The presence of unmarked and mass graves in rural Kashmir has sparked off fresh tussle between rights groups and the authorities in Jammu & Kashmir following reports that a latin American country secretly probed the burial sites last year. While the authorities deny the presence of such graves, the rights groups insist that they have researched the “phenomenon” and 7,000 unmarked and mass graves exist in five districts of Jammu & Kashmir.
The issue made international headlines in December 2009, when Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) — a group working for the victims custodial disappearances — published a report identifying locations of such burial sites.
A prominent newspaper in Argentina recently reported that the country secretly sent a team of forensic experts to Kashmir to secretly probe the mass graves but the team couldn’t do much because “Muslims are against exhumations”. While J&K Police chief Ashok Prasad has indicated probing Argentinean secret mission, the APDP clarified on Sunday that the Argentinean Government has never directly, or indirectly, probed the mass graves of Kashmir.
The group said that the European Parliament through its resolution in 2008 expressed support for the investigations on mass graves and enforced disappearances in Jammu & Kashmir while the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) issued statements of support.
Prasad has denied existence of mass graves in Jammu & Kashmir. He said the existence of unmarked graves was a common phenomenon in Kashmir but mass graves, except for the one with bodies of six drowned militants, did not exist anywhere.
However, the APDP described the police chief’s assertion as “misinformation” and part of the ongoing State attempts to “obfuscate the truth and confuse the public opinion, locally and internationally”.
“The DGP Prasad and other government functionaries audaciously want the people of Jammu and Kashmir to forget the tyranny they have suffered and witnessed, besides of course the inquiry conducted by the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) followed by a judgment in 2011 which vindicated the research of APDP regarding mass graves and unmarked graves”, Khurram Pravez, spokesman of APDP said.