condemnation of torture practices in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghuraib prisons, torture remains hidden in Jammu and d Kashmir, where tens of thousands of civilians have been subjected to it. However, the Bush administration never got as much as a rap on the knuckles from relevant international forums for its crimes. Nor are gross rights violations in Kashmir hidden from anyone. The big and powerful countries can be denounced for their brutalities but are hardly ever held to account.
JKCCS wants the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to establish a commission of inquiry to investigate the endemic use of torture by Indian security forces. That is unlikely to happen. In fact, last year the OHCHR in its first-ever report on Kashmir had expressed grave concern over "impunity for human rights violations and lack of access to justice" as key human rights challenges in Jammu and Kashmir, and called for an independent investigation. India had rejected that report and successfully resisted international investigation due to its political clout. Still, the JKCCS' evidence-based report can help draw international attention to the tragic situation in Kashmir by creating public awareness in major Western countries whose governments claim to be torchbearers of human rights, and yet continue to turn a blind eye to unspeakable rights violations in Indian occupied Kashmir.