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In 1996, the conflict in Kashmir1 entered it seventh year, with little indication that parliamentary elections scheduled for May 23 and 302 would either lead to peace or end the widespread human rights abuses that have characterized the war. All of the militant organizations fighting for independence of the disputed territory have vowed to boycott the polls. In the months preceding the elections, Indian security forces have intensified their efforts against militant groups, stepping up cordon-and-search operations and summarily executing captured militant leaders. Alongside them, operating as a secret, illegal army, have been state-sponsored paramilitary groups, composed of captured or surrendered former militants described as "renegades" by the Indian government. Many of these groups have been responsible for grave human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture, and illegal detention as well as election-related intimidation of voters.

At the same time, some armed militant groups have become more ruthless. To enforce their boycott of the polls, the militant groups have attacked and killed candidates and campaign workers. Some militant groups have also continued to kidnap and execute civilians. Over the past year, militants have also stepped up indiscriminate attacks on civilians through bomb blasts and the use of landmines.

The election has intensified the conflict, but the deterioration in the human rights situation can be traced to early 1995 when the security forces began making systematic use of these irregular militias.3 While attempting to reassure the international community that they have taken steps to curb human rights abuses in Kashmir, Indian forces have in effect subcontracted some of their abusive tactics to groups with no official accountability. The extrajudicial killings, abductions and assaults committed by these groups against suspected militants are instead described as resulting from "intergroup rivalries." But civilians have also been their victims, and the militia groups have singled out journalists, human rights activists and medical workers for attack. They have been given free rein to patrol major hospitals in Srinagar, particularly the Soura Institute, the Sri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital and the Bone and Joint Hospital. They have murdered, threatened, beaten and detained hospital staff; in some cases these abuses have occurred in full view of security force bunkers or in the presence of security force officers. They have also removed patients from hospitals. These abuses constitute clear violations of medical neutrality.4

In some cases, attacks by these paramilitary groups appear to have been carried out on orders from security officers; in other cases, the groups appear to operate on their own, within broadly defined limits to their discretionary powers and the full expectation on the part of the security forces that they will use their discretion to take initiatives within the overall counterinsurgency strategy of fighting terror with terror. Their actions are taken with the knowledge and complicity of official security forces. When arrested by local police, members of these groups have been released on orders of the security forces. Not one has been prosecuted for human rights abuses. In this report, Human Rights Watch/Asia provides evidence of the culpability of state-sponsored irregular paramilitary forces in three cases of extrajudicial executions and two attempted assassinations. We also describe a range of other abuses committed by these groups.

Violations of human rights and humanitarian law by the regular security forces — the army, the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) — have also continued. These violations include the deliberate killing of detainees in the custody of the security forces in Kashmir and reprisal killings of civilians. Human rights groups and press accounts have registered reports of such killings every month, 5 but there is no sign that security personnel have been prosecuted in a single case of summary execution. In the few high-profile cases in which courts-martial have taken place, soldiers have been prosecuted for abuses, such as the excessive use of force, which fall short of murder.

Regular forces have also been responsible for disappearances and reprisal attacks against civilians. More than one hundred cases of detainees disappearing in the custody of the security forces have been documented by human rights groups since the conflict began; to Human Rights Watch's knowledge, not one has resulted in the prosecution of any member of the security forces.6 Security legislation has increased the likelihood of such abuses by authorizing the security forces to shoot to kill and to destroy civilian property while at the same time protecting them from prosecution for human rights violations. In the case of reprisal attacks or assaults by soldiers on civilians during search operations, the government has ordered a handful of investigations, but many reported instances of abuse have been ignored by the authorities.

Indian security forces in Kashmir continue to administer torture systematically to coerce detainees to reveal information about suspected militants or to confess to militant activity. Torture is also used to punish detainees who are believed to support or sympathize with the militants and to create a climate of political repression. The practice of torture is facilitated by the fact that detainees are generally held in temporary detention centers, controlled by the various security forces, without access to the courts, relatives or medical care.

Methods of torture include severe beatings, electric shock, crushing the leg muscles with a wooden roller, and burning with heated objects. The Indian government has not made public any investigations into any of the many documented cases of torture, nor has it ever announced that a member of the security forces was prosecuted or punished for torture. Although the government denies that torture is practiced systematically and as a matter of policy in Kashmir, government officials have admitted that torture takes place.

Security personnel in Kashmir have also been responsible for rape as a counterinsurgency tactic. In response to international attention to the problem, the Indian government has made public a number of prosecutions of members of security forces for rape. However, reports of rape and other sexual assaults in Kashmir persist.7 In many cases, these incidents are never investigated by judicial and medical authorities competent to determine culpability.

The Indian authorities have done little to curb human rights violations by their army and security forces. In the rare cases in which investigations of abuses have taken place, the most severe punishments have generally been limited to dismissals or suspensions from duty. Security officers have also offered bribes and have threatened individuals and families in an attempt to prevent them from pressing charges. The Indian government's failure to account for these abuses and take rigorous action against those members of its forces responsible for murder, rape and torture amounts to a policy of condoning human rights violations.

Armed militant organizations8 in Kashmir have also committed many grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Armed with sophisticated weaponry mostly procured in Pakistan, militant groups have launched indiscriminate attacks that have killed and injured hundreds of civilians. The militant groups have increasingly made use of car bombs and other explosive devices in crowded areas. The groups have also deployed landmines on public roads and in other areas used by civilians. Militants have thrown grenades at buses and government buildings, killing and wounding civilians. These attacks have occurred in the Kashmir valley and have also been reported in Jammu.

Militant groups have kidnaped civilians, including foreigners, and held them as hostages in order to demand the release of imprisoned militants. They have threatened, assaulted and in some cases murdered Hindu residents of the Kashmir Valley. In mid-1996 some 100,000 Hindu refugees were still living in refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi where they had fled after a series of such attacks.9

Various armed militant groups in Kashmir have also committed rape and have launched other violent attacks on women, creating a climate of fear for women in Kashmir in which violent abuses are committed with impunity. As the elections neared, militant groups also assassinated candidates and party workers, particularly those from the Congress party. The militants also kidnaped and summarily executed suspected informers and collaborators. They also kidnaped and murdered civilians and issued bans and other threats against the press.

Many examples of these violations are contained in this report, based on a visit by a researcher for Human Rights Watch/Asia to Kashmir in January 1996. He interviewed local human rights activists, lawyers, health professionals, journalists, teachers and political figures, and reviewed habeas corpus petitions, High Court judgments, and medical documents on incidents of abuse by the security forces and irregular paramilitary groups. Human Rights Watch/Asia also interviewed witnesses about incidents of abuse by militant groups. In all, Human Rights Watch/Asia conducted more than sixty interviews with witnesses and other informed sources, including army, police and other government officials. Wherever possible, Human Rights Watch/Asia inspected the sites of reported incidents.

Before this report was published, Human Rights Watch/Asia provided the Home Ministry of the government of India and India's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) with details on all of the cases we investigated and requested an official response. Information received from the government that relates to individual cases and issues is included in the relevant sections of Chapter V.

1 The conflict is situated in the valley of Kashmir in the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The valley of Kashmir lies between the Pir Panjan and Karakoram mountain ranges of the Himalayas. When we have used the term "Kashmir" we are referring to the valley, which includes the towns and villages along the Jhelum river, from Handwara and surrounding towns in the northwest to Anantnag in the southeast.

2 Elections were held in the Jammu and Ladakh constituencies of the state on May 7, 1996. Elections for the Baramulla and Anantnag constituencies were scheduled for May 23, and the Srinagar and Udhampur constituencies on May 30. Srinagar is the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

3 Before 1995, Indian security forces in Kashmir used former militants to carry out killings of suspected militants and others. The December 1992 murder of human rights activist H.N. Wanchoo is believed to have been ordered by Border Security Force (BSF) officer Ashok Patel and carried out by former militants whose release from prison was compensation. Other assassinations in 1993 and 1994 are also suspected to have been the work of hired gunmen, either former militants or mercenaries, working for the security forces. It is only since early 1995 that the security forces have deployed paramilitary outfits to carry out regular patrols and other counterinsurgency operations on a routine basis.

4 Previously, such raids were conducted by uniformed Indian security forces, particularly the BSF. During these raids, medical workers were also harassed and assaulted. For more on this, see Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, The Crackdown in Kashmir: Torture of Detainees and Assaults on the Medical Community (New York: Human Rights Watch, March 1993), and Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, The Human Rights Crisis in Kashmir: A Pattern of Impunity (New York: Human Rights Watch, July 1993).

5 It is impossible to determine with any precision how many such killings have occurred. In its 1996 report, the U.S. State Department notes that "[H]uman rights groups consider credible reports that dozens of such killings occur every month." See U. S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1995 (Washington, D.C.: March 1996). The reference appears on the first page of the India chapter in the report. The Kashmir Monitor, a human rights group, compiled the following figures on deaths in custody (excluding "encounter" killings and deaths described as resulting from "cross-fire") from press reports; these figures should be seen as representing the bare minimum of killings in this period: June 1994: 24; July 1994: 37; August 1994: 24; September 1994: 40; October 1994: 20; December 1994: 23; January 1995: 12; February 1995: 11; March 1995: 17; April 1995: 14; May 1995: N/A; June 1995: 13; July-October N/A; November 1995: 16.

6 The Kashmir Monitor documented ninety-nine cases of disappearance between 1990 and 1992. Human Rights Watch reprinted this list in its 1993 report, The Human Rights Crisis in Kashmir. In a report published in June 1995, the Kashmir Monitor reported that "[m]ore than 300 persons who were arrested by the army/paramilitary forces during the [past] six years ... are missing." Kashmir Monitor, Informative Missive (June 1995). Human Rights Watch has continued to receive reports of disappearances from human rights groups in the state. The Indian government has never responded to Human Rights Watch's request for information about any of these cases. As Lokshahi Hakk Sanghatana, a coalition of human rights groups, observes in its report, Blood in the Valley, the only remedy available for the families of those that have disappeared is to file a habeas corpus petition with the court. Hundreds of such petitions are pending before the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. Court orders demanding that detainees be produced are routinely disregarded by the security forces. See Lokshahi Hakk Sanghatana, Blood in the Valley: Kashmir, Behind the Propaganda Curtain (Bombay: Lokshahi Hakk Sanghatana, 1995).

7 Human rights groups, including Kashmir Monitor, Committee for Initiative on Kashmir, and Lokshahi Hakk Sanghatana, have reported that allegations of rape continue, and in many cases are never investigated by the authorities. As Kashmir Monitor has noted, "[M]ajor cases of rape committed by security forces in the border areas, in far-flung areas, and in areas beyond the searchlight of the press and human rights organisations have become non-events." See Blood in the Valley, p. 91.

8 There are several dominant groups fighting Indian troops in Kashmir, and perhaps as many as one hundred smaller ones. The two most prominent are the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which is considered the most popular and which supports independence, and the Hezb-ul Mujahidin, which is reportedly the best armed and which supports accession to Pakistan.

9 For centuries, the Kashmiri Hindu community, often called Pandits, shared the Kashmir valley and its distinct culture with the majority Muslim population. The exodus of more than 100,000 in early 1990 was provoked by violent attacks by armed militant groups. Most remain in refugee camps in Delhi and Jammu. For more on this, see Asia Watch, Kashmir Under Siege (May 1991), pp.147-151.