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print versionPRESS NOTE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 08, 2010
INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE’S TRIBUNAL ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND JUSTICE IN
INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR (IPTK)
Letter to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Re.: Gender Justice in Kashmir
To: Mr. Omar Abdullah
Chief Minister
Jammu and Kashmir
From:
Dr. Angana Chatterji, Convener IPTK and Professor, Anthropology,
California Institute of Integral Studies
Advocate Parvez Imroz, Convener IPTK and Founder, Jammu and Kashmir
Coalition of Civil Society
Gautam Navlakha, Convener IPTK and Editorial Consultant, Economic and
Political Weekly
Zahir-Ud-Din, Convener IPTK and Vice-President, Jammu and Kashmir
Coalition of Civil Society
Advocate Mihir Desai, Legal Counsel IPTK and Lawyer, Mumbai High Court
and Supreme Court of India
Khurram Parvez, Liaison IPTK and Programme Coordinator, Jammu and
Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society
Contact:
Khurram Parvez
Email: kparvez@kashmirprocess.org
Phone: +91.194.2482820
Mobile: +91.9419013553
Dear Mr. Omar Abdullah:
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, we write you on behalf
of the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in
Indian-administered Kashmir.
We had written you on January 04, 2010, informing you of our decision
to pursue an independent and transparent people’s inquiry into the
Shopian event of May 2009, addressing the contested social facts,
legal and political circumstances of the case, and the investigations
of the state that followed. As we had noted, we determined to
undertake this inquiry at the request of the Majils-e-Mashawarat of
Shopian, on the contention that state institutions, and the
investigations authorized by them, have been unable to deliver an
accurate understanding of the matter or define a mechanism for justice.
We write you today, as we are yet to receive a response from your
office to our request for access to certain documents, sites, and
personnel in conjunction with the above inquiry.
We had requested the following:
- Physical access to all relevant Central Reserve Police Force and
army camps, and police stations in Shopian district. - Access to documents assembled and prepared by the Government of
Jammu and Kashmir that form the evidentiary basis of the state’s
conclusions on the Shopian event, including forensic reports and the
testimonials rendered by security forces and state officials. - Access to police and security forces personnel, and medical
personnel that testified to the commission of inquiry headed by
Justice (Retired) Muzaffar Jan between May-July 2009. - Access to officers of the Special Investigating Team of police that
collaborated with the Jan Commission following its interim report, per
your order. - Access to local officers who assisted the Central Bureau of
Investigation in its inquiry between September-December 2009. - Guarantee that any witnesses that elect to testify to the IPTK
process be permitted to do so without duress, or adverse consequences
being threatened or befalling them, from personnel or institutions of
the state.
We note the urgency of undertaking ethical and transparent
investigations into the Shopian issue, and undertaking requisite
reparations and rehabilitation. The events in Shopian must be assessed
within a larger context where incalculable gendered and sexualized
violences have been perpetrated by the military and paramilitary in
Kashmir during the course of the last two decades.
We note that the use of gendered and sexualized violences, including
the use of rape, as acts of power, as techniques in torture, and as
weapons of war have a complex history in Indian-administered Kashmir
in the last two decades. The makeup of this violence has been
prolonged and systemic, layered with the formerly violent resistances
on the part of groups engaged in militancy, and instances of outside
intervention. The state does not accept responsibility that sustained
militarization has induced cycles of violence for which the state is
as well responsible. The state does not accept responsibility that the
states of exception/exemption regularized through the enactment of
security related legislation remains in contravention of international
humanitarian laws and norms. The ?hyper-masculinization’ of the armed
forces, and the celebration of militarization and its concomitant
violence, has created multiple contexts wherein its members have
perpetrated gendered and sexualized violences on the civilian
population of Kashmir.
Women and children, and others, have been victimized by horrific forms
of brutality, including individual rape, and gang and collective rape.
Other categories of the victimized include women labelled
?half-widows,’ whose male partners are missing. India’s security
forces occupy 10,54,721 kanals of land in Jammu and Kashmir, on which,
in Kashmir, 671 security camps are located. The structure of the camps
maintained by security forces, and their placement, which necessitate
forced encounters between local women and the armed forces on a
routine basis, have facilitated the perpetration of gendered violence.
In a Red Zone, as in Shopian, with the profuse presence of soldiers,
women are made extremely vulnerable. Women and children, and others,
have been subjected to physical and psychological torture and trauma.
Security personnel have searched, detained, leered at, propositioned,
extorted, and initiated unsolicited physical contact with civilians.
They have psychologically tortured, and sexually assaulted,
girls/minors and women. Women who do not utilize the hijab or burkha
have been compelled to use the same to shield themselves from the
advance of soldiers. Male youth and men refusing to participate in the
sexual servitude of women have been sodomized. Victimization and fear
have led to social and physical displacements, as in certain villages
where parents have arranged marriages for girl children who are forced
to relocate to the village of their male partners to escape being
targeted.
We write you today noting that you have promised attentiveness to, and
accountability for, human rights issues in Kashmir. We write you
mindful that conditions for peace and prosperity in Kashmir are linked
to the possibility and necessity of justice that addresses crimes
perpetrated on the basis of gender during, and as a result of,
militarization.
Yours sincerely,
Angana Chatterji, Parvez Imroz, Gautam Navlakha, Zahir-Ud-Din, Mihir
Desai, Khurram Parvez
