Missing of Kashmir

On February 20 & 21, the Kashmir Solidarity Committee Against Disappearances and Human Rights Violations in Jammu and Kashmir held a protest rally at Jantar Mantar, Delhi. The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) was among the participants and the primary demand was that the government show urgency in dealing with the enforced disappearances and fake encounter killings in the state.

In January, J and K policemen in Ganderbal were found to have killed three civilians last year and passed them off as Pakistani militants killed in an encounter. The father of one of them, Ghulam Rasool Padroo, kept looking for his son for two months before he and the nation discovered the truth. The “encounter” would have fetched the police officer a substantial award and a certificate for his act of bravery. A few months before this, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) found that officers of the Rashtriya Rifles with their police counterparts got together to kill five persons and claim awards and certificates. These five were supposedly militants responsible for the murders of 36 Sikhs at Chittisinghpora almost six years ago. The CBI found that they were civilians with no connection to the Sikh killings. Earlier this month, two persons including a police constable were arrested for their involvement in killing maulvi Mohammad Ashra who had been picked up by the special operations group (SOG), falsely tagged as a foreign militant and shot dead in Baramulla. These are a few of the many incidents that have come to light wherein the police or the army killed innocents and branded them as militants in order to earn promotions and medals.