‘They’re marauding our homes like a victorious army’: Kashmiris accuse Indian troops of beatings, abuse – World

Indian soldiers descended to Bashir Ahmed Dar's house in southern Kashmir occupied on August 10, a few days after the New Delhi government stripped the cashmere of the special autonomy they had for seven decades through a rushed presidential order and launched an offensive.

For the next 48 hours, the 50-year-old plumber said the soldiers subjected him to two separate rounds of beatings.

They demanded that he find his younger brother, who had joined Kashmir opposing the presence of India in the Muslim majority region, and persuaded him to surrender or "face the music."

In the second beating, in a military camp, Dar said three soldiers beat him with sticks until he was unconscious.

He woke up at home, "unable to sit on my bruised and bloody buttocks and backache," he added.

But it wasn't over.

On August 14, the soldiers returned home to the village of Heff Shirmal and destroyed their family's rice and other food supplies by mixing it with fertilizer and kerosene.

Dar's account of the violence and intimidation of Indian soldiers was not unusual.

Read: Stories of torture following annexation by India emerge from occupied Kashmir

In more than 50 interviews, residents of a dozen villages in occupied Kashmir said The Associated Press that the army had raided their homes since the Indian government imposed a security offensive in the region on August 5.

They said the soldiers inflicted beatings and electric shocks, forced them to eat land or drink dirty water, poisoned their food supplies or killed cattle, and threatened to take away and marry their relatives. Thousands of young people have been arrested.

Asked for AP To respond to the recent allegations of abuse by the Northern Command, the headquarters of the Indian army in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, its Srinagar-based spokesman, Colonel Rajesh Kalia, rejected the villagers' accounts as "completely unfounded and false." , and affirmed that the Indian The army values ​​human rights.

"There have been reports of terrorist movement" in the areas AP visited, Kalia said. "It was suspected that some young people were involved in anti-national and harmful activities and were handed over to the police according to the law of the country."

The chief security officer of India, national security adviser Ajit Doval, said the army has not participated in the operation in Kashmir.

"There have been no atrocities," he said.

For years, there have been accusations from residents and international human rights groups that Indian troops have carried out systematic abuses and unjustified arrests of those who oppose the New Delhi government in occupied Kashmir.

But frustration, anger and fear have been growing in occupied Kashmir in the five weeks since the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi stripped the region of its semi-autonomous status on August 5 and imposed a curfew and A communications blackout.

Although some restrictions have been eased in Srinagar, according to authorities, with students encouraged to return to school and businesses to reopen, rural residents complain about what they perceive as a campaign of violence and intimidation that seems designed to suppress any struggle. for self determination.

Unjustified raids

Abuse in nighttime raids by troops began in early August when New Delhi took action against occupied Kashmir, according to interviews with at least 200 people.

In the village of Parigam, the family of Baker Sonaullah Sofi was asleep when army troops stormed his house. The soldiers took their two children to the street and beat them with butts, iron chains and sticks, Sofi said.

"Helpless, I heard my children scream when the soldiers started beating them mercilessly in the middle of the road," Sofi said.

Soon, the soldiers brought 10 more young people to the town square, looking for names of anti-Indian protesters, said Muzaffar Ahmed, Sofi's 20-year-old son, who reported the incident on August 7.

"They hit our backs and legs for three hours. They gave us electric shocks," Ahmed said, lifting his shirt to show his burned and bruised back.

"When we cried and begged them (with) to let us go, they became more relentless and ruthless in their blows. They forced us to eat dust and drink water from a drain."

Since the repression began, at least 3,000 people, mostly young men, have been arrested, according to police officials and records reviewed by the AP.

About 120 of them have been slapped with the Public Security Law, a law that allows people to be detained for up to two years without trial, according to records.

Thousands more people have been arrested at police confinements to be evaluated for their potential to join the protests. Some were released and asked to report a few days later. Some are only held during the day, released at night to sleep at home, while their parents are told to bring them back the next day.

Ahmed, the baker, said the soldiers finally left at dawn, leaving them writhing in pain. He and his older brother, along with at least eight others, were grouped in a single ambulance and taken to a hospital in Srinagar.

Physical and sexual abuse

For years, human rights groups have accused Indian troops of intimidating and controlling the population with physical and sexual abuse and unjustified arrests. Indian government officials deny this, calling the accusations of "propaganda."

The abuses alleged by human rights groups since 1989 include rape, sodomy, scuba diving, electric shocks in the genitals, burns and sleep deprivation.

Last year, the United Nations requested an independent international investigation into allegations of rights violations such as rape, torture and extrajudicial executions in Kashmir.

Read: The UN human rights chief asks for an important investigation into the Kashmir abuses

India rejected the report as "fallacious." Parvez Imroz, a leading human rights lawyer, said the new reports of abuse in the ongoing campaign by the security forces were "disturbing."

Fear and anger are palpable in the villages that dot the vast apple orchards, especially after sunset, when the soldiers arrive.

Abdul Ghani Dar, 60, said the soldiers have raided his home in Marhang Village seven times since early August, adding that he sends his daughter to another place before they arrive.

"They say they have come to see my son, but I know they come to look for my daughter," Dar said, her eyes full of tears.

Residents of three other villages said the soldiers had threatened to take the girls from their families to get married.

"They are hanging around our homes and homes like a victorious army. Now they behave as if they have a right over our lives, property and honor," said Nazir Ahmed Bhat, who lives in Arihal.

In early August, the soldiers arrived at Rafiq Ahmed Lone's house while he was away.

"The soldiers asked my wife to accompany them to search our house. When she refused, she was beaten with butts and sticks," Lone said.

While she was being beaten, the soldiers killed her rooster, he added.