News and Views on Kashmir.
Reports
Reports
Kashmiri woman’s 15-year wait for husband
By Firdoose ul Islam, IANS 19 February 2012 Keran (Jammu and Kashmir): Whenever a postman enters this village in Kupwara district of Kashmir, Jameela Rayees cannot stop herself from rushing to the door in anticipation. What she is waiting for is her passport, so that she can go to Pakistan and look for her husband Shakir.
Shakir Ahmad Rayees fled to Pakistan along with a group of people in 1995 when militancy broke out in the state.
“I want to meet Shakir once before my eyes close forever,” Jameela, 42, told this correspondent.
The last time she saw her husband was in 2004, some months after More >
Uneasy calm prevails in Rafiabad as bereaved family lives in trauma
Rafiabad Kashmir-Unidentified relatives comfort sister of Ashiq Hussain who was killed by Indian army.
Rafiabad-Kashmir 13 Feb 2012(Amin Masoodi): In grief-struck Lasier village of Rafiabad, uneasy calm prevailed for the third consecutive day today as hundreds of people visited the bereaved family members of deceased youth to express their solidarity. The bereaved family members are still shell-shocked and apparently inconsolable.
Tension and uneasy calm gripped the area after the killing of Ashiq Hussian Rather in Army ambush on February 10 evening. Although the army and civil administration More >
After 16 years, slain ‘militant’ turns out civilian
BSF soldiers in Kashmir carrying heavy weapons.
(SHRC indicts BSF for killing ‘peace-loving citizen’) ARIF SHAFI WANI/GK Srinagar, Feb 12: The Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has indicted the paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) for killing a youth of Harwan in a fake encounter in 1995 and rejected its claims that the deceased was a militant. The Commission has also asked the State Government to reopen investigation into the case to bring the accused to justice and “let rule of law prevail.” In her complaint to the Commission, Haseena Bano of Harwan area here More >
Kashmir: She is not wailing, instead she is reciting folk songs usually sung on marriages
Kashmiri women wail on the body of ashiq hussain lesar village- 11-Feb-2012
Srinagar, Feb 11: Ashiq Hussain, 20, of Laisser village in Rafiabad was allegedly killed in army firing on Friday evening.
The mother of the 20-year old slain youth, Ashiq Hussain Rather son of Muhammad Akbar Rather by the soldiers of 32 Rashtriya Rifles Friday evening, has almost lost her balance. She is not wailing, instead she is reciting folk songs usually sung on marriage functions. However with every line she recites, tears roll down her cheeks. Two young sisters of slain youth, Shafiqa and Rukhsana, shouldered More >
Jashn-e-Azadi, Inshallah Kashmir and now Harud! Indian Censor Board plays spoilsport with films on Kashmir
SRINAGAR, Feb 2: Seems like when it comes to Kashmir, Indian Censor Board has only one answer –NO. The latest Kashmir centric film to fall prey to Censor Board objections is Harud- (Autumn ) directed by Aamir Bashir, which has alread
y been world premiered at Toronto, Canada. Aamir Bashir, the brain behind Harud tweeted last night, “Harud refused censor certificate. Round 2 with Revisionary Committee to follow. Wish us luck!”
Censorship noise could be heard lately, regarding documentary films like Sanjay Kak directed Jashn-e-Azadi and Ashwin Kuma directed Inshallah Kashmir.
Noteworthy to More >
‘Valley of Saints’ Wins Praise At International Film Festival
Delhi 31/01/12:A low-budget film set in Kashmir has been picking up plaudits at international film festivals, bringing a different focus to the troubled Himalayan region. “Valley of Saints,” the first feature from U.S. director and screenwriter Musa Syeed, won the World Cinema Audience Award for dramatic feature at the Sundance Film Festival over the weekend. Mr. Syeed, who is currently attending the International Film Festival Rotterdam, says audiences there have put the film among their top-ten favorites from hundreds of features that are showing. It’s a big success for a film that was made More >
BEERU YOUTH MISSING SINCE 2007
Family seeks authorities’ help ‘He had decided to come home’ BEERU YOUTH MISSING SINCE 2007 IMRAN MUZAFFAR Srinagar, Jan 14: Missing since 2007, pushing the family in the endless misery and dilemma of negotiating with the thought “either he has been killed or alive in some jail”, a youth from central Kashmir’s Budgam district is yet to return home. Abdul Rashid Teli, 16, of Peth Kot, Beeru, Budgam, had allegedly crossed over to Lone of Control in November 26, 2000 when he was 16 years old, his family said. “Then he was not in a position to decide what he is supposed to do and finally ended up More >
Human Rights Review – Jammu and Kashmir in 2011: JKCCS
Year 2011 has just passed, and many have declared this year, a peaceful year in Jammu and Kashmir. Of course assertions of peace by various quarters are relative. Enforced silence cannot be construed as peace. Despite the hype of peace, people of Jammu and Kashmir have witnessed unabated violence, human rights abuses, denial of civil and political rights, absence of mechanisms of justice, heightened militarization and surveillance. The figures of violent incidents suggest that 2011 as usual has been the year of loss, victimization, mourning and pain for the people.
In 2011, a More >
WikiLeaks cables: India accused of systematic use of torture in Kashmir
Beatings and electric shocks inflicted on hundreds of civilians detained in Kashmir, US diplomats in Delhi told by ICRC. US officials had evidence of widespread torture by Indian police and security forces and were secretly briefed by Red Cross staff about the systematic abuse of detainees in Kashmir, according to leaked diplomatic cables.
The dispatches, obtained by website WikiLeaks, reveal that US diplomats in Delhi were briefed in 2005 by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) about the use of electrocution, beatings and sexual humiliation against hundreds of detainees.
Other More >
Kashmir endures India’s Crimes against Humanity- The Canadian
18 December 2011 By : by Ameer In the past few decades increased violence in Kashmir left hundreds and thousands dead, thousands of mass graves of unidentified bodies unearthed. People in the streets of Kashmir are asking, what holds back United Nations from appointing a Rapporteur to find out the facts leading to these atrocities and it is vitally important to keep peace loving people world over apprised of these stark factual happenings. For the sake of world peace and to avoid a catastrophe as two nuclear powers with a history of fighting wars need to be brought to a negotiating table More >
As Pepper gun harm people in Kashmir, Experts warn of hazardous effects
Mudassir Kuloo
Srinagar 16 Dec 2011: The use of pepper guns by the security process to disperse the protesters in Srinagar and in other parts of the valley has not only harmed the people but the experts have also warned of serious harmful effects to human lives.
The residents of the Down Town area which is witnessed frequent use of these guns, people in the area also have complained that pepper guns leaves chiller effect in the area and make one feel uneasy with nausea amid frequent coughing.
A local resident of Nowhatta claims that his aged father was an asthma patient, but the pepper spray More >
Listen to the Silent Cries of the Disappeared in Kashmir
by: Govind Acharya, December 14, 2011 Soldiers in Kashmir
I’ve been following the debate about whether India’s Jammu & Kashmir government (called J&K or Kashmir interchangeably) will lift the draconian impunity legislation (called the AFSPA) for soldiers now in place over large swathes of Kashmir Valley.
The Indian Army, for its part, makes the rather astounding claim that if they are not allowed to continue to operate in the Kashmir Valley without impunity then Kashmir will secede. I often hear this type of stuff as well—oh if we don’t continue to abuse human rights with legal cover, then More >
