SOUTH ASIA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

2224Government stated that it would investigate the fate of eight persons who reportedlydisappeared in Jammu and Kashmir during 1997: Fayaz Ahmad Beigh, FayazAhmad Khan, Abdula Rashid Wahid, Mohammed Ashraf Dar, Mohammed AfzalShah, Nisar Ahmad Wani, Manzoor Ahmad Dar, and Bilal Ahmad Sheikh. In September1998, the Government accounted for only one of the eight persons, claimingthat Fayaz Ahmad Beigh had escaped from police custody on September 9, 1997,and was believed to have crossed the line of control into Pakistan. By year’s end,no new information was available on any of these cases. As of December 1997, 55cases of disappearance and custodial death still were pending against Border SecurityForce personnel in Jammu and Kashmir (see Sections 1.a. and 1.c.).The Government maintains that screening committees administered by the stategovernments provide information about detainees to their families. However, othersources indicate that families are able to confirm the detention of their relativesonly by bribing prison guards. For example, in May the People’s Union for Civil Liberties(PUCL) published an appeal by Sunita Majumdar, the mother of ParthaMajumdar, who was taken from his home by police in District 24 Parganas, WestBengal, in September 1997, and has not been seen since. Police have provided noinformation in the case despite a request from the State Human Rights Commission.Partha Majumdar was a witness to an alleged police shooting that left one persondead. In May the State Human Rights Commission recommended that a criminalinvestigation be initiated against police involved in the incident; however, it is notknown whether the requested criminal investigation was initiated. A program ofprison visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which beganin October 1995, is designed in part to help assure communications between detaineesand their families. During the year, the ICRC visited approximately 1,000 detaineesin about 20 places of detention. All acknowledged detention centers inJammu and Kashmir and Kashmiri detainees elsewhere in the country were visited.However, the ICRC is not authorized to visit interrogation centers or transit centers,nor does it have access to regular detention centers in the northeastern states(see Sections 1.c. and 4).In Punjab the pattern of disappearances prevalent in the early 1990’s appears tohave ended. Hundreds of police and security officials were not held accountable forserious human rights abuses committed during the counterinsurgency of 1984–94.However, steps were taken against a few such violators. The CBI claims to be pursuingactively charges against dozens of police officials implicated in the ‘‘mass cremations’’case. Police in the Tarn Taran district secretly disposed of bodies of suspectedmilitants believed to have been abducted and extrajudicially executed, crematingthem without the knowledge or consent of their families. The CBI in its reportto the Supreme Court in December 1996 stated that Punjab police secretly hadcremated over 2,000 bodies in Tarn Taran; of these, 585 bodies had been identifiedfully, 274 had been identified partially, and 1,238 were unidentified. Most reportedlywere killed by Border Security Force personnel while they were attempting to enterthe country from Pakistan, were unidentified victims of accidents or suicide, or diedin clashes between militant factions. However, 424 persons apparently were militantskilled in the interior of the district, 291 of whom subsequently were identified.These numbers demonstrate the extent of the violence during those years and, giventhe pattern of police abuses prevalent during the period, credibly include many personskilled in extrajudicial executions. The NHRC is seeking to obtain compensationfor the families of those victims whose remains were identified, but the Governmenthas challenged the NHRC’s jurisdiction in the cases. In September 1998, the SupremeCourt upheld the right of the NHRC to investigate the cases. In August 1998,the Committee for the Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP) memberand former Supreme Court Justice Kuldip Singh presented the Chief Minister ofPunjab with a list of approximately 3,000 persons who either were missing or haddied in encounters with security forces during the period of unrest in Punjub.Former Justice Singh also announced that the CCDP would form a threemembercommission to investigate the mass cremations. The Commission received little cooperationfrom state government authorities and made little progress during theyear (see Section 4).Amnesty International in its April report on human rights defenders in the countryexpressed concern that Punjab police officials continued to obstruct the judicialinquiry into the death of human rights monitor Jaswant Singh Khalra, hinderingefforts to probe the Tarn Taran cremations. Khalra was investigating the cremationof unidentified bodies by Tarn Taran police. Several witnesses observed Punjab policeofficials arrest Khalra outside his Amritsar home in September 1995. Police officialssubsequently denied that they had arrested Khalra, and he has not been seensince. In July 1996, following its investigation, the CBI identified nine Punjab policeofficials as responsible for Khalra’s abduction and recommended their prosecution.VerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:46 Sep 20, 2001 Jkt 071555 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\COUNTRYR\S71555\71555.035 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1