Sheikh Yaqoob said during the past over two decades nearly 10,000 Kashmiris went missing in the custody of various agencies. “Unmarked and mass graves have been found in various areas of the Valley. We believe that most of the Kashmiris who have been subjected to enforced disappearance are buried in these unmarked and mass graves. We make a fervent appeal to the International Court of Justice and United Nations War Crimes Tribunal to send their teams to the Valley and initiate a through probe into the unmarked graves for unmasking the perpetrators and putting an end to killing of innocent Kashmiris,” Sheikh Yaqoob said.
Citing example of extra-judicial executions, Sheikh Yaqoob said in 2006, five people mostly from south Kashmir’s Islamabad district were killed in a fake encounter in Ganderbal for rewards and promotions by the Special Operations Group of Police and Army.
“The case is only tip-of an ice-berg. In past two decades, the troopers turned Kashmir into killings fields by executing Kashmiris and burying their bodies in unmarked graves to suppress the movement for right to self-determination,” Sheikh Yaqoob said.
Pertinently, last year the International Peoples’ Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice, a rights watchdog in its report ‘Buried Evidence: Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves” had claimed to have to found 2700 unmarked and mass graves containing bodies of 2943 people across, 55 villages in north Kashmir.
“The graves include bodies of extra-judicial, summary and arbitrary executions, as well as massacres by the Indian military and paramilitary forces. Of these graves 2373 (87.9 percent) were unnamed. 154 contained two bodies each and 23 contained more than two bodies. Within these 23 graves, the number of bodies ranged from 3 to 17,” the report had stated.
Sheikh Yaqoob maintained that panacea for all the problems of Kashmiris’ is demilitarization. “Till the troopers leave the State, Kashmiris will continue suffer, fathers will have to face the painful moment of shouldering coffins of their sons and playfields will turn into graveyards.”
Accusing India of exploiting natural resources of Kashmiris, Sheikh Yaqoob said the power generated from Kashmir is supplied to other states. “While Kashmiris are left in lurch. Our forests and mountains are also being vandalized by troopers. I want to maintain that Kashmiris will feel sense of security when the troopers vacate the State,” he said. (Writer-South Asia)
