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People rage at forced disappearances in Jammu & Kashmir

A man looks at the pictures of missing Kashmiri men during a protest organized by the members of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) in Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar on July 10, 2011.

People in the Indian-controlled Kashmir have demanded an independent probe into the cases of forced disappearance and unmarked graves, Press TV reports.

The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), a rights body spearheading the campaign to seek justice for the people who went missing after being taken into Indian security forces’ custody, has asked the state government to investigate more than 8,000 cases of enforced disappearances and over 7,000 unmarked mass graves.

“We demand an independent commission be constituted to carry out DNA profiling, forensic examinations, identify accused persons responsible, and devise a framework for reparations,” said Tahira Begum of the APDP.

According to human rights groups, there are thousands of unidentified graves dotting the Indian-controlled Kashmir landscape. The groups claim that many of the disappeared may have been buried in these unmarked graves.

“We have also urged the chief minister to do what other countries have done,” said human rights lawyer, Parvez Imroz, adding, “Where the disappearances are a phenomenon like Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Nepal, and even in Pakistan the governments have at least held the investigation. They have allowed a special rapporteur on the enforced disappearance to visit their countries, but the government of India has not.”

Human rights bodies, including the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have time and again criticized India for its poor human rights record in the Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Kashmir lies at the heart of more than 67 years of hostility between India and Pakistan. Both neighbors claim the region in full but have partial control over it.

The neighbors agreed on a ceasefire in 2003, and launched a peace process the following year. Since then, there have been sporadic clashes, with both sides accusing the other of violating the ceasefire.

Thousands of people have been killed in Kashmir unrest over the past two decades.

HN/HJL/SS


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