annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 Jammu and Kashmir
boundary wall around the army area and in
the process they also allegedly tried to
encroach upon seven Marlas of land
belonging to an elderly woman, Ayodhya
Kumari of Bakshi Nagar in Rehari in
Jammu. The woman tried to stop the army
men. On getting reports a police party led
by Deputy Superintendent of Police
Tanveer Geelani reached the spot. Several
policemen including the Deputy
Superintendent Police were beaten up and
injured. The armymen also beaten up
several photo journalists who reached the
spot, snatched and damaged their
cameras. 58
III. Atrocities by the armed
opposition groups
The armed opposition groups (AOGs)
like Save Kashmir Movement, Harket-i-
Jehad Islami, Tehreek-Jehadi Islami,
Laskar-e-Toiba, Hizbul-Mujahideen etc
have been responsible for blatant
violations of international humanitarian
law standards. The AOGs resorted to
indiscriminate killings, medieval forms of
torture, kidnapping and hostage taking.
The victims were civilians, alleged police
informers, political activists and relatives
of the surrendered AOGs.
i. Torture
In March 2004, members of an
unidentified armed opposition group
captured three civilians - Mohammad
Altaf Bhat (carpet-weaver), Arshid
Hussain Bhat (painter) and Sabzar Ahmed
Bhat, a class 12th student at Shamsipora in
Anantnag district. After severely torturing
them, they shot Arshid Hussain and Sabzar
Ahmed in the legs and chopped off both
the ears of Mohammad Altaf Bhat. 59
In the evening of 20 April 2004,
cadres of armed opposition groups
reportedly abducted two village elders,
Hajji Amma Kala and Missruddin, from
Kalwa village in Mahore Tehsil of
Udhampur district and chopped off their
ears after severely beating them. They
were then taken back to Kalwa and
showed their chopped ears to terrified
residents, warning they could face a worse
fate if they participated in the elections to
the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat on 10 May
2004. 60
ii. Arbitrary killings
The armed opposition groups
continued to target innocent civilians. On
9 January 2004, 21 persons were
wounded, three of them seriously, when
members of armed opposition groups
allegedly exploded two grenades in a jampacked
mosque in the Lakhdata Bazar of
Jammu town where a large number of
people were offering their Friday prayers. 61
On 23 May 2004, seventeen BSF
personnel and 18 members of their
families, including six women and three
children, were killed when the bus, in
which they were traveling to Jammu from
Srinagar was blown up at Lower Munda
on the Jammu-Srinagar highway allegedly
by the Hizbul-Mujahideen cadres. 62 On 23
June 2004, a grenade was hurled at
Bijbehara in Anantnag district that injured
93