Bashir Assad
Srinagar, December 2011 - On the eve of world Human Rights Day every year, the victims of violence wittingly or otherwise refresh their memories of agony and misery inflicted upon them during last twenty years of bloodshed. Leaders doing politics on death and destruction observe the day in their own respective style, however, non among them could offer any kind of solace to the victims.

The day is usually marked by a plethora of activities for both Indian mainstream and separatist political camps. One camp chooses to observe the day by taking to streets and demanding punishment for the “real perpetrators” while another celebrates the day by counting their achievements on scuffing human heads.

Then there are the real victims who believe that pain for them is not only that their loved ones were either killed or forced to disappear by the armed forces but the actual pain doubles when they see killers roaming scot free and leaders doing politics over the dead bodies of their beloved ones. Finally they pin hopes on Judiciary itself has become victim of institutional decay over the years. However, the most haunting rather humiliating part of the story goes unnoticed which draws its origin from the four walls of the house. Some call it “domestic violence” some even term it “social stigma” and others call it “destined dejection”. Haneefa Akhthar (name-changed), 23, wanted to forget the horror of her past when she was married last year. Destiny, however, had other things in store for her: Haneefa’s husband divorced her just six months after marriage because of “social stigma” and the health problems she suffered during torture in police custody.

Haneefa was allegedly kicked in her abdomen during interrogation in the police custody when she was a class ninth student in 2004.

“I have got 22 stitches in my abdomen. I suffered lot of blood-loss as my uterus was impaired due to the kicking by the police officer,” she said.

The police had allegedly picked her up suspecting her of knowing one of the boys accused of killing a resident of her village in Kupwara district.

She later approached the State Human Rights Commission, which awarded Rs 75,000 as compensation to her. “But the police officers were not even touched,” she laments.

Haneefa’s case is just the tip of the iceberg of human rights abuses in the strife-torn state. Take the case of 51-year-old Manzoor Ahmad Naikoo of Pahalallan-Pattan, who was tortured to the extent that his genitals were burnt and stick inserted into his rectum making him debilitated permanently.

Naikoo, a shopkeeper, was picked up during an army crackdown in his village in 1991 when he was 30.

“They demanded a gun from me. I pleaded that I am a shopkeeper but they did not listen. I was taken to a government school building where they first stripped me and then tied a cloth on my genitals and set it on fire. Later they dipped my head into a bucket of water and inserted a stick into my rectum,” he recalls.

The worst was yet to come. Some youth mustered courage and took him to hospital where colostomy procedure was done so that he could pass stools through a hole made in his abdomen.

“For the last 21 years, I am suffering in this condition – I can’t go anywhere…,” he said. Naikoo approached the court which directed the State and the Central governments to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation. “But the culprits have not been brought to book,” said the father of three.

Human rights groups say the police and other armed forces use torture as an instrument to choke the voice of dissent in the state.

“Torture is widespread in Kashmir which has gone unreported. Torture has made hundreds of people permanently disabled here,” said a human rights activist.

Now lets travel across the tunnel in south to Jammu region. Only the other day Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) submitted 132 cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances of Banihal and Ramban to the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC). The submitted cases are of the people living in different villages of Banihal, who have disappeared since 1989 under various circumstances.

As per the knowledge of victim families, some families have registered cases in their concerned police stations, while in many cases missing reports or complaints could not be filed at the police stations due to the reluctance of police, and sometimes due to threats to the victim families, the petition alleged.

The perpetrators involved in these 132 cases have been identified as personnel of the Army, militants and Jammu and Kashmir Police.

As per the documented findings, out of total 132 disappearance cases, 21 have been perpetrated by the Army, 24 by different militant groups, one involves the personnel of Jammu and Kashmir Police, while as in 43 cases, the perpetrators were “unidentified gunmen” and in remaining 43 cases the victims disappeared in unknown circumstances by unknown agencies. Among the 24 cases involving militants, 10 have been disappeared by Hizbul Mujahideen militant, Nazir Ahmed Wani alias Papplu, who was later killed by the militant organization itself. In entire state both armed forces and militant have let loose a reign of terror on civilians and both are responsibly for the miseries of the people with only difference that perpetrators on one side are called Law enforcing agencies while the others are outlaws. In the 21 cases where the Army has been identified as involved, so far nobody has been prosecuted or held accountable