Thread by @detsolnet

In this thread we’re going to talk about the terror that lies at the heart of arbitrary and incommunicado detentions, where families are not told the grounds of arrest, and most importantly where there loved ones are

This is what I had tweeted a couple of days ago. So what exactly are these nightmares? And did they ever end or simply keep changing forms ?

The violently rigged elections of 1987 are often seen as the cause of armed insurgency in Kashmir when many “defeated” pro freedom candidates crossed the LOC and declared war on India.

What is left out of this account is how often illegal and arbitrary preventive detentions and torture were used against pro freedom MUF candidates in the run up to the elections. See eg this PSA case against “ a notorious and staunch worker of the MUF” indiankanoon.org/doc/240865/

Hi. Sorry for that long break. Had a crazy busy day. But am here now and going to be continuing this thread abt the connections between detentions and other human rts violations in kashmiri history focusing on the 1990s and after

After the 1987 elections, the armed insurgency began with a campaign of bombing and attempted political assassinations. after the Rubaiya Sayed kidnapping hostage crisis, the govt resigned governor’s rule was officially imposed in January 1990

Initially abt 36000 regular troops had been called in from the border, and after governor’s rule was imposed began a campaign of brutal repression and increased militarisation with the formation and deployment of a special counter insurgency force called rashtriya rifles in May

The first half of 1990 witnesses the worst civilian massacres in kashmiri history as marches, funerals were fired upon, scores killed at a time. In July 1990 J & K AFSPA was passed, during governor’s rule (with no govt in place) giving army special powers incl to use lethal force

By 1991, human rights groups such as APCLC were reporting the deployment of estimated 200,000 troops. TADA which had been enacted in Punjab to deal with militancy there in 1987 , was extended to Kashmir

Older lawyers I have spoken to anecdotally remember the phenomenon of open FIRs as first occurring in this period and under TADA, where all detentions were under the same militancy related TADA case

“Crackdowns” became commonplace after the imposition of JK AFSPA which along use of lethal force on “unlawful assemblies” also allowed army to arrest people, search, seize and destroy any arms that they found

While under AFSPA army must act in aid of civilian authorities, in the field military was always in operational command During “crackdowns “ they cordoned neighbourhoods, searched homes “interrogated” male suspects,arrested & took away to interrogation centres at different places

Torture was common at both on site interrogations and the ones at interrogation centres particularly Joint Interrogation Centres such as PAPA I and II run jointly by all the forces and police, but also took place at army camps , police stations

In 1991, a fact finding report by Indian grips (“Undeclared War” APCLC et al) reported “ most of the people tortured &killed in custody are young men picked up by army or paramilitary forces during “crackdown operations in villages or other areas to identify suspected militants“

By 1993, amnesty international identified enforced disappearances as a form of “persistently perpetrated forms of human rts violations” in Kashmir along w/ rape, extra judicial killings,torture It drew attention to “many thousands” of political prisoners being held without trial

All these forms of violations identified by human rts groups were deeply and structurally connected to undocumented and incommunicado detentions and custodial interrogations —

By 1995, the links between men being taken away, men being tortured , 1000s being detained at unknown locations and mutilated bodies being dumped , were a well established pattern as Amnesty reported :

And the well established patterns we identified yesterday : of open FIRs, default illegal custody, showing arrests on paper as occurring 24 hours before when Habeas was filed in court ( which it was in the 1000s in this period) were all set in place in this period

The amazing thing was that people still continued to go to court, in search for their missing and disappeared even in these violent times inundating the courts with Habeas Corpuses. A phenomenon that was documented in this amazing report works.bepress.com/ashokagrwaal/1…

It is through the repeated encounters of such parents in court that one of Kashmir’s most resilient and inspiring human rights groups @_APDP was formed by Parveena Ahanger

As the form of militancy changed through mid 90s, and the 1996 parliamentary elections were announced a brutal new phenomenon of ikhwan or counter-insurgent took centre stage. These were secret militias like sales judum armed by India to fight militants hrw.org/reports/1996/I…

Detentions under PSA, as well as TADA later POTA continued .the JK high court Bar continued to bring these cases to court , with daily hearings of habeas corpuses as so many were listed despite the violent torture abc extra judicial killing of human rts lawyer Jaleel Andrabi

In the late nineties , the Special operations group through which the ikhwan was “regularised” emerged as a new phenomenon, and SOG camp as the most notorious and brutal of interrogation and torture centres, a reputation it retains to this day

The “return to normalcy” heralded a lessening of army killings and encounters, but the number of killings by mysterious “unknown gunmen” showed a marked increase as reported by APCLC in their report Civil War and Uncivil Government, 1997

2008, inaugurated the phase of the street intifadas, firstagainst the illegal appropriation of land by the Amarnath shrine board, then in 2009 against tge shopian double rape and murder , 2010 the Machil fake encounter, 2012 Afzal guru hanging and 2016 Burhan Wani

The “stone pelters “ emerged as the new target of illegal detention and profiling along with the earlier targets the “over ground worker” and the ex militant — and the cycle continues

There is a myth that torture or disappearance ended with the nineties, or at least it declined. While in terms of numbers this may be try due to the resistance of groups like @_APDP , as well as the decline in militancy and therefore less of a need to punish civilians +

But as the recent mass arrests show, where 4000 ppl were picked up in mid night raids overnight, the state’s hold on kashmiri bodies has only strengthened

Through all the spectacular violence of the 1990s and the “ normalised” violence of the 2000s, arbitrary and illegal detentions run like a subterranean thread

I’m going to sign off now but as I go I realise I haven’t really talked about WHAT torture, enforced disappearances or extra judicial killings are more abt how they are linked to detentions through recent kashmir history. So will leave you w some resources

On torture jkccs.net/torture-indian…

On enforced disappearances: jkccs.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/half-w…

Almost every human rights report on Kashmir documents extra judicial killings including jkccs.net/structures-of-…

That’s it for me, until tomorrow when I ll be back to tack about impunity and state crimes in Kashmir

@AdityaMenon22’s report also captures some of the mental health impacts of a childhood lived amidst such terror w/ young kids afraid to go out. Many studies show Kashmiris suffer from extremely high levels of depression and anxiety and then there is this

Sorry — wrong thread. I really need to get to bed!

The 2018 UN OHCHR report ( and 2019 update )which show how international crimes of torture, extra judicial killings &enforced disappearances continue and are linked to the primary act of illegal detentions, is also an important resource I forgot to add ohchr.org/Documents/Coun…