Comment by Riaz Haq on November 4, 2017 at 9:11am

#India ordered to probe 2,080 mass graves in #Kashmir where thousands have disappeared @AJENews

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/india-ordered-probe-3800-mass...

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir - The state-run human rights commission has told the government in Kashmir to investigate at least 2,080 unmarked mass graves discovered in border areas of the restive region.

The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), a human rights group in Kashmir, told the commission there were 3,844 unmarked graves - 2,717 in Poonch and 1,127 in Rajouri, twin districts in the region that lie along Line of Control (LoC) that divides the disputed territory between India and Pakistan.

In response, the commission acknowledged the presence of 2,080 unmarked graves and asked the government for a comprehensive investigation to be completed in six months, including DNA tests of the bodies to compare it with family members of the disappeared.

In 2011, the commission directed the government to investigate the mass graves. At the time, a special team from the commission said 2,730 unidentified bodies were buried in 38 sites across northern Kashmir.

"The commission has no hesitation to issue the same directions, which were already issued in the case," the recent order said. 

Thousands disappeared
APDP maintains 8,000 people have disappeared in the decades-old conflict, and accuses government forces of staging gun battles to cover up killings.

The association welcomed the commission's latest demand to investigate mass graves in India's Jammu and Kashmir state.

"It is an acknowledgement from the institution that is run by the government. It provides further legal remedies for the family members of missing," Khurram Parvez from APDP told Al Jazeera.

"We have been demanding that there be an independent commission to do a credible probe on the mass graves."

Parvez said the probe might give an "answer" to families of disappeared who do not know whether their relatives are dead or alive.

"We have done a study of 53 cases for a report where the bodies were exhumed from unknown graves. It was found that 49 bodies in the graves were of civilians and one was a local militant, three bodies were unknown. These people were dubbed as foreign militants by the government," Parvez said.

Since 2011, instead of complying with directions from the human rights commission, the government continues to avoid such an investigation on the pretext it would lead to a "law and order problem" in Kashmir, APDP said in a statement.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution in July 2008 and called on India's government ensure independent and impartial investigations into all mass graves, APDP said.

Officials contacted by Al Jazeera declined to comment on Friday. 

The state government has said most of the missing were likely Kashmiri youths who crossed into Pakistan for weapons training. Those comments have been dismissed by family members of the disappeared.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 12, 2018 at 8:34pm

Excerpts of Nasim Zehra's "From Kargil to The Coup" 

She quotes from Indian historian A.G. Noorani's "Bilateral Negotiations on Kashmir: Unlearned Lessons":

"Nehru and Vallabhai Patel, the deputy prime minister and the one appointed by Nehru to formulate the strategy to deal with the princely states, were fast sewing up arrangements for Kashmir's accession to India even before Sheikh Abdullah's release from prison on 29 September 1947 and well before the tribesmen from Pakistan entered Kashmir on 21 October". 

Elaborating on this point, Noorani writes that earlier, on 28 May 1947, Patel had said, " Kashmir remains within the Indian Union even if a division of India and partition of Punjab takes place". Subsequently, on 3 July 1947, he wrote to the Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister, Ram Chandra Kak, "I realize the peculiar difficulties of Kashmir, but looking to its history and traditions it has, in my opinion, no other choice but to accede to India."

Nehru, too, was single-minded on accession of Kashmir to India. Even to his friend and India's High Commissioner to Pakistan, Sri Prakash, Nehru had admitted on 25 December 1947, "The fact is that Kashmir of of the most vital significance to India as well as to Pakistan. There lies the rub". He added: "Kashmir is going to be a drain on our resources but it is going to be a greater drain on Pakistan. In a military sense, we are stronger". Equally, Nehru's 21 November 1947 exchange with Sheikh Abdullah lays bare the Indian prime minister's true thinking on the accession issue: "Referendum and plebiscite are ill-advised but must only tactically supported to avoid world criticism; that referendum is merely an academic issue and that after all for the Kashmiris, likely to be defeated in their "little war" against the State and the Indian forces, it should be absurd to want a referendum". 

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 14, 2023 at 2:16pm

India trying to prevent declassification of ‘sensitive’ 1947 Kashmir papers

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/14/india-trying-prevent-...

India may prevent the declassification of papers from 1947 related to Kashmir as it fears the “sensitive” letters could affect foreign relations, according to internal government documents seen by the Guardian.


The letters, known as the Bucher papers, are believed to include political and military arguments for why India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called for a ceasefire with Pakistan and provided special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

For decades the region in the foothills of the Himalayas was given a separate constitution, a flag, and autonomy over all matters except for foreign affairs and defence. Those measures were seen by Kashmiris as crucial to protecting their rights in the Muslim-majority state.

But in 2019, under the Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, the government in Delhi formally revoked the disputed state’s constitutional autonomy, in an attempt to integrate it fully into India.

The decision tightened the government’s grip over the region and stoked anger and resentment as a three-decade armed revolt continued to rage.

The Bucher papers refer to communications between Gen Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher, who served as second commander-in-chief of the Indian army between 1948 and 1949, and government officials, including Nehru.

Over the years, several attempts have been made by activists to declassify the papers to throw light on the reasoning for article 370, which gave Jammu and Kashmir its special status.

A recent foreign ministry document seen by the Guardian said the contents of the papers should not be declassified yet. The papers contain “military operational matters in Kashmir and correspondences amongst senior government leaders on sensitive political matters on Kashmir”, the document said.

The papers have been kept at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, an autonomous body under India’s culture ministry.

According to a source with knowledge of the matter, they reveal that Nehru was aware and informed of the military development in Kashmir, including Pakistan’s attempts to use external military assistance to escalate the situation.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 14, 2023 at 2:16pm

India trying to prevent declassification of ‘sensitive’ 1947 Kashmir papers

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/14/india-trying-prevent-...

“Roy Bucher suggested a political approach to solve the escalating situation given military fatigue faced by Indian troops due to 13 months of military deployment, including taking the matter before the United Nations,” the source said.

That advice may have influenced Nehru’s decision to grant Kashmir special status. In 1952, the prime minister argued that the aspirations of the people of Kashmir should be respected. “I want to stress that it is only the people of Kashmir who can decide the future of Kashmir,” he told India’s parliament. “We are not going to impose ourselves on them on the point of the bayonet.”

The Bucher papers were handed over by India’s external affairs ministry to the Nehru museum and library in New Delhi in 1970, with a note saying they should be kept “classified”. They have remained in the library’s closed collection since then, the foreign ministry document said.

An Indian activist, Venkatesh Nayak, has filed multiple appeals to declassify the papers, a move that was initially rejected. However, in 2021 the Indian information commissioner ruled it was in the “national interest” but fell short of ordering the disclosure of the crucial documents. The order advised that the library may seek the foreign ministry’s permission to declassify the papers for academic research.

In a letter dated 12 October 2022 that has been reviewed by the Guardian, the chair of the museum and library, Nripendra Misra, wrote to India’s foreign secretary arguing the papers “are very important for scholarly research” and requested declassification.

“We have read the contents of the Bucher papers. Our view is that the papers need not remain ‘classified’ beyond the reach of academicians. We are opening papers of other important public figures also,” Misra argued.

India typically allows the declassification of archival documents after 25 years.

The foreign ministry argued in the document that the disclosure of the papers should be put in “abeyance” for the time being and advised that the “sensitivity of Roy Bucher papers and the likely implications of their disclosure” should be examined further.

Sources say the government has yet to take a final decision on the matter.

The Guardian has contacted the Indian foreign ministry and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library for a response.

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