1. Resistance Unto Freedom
kashmircivitas.com
Volume 1, Issue 4
O c t o b e r
2 0 2 0
A monthly collection of significant
developments related to Kashmir
Custodial Killing Sends
Chill in Kashmir
Kashmir Civitas to Submit
Documents of Disappeared
at United Nations
India Army Admits Killing
Kashmiri Civilians
3. CONTENT
Custodial Killing Sends Chill in Kashmir
Kashmir Resistance Goes Online during Lockdowns
India Army Admits Killing Kashmiri Civilians
War and Glacial Meltdown in Kashmir
Kashmir Civitas to Submit Documents of Disappeared at United Nations
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Topics
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Kashmir’s Braveheart Lawyer Who Challenged India on its Screens Murdered
4. Kashmir’s Braveheart Lawyer
Who Challenged India on its
Screens Murdered
Mazahmat03
Sameer Yasir
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/world/asia/kashmir-lawyer-killed.html
Aljazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/25/assailants-shoot-and-kill-prominent-kashmir-lawyer
The Express Tribune
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2265635/pakistan-condemns-killing-of-kashmiri-activist-babar-qadri
References:
The spree of killings and political assassi-
nations in Kashmir continues relentlessly amid
the lockdowns and blockades imposed by Indian
State in the disputed territory of Kashmir. On
24th of September armed men barged into
young lawyer, Babar Qadri’s house and shot him
dead, making him one of the most high-profile
casualties of the violence wracking Kashmir. On
Indian television screens and in the courtroom,
Qadri stood as a rare, pugilistic voice arguing on
behalf of his native Kashmir, the mountainous
region long torn between India and Pakistan, on
India’s combative and increasingly nationalistic
talk shows. Ever since Kashmiris have been
mourning Qadri as a rare public advocate for his
home in a troubled time. A year ago Indian state
illegally tightened its hold on the Kashmir region,
and speaking out against the State has become
increasingly dangerous.
Qadri’skilling was the first of a prominent
civil society member since the killing of Shujaat
Bukahri, the editor of a local daily newspaper,
two years ago. “The lion was killed in his den.
With his killing, we have lost a roaring voice for
peace,” said Majid Hyderi, a longtime friend of
Qadri to a reporter. Mr. Qadri’s was famous in
Kashmir and throughout India for his vociferous
criticism of New Delhi’s increasingly stronger
hand in Kashmir. In person, he could be shy and
retiring and would rarely interrupt others, unlike
when he was on television.
5. Custodial Killing Sends
Chill in Kashmir
On 16th September, Kashmiris woke up to
another, but not unusual, chill when residents of
a north Kashmir village discovered the dead
body of a young man picked up by Indian mili-
tary forces a day earlier. Irfan Ahmad Dar, a
resident of Sopore, was arrested and then killed
in custody. To add insult to the injury, his family
was not even allowed to take the body, which the
armed forces took to a distant mountainous area
of Sonmarg and buried him there. The area is
some hundred kilometers away from his home.
Of late such custodial deaths of Kashmiris have
become routine to infuse fear among the people
who continue to resist Indian rule in Kashmir. The
death triggered a series of protests by the locals
and family members of Irfan.
Irfan’s death comes a little more than a
year after the March 19, 2019 incident in which
the school principal Rizwan Asad Pandit, from
south Kashmir’s Pulwama district was killed.
The custodial killings have been among the
conventional instruments of Indian State since
1990s to crush the resistance movement in
Kashmir. According to human rights defenders,
around 12,000 custodial killings have been
reported during the past twenty-eight years in
Kashmir.
Mazahmat04
References:
Nusrat Sidiq
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/police-family-contradict-on-young-kashmiris-killing/1976799
Anando Bhakto
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/03/06/how-custodial-killings-were-covered-up-in-kashmir/?gb=true
6. Kashmir Resistance Goes
Online during Lockdowns
It has been more than a year since the
lockdown was imposed in Kashmir after the abro-
gation of Kashmir’s autonomy, when the entire
social life was put on halt, with absolutely no
movement of vehicles or humans possible. When
all the communication forms, including transport,
telephones, mobile and Internet was blocked. And
then the COVID-19, which only intensified the
blockade and misery. Even after months when the
Internet restriction was lifted, its speed was
restricted to 2G – and still continues like that – and
the number of websites to be used was limited.
Social media continued to be banned and its
usage was penalized. In such suffocating atmo-
sphere, Kashmiri people began to hunt for
creative ways to survive and communicate, to
continue their social life. VPN technology, which
allowed people to bypass Indian Internet restric-
tions, became the most used in Kashmir. Howev-
er, for the Kashmiris who have been living and
working outside of Kashmir, in different parts of
the world the period of communication blockade
has been especially traumatic as they could not
hear from their families, relatives and friends
living in Kashmir for months.
The virtual space of Internet became an important plat-
form for the Kashmiris to connect with one another, share opin-
ions and discuss situation in Kashmir. Kashmiri students, schol-
ars, intellectuals and journalists were instrumental in highlight-
ing the situations in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Some of
the most important platforms that were launched during the
lockdown in Kashmir, such as Kashmir Civitas, Stand With Kash-
mir, Pe’nd Online and so on. The programmes were generally
shared on social media like Facebook and YouTube.
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References:
Wahid Bhat
https://groundreport.in/virtual-private-network-in-use-in-kashmir-social-media-ban/
Kashmir Civitas
https://kashmircivitas.com/
Pe’nd Online
https://www.facebook.com/pendonline/
Stand With Kashmir
https://www.standwithkashmir.org/
Mazahmat
7. India Army Admits Killing
Kashmiri Civilians
Mazahmat06
References:
Haris Zargar
https://www.newframe.com/fake-encounters-of-the-murderous-kind-in-india/
Rifat Fareed
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/18/indian-army-admits-wrongdoing-in-killing-three-kashmiris
Mazahmat
Perhaps for the first time since the armed
insurgency against Indian control began in 1990s
in the disputed territory of Kashmir, Indian army
has admitted the killing of three Kashmiri civil-
ians in a fake encounter. On July 18 three inno-
cent Kashmiri laborers were killed in a
cold-blooded murder by the Indian Armed forces
in Shopian district of the Kashmir Valley. The
Army had maintained that three militants were
gunned down by them and the bodies were
secretly buried. On September 18 2020, the
armed forces admittedto have killed the three
civilians.
Extrajudicial killings, often in the form of staged
encounters, have been a regular feature of India’s
counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir since
the dawn of militancy in the late 1980s. New
allegations of a fake encounter have thrown a
fresh spotlight on the theatre of state violence
and the culture of impunity under which Indian
forces operate in this disputed Himalayan valley.
In Kashmir, Indian forces operate
under the Armed Forces (Special Powers)
Act (AFSPA), which effectively grants
soldiers immunity from prosecution for
serious human rights abuses. It also gives
the military wide powers to arrest, shoot to
kill and occupy or destroy property in count-
er-insurgency operations. In some cases, the
soldiers had been accused of unlawful
killings, torture and rape.
8. The research reveals that annual discharge of river Jhelum will drop by 50% by
the end of 2050 which will decrease agricultural production in Kashmir by
more than 50%. An article by a Kashmir based reporter referred below gives full
account of the study and highlights the repercussions of the glacial meltdown
for the war-torn Kashmir Valley.
As the war rages in the streets of cities and villages of Kashmir, the long-term conse-
quences of the war are visible on the mountains of the Kashmir Valley. Scientific studies
are showing that Kashmir’s glaciers are fast melting due to which an agricultural and
environment disaster seems to be in offing. Himalayas in Kashmir have the highest
number of glaciers in the sub-continent and thus feed many important rivers of Kashmir.
However, due to the dramatic increase in temperatures, all the glaciers of Kashmir Hima-
layas are in the process of a meltdown.
A new study carried out by experts at Kashmir University reveals that the glaciers were
melting at around 35 cm in thickness every year. The study conducted by Prof Shakeel
Romshoo of KU’s Geo Informatics department and his team has been published in
UK-based Nature Research, a reputed scientific journal. The authors revealed to a news
reporter in Kashmir that they covered all 12243 glaciers of Jammu and Kashmir that
existed as per 1947 political borders, in their study. The study calculated the total volume
of ice that has melted from these glaciers in a span of 12 years (2000-2012). As per the
study, the glaciers of Kashmir have lost 70 giga tons of ice over a decade which as per
scientists is alarming and will have serious implications on environmental balance. The
experts believe that Kashmir could face major water scarcity in coming years which
could result in less agricultural productivity.
War and Glacial Meltdown
in Kashmir
Mazahmat07
References:
Zulfikar Majid,
https://www.deccanherald.com/science-and-environment/as-glaciers-melt-jammu-and-kashmir-could-face-major-water-food-scarcity-
study-883324.html
Mazahmat
9. Mazahmat08
References:
Farhan Mujahid Chak
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/haunting-voices-of-the-forcibly-disappeared-in-kashmir
Rifat Fareed
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/01/27/kashmiris-launch-calendar-to-remember-disappeared-loves-ones/
Mazahmat
Kashmir Civitas to Submit
Documents of Disappeared at
United Nations
Kashmir Civitas, in its efforts to initiate
new and innovative strategies to highlight Indian
settler colonial practices, including militarization,
human rights violations and demographic flood-
ing, launches its United Nations outreach on the
disappeared people of the disputed territory of
Kashmir. Having already published an opinion
piece on the disappeared in Daily Sabah newspa-
per, the Kashmir’s one of the biggest civil society
groups then launched a video on several of its
social media accounts raising awareness of the
nearly 8,000 to 10,000 disappeared Kashmiris.
Now, the organization is documenting the
names of nearly 8,000 disappeared Kashmiris
and submitting them to the United Nations
working group of Enforced or Involuntarily
Disappeared Persons based in Geneva, Switzer-
land.
This new strategy will officially document,
in the United Nations, the war crimes of the
Indian State in the disputed territory of Jammu
and Kashmir. For far too long, the haunting cries
of the disappeared have been ignored. However,
by their official submission to the UN working
body, that record can never be denied. This Kash-
mir Civitas campaign is called #forciblydisap-
peared in Kashmir. Step by step, Civitas will be
releasing the names of all 8,000 people and this
is just supposed to be the tip of the iceberg.
Kashmir Civitas pledges not to rest until Kashmiri
people get justice.
