Dispatches: Kashmir’s Torture Trail

Filming in Kashmir meant keeping rushes safe, dodging stones – and persuading the locals that daily life was worth showing, says Catie White.

Credits

Kashmir’s Torture Trail

Production company True Vision
TX 5 July, 10pm, Channel 4
Commissioner Siobhan Sinnerton
Camera/director/editor Jezza Neumann
Producer Catie White
Executive producer Brian Woods
Post Paddy Garrick, True Vision in-house

Summary Dispatches investigation following a Kashmiri lawyer in the most militarised place on earth, as he uncovers India’s best-kept secret.

Catie White
Producer

There was no amount of explaining to our local AP – who had a day job for a busy lawyer’s practice and was doing us a favour by stepping into the breach in a hostile region where having someone who can spot the difference between a street vendor and a government spy meant keeping hold of our rushes – what we meant by future tense. Or character development.

“Let us know when [Ms X’s] story moves on,” we tried, as he kept an eye out for the competing intelligence agencies that follow foreigners filming in the Kashmir Valley. “Tell us when something happens to [Y]. Alert us when a significant event in [the carpenter’s] life is about to unfold.”

A funeral. A memorial. A homecoming. These were simple things that could help us achieve an intimate and fluid life – and death – story in this Indian state divided between Pakistan and China. It’s one of the longest-running emergencies in the world, for so long off our screens, especially when the Arab Spring drew away the last Western reporters, despite hundreds of thousands of local youths coming out onto the streets, throwing stones at the heavily armed Indian security forces. The troops returned fire with live rounds.

We arrived in Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, in spring 2011, determined to seek out articulate teenage demonstrators to follow, through whom we would learn about these mega—protests that terrified the Indian government. However, the Indian security forces were also filming the stone-throwing boys; police snatch squads were seizing them in nightly round-ups that made them fear all cameras. On the other side, the police and paramilitaries, who had already killed 118 protestors, some of them children, had taken to beating journalists to stop them recording the unrest.

As we wrestled with the unwilling on both sides of the barricades, another potentially unfilmable development crashed over us: a state-wide government crackdown, with roadblocks and curfews that put several of the towns in which we had started making headway off-limits.

Mass arrests followed, with tens of thousands seized. Which brings us back to character development: how could we shoot what could not be easily seen among people who could not afford to speak out, using the local team of irregulars who struggled with our methods?

This has nothing to do with brains. Our local ad hoc AP could speak four languages. However, in a conflict zone where a pro-independence insurgency has cost upwards of 70,000 lives and at least 8,000 civilians have vanished while in custody – far more than in Pinochet’s Chile – all of the events we exhorted our fixer to help us chart seemed to him too mundane for TV.

A family silently assaying their dead son’s school certificates. The tearful joy when a sister hugged a wounded brother unexpectedly released from jail. We captured moments such as these despite the crackdown, and uncovered a shocking story about how India had restored peace in the Valley. But all of it came to us through people forgetting we were there.

It took time. We filmed on and off over a year. We spent days drinking saffron tea, munching almond biscuits and waiting for lives to coagulate. And in a punch-drunk state like Kashmir, when you are in the right place and the talking begins, it’s unstoppable.

A youthful insurgent went into a trance describing the inside of an Indian torture chamber, where Urdu graffiti welcomed him to hell. A veiled schoolgirl revealed, for the first time, how she had been plucked from class in her uniform, tortured and raped. A father sat before passport photos of his two dead sons, telling how he would never stop fighting to convict the security forces who shot one and then, when he protested, drowned the second in the Jhelum River.

It was when we strove to cover a story that things stalled, like the time we drove for 18 hours to reach a border village where residents were said to be captives of the security forces. A checkpoint stopped us and a young captain turned us around, mumbling into our AP’s ear in Urdu: “If the foreigners talk to anyone here, you will get it.” This the AP fully understood, and dismissed. A lifetime of threats had made him immune.

My tricks of the trade

Spend time constructing a non-partisan local team to fix, translate and guide.
If appropriate, seek out the authorities monitoring you before they act. It defuses tension.
Assume that every time you are on the road, someone is rifling through whatever you have left behind in your hotel room.
Take digital security seriously, protecting and disguising your rushes, encrypting your emails,
and talking on the phone in the expectation that everything you say is being overheard.
Pack a cafetière and good coffee.

Secret filming

Brian Woods
Executive producer

Funding a film like this is always a challenge. Channel 4 came on board early and we hoped that would enable us to attract the co-pro money we would need to make this film possible.

Sadly, we were unable to persuade our previous co-funders in the US or Germany that Kashmir was important enough to warrant this kind of investment. But we felt passionately that the tale of how torture is being used in Kashmir had to be told, so with the help of a modest, but much appreciated, advance against international sales from DRG, True Vision invested the rest of the shortfall and Jezza Neumann (pictured) and the team set off.

The film had to be HD-compliant, but also needed to be filmed as discreetly as possible. C4 made a special exception for Jezza to shoot HDV rather than full HD so that we could opt for a combination of Sony HVR-Z5 outputting the footage to a tape and card, and an HVR-A1 when even more discretion was needed. The HVR-A1 is ideal as once you’ve taken off the XLR and dispersed your equipment in bags or about your person, it doesn’t look at all suspicious. The only downside is that it records to tape, so you have to make sure you offload your footage as soon as possible.

The HVR-Z5, on the other hand, is perfect because, unlike tapeless cameras, you can put tourist footage on the tape and your real stuff on the cards; if you’re searched, you can hand over the tape and keep the card. Then back in the rooms, everything gets transferred to drives and put on hidden partitions, so it will take a seriously techy geek to find it. All our drives were then duplicated, with one set stored in a safe house.

One essential was protection when filming stone-pelting scenes. The team wore bump caps often used on building sites and Jezza had a motorcycle back protector.

Watch the Pre Trailer

Courtesy: Broadcast Now

"..I was like a football. Then they started kicking me and beating me with lathis"

Ruhaan, a human rights activist, has been arrested three times since November 1995 and detained for periods of a few days during which he was badly tortured. He has never been charged or tried. On all three occasions he was accused of helping the militancy in some way. During his interrogations he was frequently questioned about his human rights work. (Name of The Victim has been changed to Ruhaan)

Ruhaan was first arrested on November 2, 1995. He was held for five days by the BSF before a screening committee consented to his release. The second time was on May 19, 1996, just days before the first round of national parliamentary elections. He was arrested at 9:00 p.m. by Major Raju of the 7th Jat Regiment of the army, an officer well known in the neighborhood, and questioned about acquaintances who were known to be activists. Ruhaan was taken to a temporary army camp at Bagat-i-Kanapori in Srinagar and questioned about his links to the militant groups. He was also questioned about his human rights activities, his contact with Hurriyat leaders, and about the election boycott supported by the Hurriyat. The next day, the major, accompanied by his commanding officer, repeated the questions and then threatened Ruhaan with force if he did not cooperate. They left and then returned after an hour, when they repeated the same questions. Then they ordered their men to use force. RUHAAN described what happened next:

I was taken by the major and four subordinates to a small room, four by six feet, possibly a bathroom, with marble tiles on the floor and the walls. They stripped me down except for my underwear, and tied my hands and legs. They took a thick wooden roller and placed it under my knees as I was sitting. Then they told me to put my arms underneath the roller and up, and they tied my hands above my legs. I was like a football. Then they started kicking me and beating me with lathis [truncheons]. Then they began repeating those same questions. They got very frustrated, because I wasn't telling them anything I hadn't already told them. They also asked me: "How many Afghanis are in your home? Which militant leaders do you know?" Then they put a cloth in my mouth and spread another cloth over my face. I was lying on the floor facing the ceiling. They poured water into a bucket and then they poured the bucket out over my face. The water went into my nostrils, completely choking me. I was desperate to get out of that situation. I lost consciousness. When I came to, they were saying: "Now tell the truth! Cooperate!" I told them I would, so they gave me a few minutes to recover, but then the thing repeated itself. Again I lost consciousness; perhaps this was a longer spell, I'm not sure, but when I came to, I was exhausted. The major was patting my cheeks and saying my name. At first I couldn't recognize him. Then the major signalled for someone to come, and he brought a small magnet-type telephone box: when you turn the crank, a current shoots through the wires. They attached one wire to my left earlobe and the other to different places: one of my toes, my other ear, and my penis. They ran the current, and I lost consciousness again. When I came to, I noticed that my whole body was wet: I had urinated and defecated. I was taken to a bathroom outside the house, was given a bucket of water and told to clean myself up. I couldn't stand or stretch my arms. They helped me do some exercises for about two hours, and then I was able to stand up again and sit.

That night Ruhaan 's interrogators permitted a friend of his to come see him. After that, the major again told Ruhaan to come work for the army and stop his other activities. The next morning RUHAAN was taken to some other officials with one of the intelligence agencies. He was taken to the headquarters of the Jat Regiment. The commanding officer, Colonel Sharma, lectured him for an hour about the need to work for the army. When he was released on May 21 he was told to report to the camp every third day. He did so for about six weeks, and each time he was questioned again about his activities. After that, he received permission from Colonel Sharma not to report to the camp.

Ruhaan was detained for a third time in February 1998. At midnight on the night of February 2, fifteen to twenty members of the Special Operations Group (SOG), a police unit, came to his house, accompanied by some officers, escorted by the CRPF, and some intelligence people in military clothes. They searched the house and took all of his copies of human rights reports and some religious books. They took RUHAAN to SOG headquarters in Srinagar, where he was kept for the night. Ruhaan stated:

Then the torture started. They didn't tie me, but they rolled a big wooden roller over my leg muscles as I was lying down, and they passed electricity through me-one wire attached to a toe, the other to my penis-while they were questioning me. They asked me about my links with Asia Watch and Amnesty International. I told them everything I had done and who I had been in touch with, because this is my work. This was the first time I have ever heard of a person being tortured in front of a senior police officer. They also beat me. The next day I was taken into interrogation in one of the rooms by a junior police officer. He pointed his revolver at my temple and threatened to kill me. He asked me about my links to the militants: "Give me the weapons! Give me the wireless set!" I was beaten with lathis and kicked and punched. Then they hung me from the ceiling. They tied my hands behind my back with a rope, they put the rope through a pulley in the ceiling, and then they pulled the table on which I was standing out from underneath me. Then they used electricity as I was hanging. They did this four times; the fourth time I lost consciousness. When I came to, I was on the floor. I couldn't move my arms, which were behind my back, so two policemen kicked my back to get me to move my arms. Then they returned me to my cell. The next day the torture was lighter. They used the roller on my thighs, and they punched me and threatened me with a pistol, and they told me: "Unless you tell us something about your involvement, you will not get out of here." I gave them the names of all the militants I knew, and told them anything else I knew: the connections I had with human rights people, etc. This situation continued for ten days.

After that, Ruhaan was held for an additional five days during which he was lectured not to continue his human rights activities. He was then transferred to a police station where an FIR was registered against him charging him with propagation against the state of India because of his human rights work. The next day he was granted bail, but he was not physically released that day. The SOG had recommended that Ruhaan be held under the Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law that permits detention without trial for two years, but the senior state police officer cleared the bail order, and Ruhaan was released on February 25. Under the bail order, Ruhaan was required to remain in Srinagar.

(Annual Report of UN Human Rights 1 July 1999)

"...Blown into pieces" : Torture used with Impunity

Abdul Qayoom Bhat, a beleaguered father who recently shouldered his 17-year-old son’s coffin, is not surprised at the state government disallowing a group of legislators from tabling a bill providing for punishment for torture inflicted by “public servants”. He got the answer in the same session of the legislature that concluded last week. His son Umar Qayoom’s death has not been counted in the list of civilians killed in Kashmir Valley since June 11.

Umar died of respiratory hypertension with severely deranged blood gases, diffuse intrapulmonary hemorrhage and blunt trauma on chest, 51 hours after he was admitted to Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, which is at a stone’s throw from his house in Soura locality of Srinagar. Before landing in the hospital, Umar had been freed from the local police station where he was lodged for indulging in stone-pelting on police and paramilitaries.

Umar was part of a crowd that pelted stones at police and paramilitary CRPF with shortly after conclusion of Friday prayers on August 20. While being chased by police, Umar fell down only to be overpowered by a group of angry policemen in riot-gear. “He was given first bout of punishment with rifle butts, bamboo sticks and helmets. His head was banged several times against (iron) shutter of a closed shop. Then, he was almost dragged to police station,” say eyewitnesses.

Bhat’s three daughters wailed at home for their lone brother, compelling him to move from pillar to post to get his son released. Next day, he got bail for his son from the district magistrate but police refused to honour it. When he was persuading the policemen to release his son, he was only offered a chance to speak to him for a moment. “He (Umar) wept profusely and pleaded to take him to hospital. He complained that he was beaten up severely during the night and electric shocks were given at the blood-oozing wounds” said Bhat.

When finally Umar was released (on bail), his father took him to hospital for a check-up and then they went to their home. However, during the night, blood started oozing out of his mouth amid shooting abdominal pain. He was quickly taken to the nearby SKIMS hospital where he was put on ventilator. Next, he slipped into coma and succumbed to his internal injuries without gaining consciousness again. Bhat’s predicament is that the system requires him to register a case at a place where his son was tortured and, with those who he accuses of “murdering” his son. He could not get an FIR registered.

Umar is, perhaps the latest victim of intragation, a mispronounced word for interrogation in custody, which, in Kashmir, invariably means being subject to brutal, inhuman torture. Hundreds of people have died in torture centers in the Valley during past two decades. Human Rights activists say that torture has been widely used as a “war-weapon to suppress people, curb rebellion and to force them into submission. Most of the estimated 10,000 persons subjected to enforced disappearance are believed to have been victims of torture in custody. “Their bodies have been buried in inquisition camps, torture cells or mass graves found all across the Valley,” said a noted human rights activist.

Umar’s case points to the state use of torture as a weapon to crush dissent and may explain why state’s Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ali Muhammad Sagar scuttled a private members’ bill - “Jammu and Kashmir Prevention of Torture Act, 2010”- in the state assembly. The bill seeks punishment for torture inflicted by public servants or any person inflicting torture with the consent or acquiescence of any public servant. Incidentally, one of the pleaders for the enactment was the ruling National Conference lawmaker Chowdhary Muhammad Ramzan besides Marxist legislator MY Tarigami and Independent member Engineer Abdur Rashid.

Sagar opposed the bill at the stage of introduction. His plea was that central government was formulating a similar law - Prevention of Torture Act. “The law would be copied in Jammu and Kashmir in due course of time,” Sagar told the House.

As torture in custody is widely prevalent in Jammu and Kashmir, and number of custodial deaths being much higher in proportion as compared to other places, legal experts say, the state government should have woken up to the crises much before the areas where the phenomenon occurs on a lesser scale. The J&K legislature has distinction to enact laws, which are not necessarily approved by the central government. Even, the implementation part if government’s own prerogative. J&K was the first state to enact central Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). Even, the Farooq Abdullah regime, confiscated the property of a suspected over-ground militant in 2001 in old Srinagar.

The bill intended to establish state level jurisdiction to try cases of torture where an alleged torturer is not a resident of state; to provide a mechanism to promptly investigate any allegation of torture and to provide an enforceable right to compensation to the victims of torture and ban the use of evidence obtained via torture in the courts. Coincidentally, the people living in areas these legislators belong to - Kulgam, Langate and Handwara - have been the worst victims of the torture.

Torture is defined as infliction of severe physical pain upon a person in order to force him or her to (do something) against will or to punish. So many believe torture is used to punish or to extract confessions. The practice has been prevalent in Kashmir for centuries. With the change of systems and rulers, the phenomenon remained unchanged though its magnitude varied with time. In fact, many regimes in Kashmir have been known by the police officers or generals who terrorized people with their abrasive torture methods.

Tarigami in his statement of Objects and Reasons tracks down the history of suppression and subjugation to alien rules but decries the perpetuity even after 1947. “It is unfortunate that there has been no significant let up in the abuse of legitimate rights of people since 1947”.

As a matter of fact custodial deaths, extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances have considerably increased during the period of ongoing turmoil. “While genuine democracies across the world take all possible steps to ensure protection of human rights of their people, absolutely disallow impunity for violation of any right and public servants are under constant scrutiny to ensure human rights, torture has become rampantly institutionalized in the state of Jammu and Kashmir,” Tarigami said in the assembly. Courtesy Public Safety Act and other draconian laws, he says, people here are hounded and condemned to incarceration for indefinite periods without trial.

Tarigami narrated his own ordeal when he was kept at notorious pre-militancy interrogation center Red-16. The memory of the torture center haunts many Kashmiris who happened to be young and on the wrong side of establishment in mid-1970’s to late 1980s. “Police and other security forces catch hold of men with snow white beards, wrinkled visages, rickety bodies on the street and shamelessly brutalize them at bayonet points.

A new culture of impunity for violation of basic human rights under different draconian laws including AFSPA is being perpetuated in the name of security.” Tarigami pleaded that in order to safeguard the fundamental rights of the people as enshrined in the Constitution of India as well as the Constitution of J&K, it is important to punish the perpetrators of torture.

Engineer Rashid while pleading for the passage of bill stated that torture and use of third degree methods have become a routine procedure for police personnel to extract forced confessions from the accused. “The police authorities resort to barbaric and inhuman methods just to give an impression that they have solved the case irrespective of the fact whether such person has committed any wrong or not”. Rashid says that the forced confessions fail to withstand the legal scrutiny.“The statistics of criminal cases challaned (lodged) by the police on the basis of forced confessions would reveal that such accused persons have invariably been acquitted by the courts as the police ultimately fail to prove them guilty and the forced confessions do not stand the scrutiny of courts”.

Interestingly, the lawmakers have not taken the failed initiative by their own ingenuity and wisdom. In fact, it is the Lok Sabha’s passage of bill, which was sent to select committee by the upper house of the parliament for more scrutiny. The Parliament has observed that there have been 16836 instances of reported deaths in police and judicial custody between 1994 and 2009, apart from a much higher number of cases of custodial torture and cruel treatment. This is so, in spite of the fact that the Supreme Court has repeatedly described torture, cruel and degrading treatment of persons in custody as a blatant and uncondonable violation of the human and fundamental rights of our citizens. The Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010, is intended to align the administration of criminal justice system with constitutional standards and also with the principles enshrined in the UN Convention against Torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

The Kashmiri legislators have not attached statistics on torture in the bill nor have mentioned the number of torture centers run by the police and security agencies in the state. They have highlighted the general theme of torture, which is known to almost every individual in Kashmir. During the last twenty years, tens of thousands of people have undergone torture in custody in Kashmir.

Nazir Ahmad, a 35-year-old separatist activist in north Kashmir’s Pattan area seems to be a normal young man but his close acquaintances know that he lives a hellish life since troopers tortured him inside an interrogation centre in mid 1990’s. He is compelled to stuff his underwear with thick folds of a cloth - like a diaper. He has lost control over urination due to the electric shocks he was administered during the torture. “This is a continuous torture. I do not venture out of my house and whenever I do go out, it takes a lot of time to prepare for it,” he says. The doctors have advised surgery but that costs Rs 40,000. “I don’t have money to go for the treatment. Therefore, I have to live with this defect, till I manage something,” he says.

He told Kashmir Life that he was subjected to inhuman torture in custody. “An electric wire was inserted deep into my private parts and then shocks of electric current were given. There were four soldiers on my body rolling a wooden pole when the electric shocks were given”, he narrated.

During the initial years of militancy in Kashmir, the security agencies lost the intelligence network, effectively if not completely. This left the security agencies to pick up threads from nowhere, virtually throwing arrows in air. The operations were carried on gut-feeling rather than specific tip-off. This led to massive cordon and search operations, sometimes spanning for a week in a particular area. The security forces would summon people to an open ground (usually they were flocked on gun-point or dragged out of homes).

The usual suspects were youngsters and bearded persons. Even a slip of tongue or a misunderstanding would land people in trouble. The soldiers would randomly check heartbeat or pulse rate. If someone seemed to be nervous, he was taken to be a militant fit for torture to “reveal information”. The security forces had makeshift interrogation centers on the site where the “suspects” were tortured to elicit information about militants and their sympathizers. Usually, they agreed to point fingers to save their own skin. The method triggered an unending cycle of torture.

People who have gone through the ordeal of witnessing cordon and search operations, remember how they were paraded before rows of green Gypsy vehicles. “I remember once being paraded before 14 cars at Sarafwari playground in Rainawari. Fortunately, the horn did not blow when I passed in front of the vehicle row,” said Muhammad Ashraf, a government employee, “But everyone was not lucky. The forces picked up around 20 youngsters and subjected them to inhuman torture.”

The method sometimes netted the right fish and even helped the security forces rear their sources. After the intelligence network revived completely and even outfits of surrogate soldiers were launched, torture continued unabated. Security forces are a ubiquitous species and wherever they are, they have quarters for “questioning” in addition to the quarter guards and the detention rooms. People traveling from south Kashmir to Srinagar in early 1990’s remember how detained youth were flocked blindfolded in Kashmir’s biggest interrogation centre at Badamibagh Cantonment, the headquarters of Army’s XV Corps.

The Fair View Guest House at Gupkar Road, which is now the official residence of former Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, was the notorious Papa-2 torture center. Another former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad transformed Cheshma Shahi Interrogation center, a multi-crore feudal property into CM’s official residence. It was later changed into a multi-star sate guest house. “The walls of these palatial houses are witness to hundreds of custodial deaths and inhuman methods of torture,” said Abdul Qayoom, who has spent a week in the notorious camp. Much later came the infamous Kot Balwal Joint Interrogation Center in Jammu where victims were exported for “advanced methods of torture”.

A senor journalist says that it is debatable whether or not the twin laws - Disturbed Areas Act and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, permit the army and various paramilitaries to operate their own interrogation centres and to disobey the apex court guidelines about arrests and the subsequent follow-up, but it is a fact that all the agencies ran their own network of lock-ups and interrogation centres in the past, and the practice continues. Joint Interrogation Centres (JIC) and the prisons of various status are only a part of the wider prison network that operates in Kashmir, he said.

The Bollywood highlights many a police’s maltreatment to victims in spine-chilling enactments of torture. But the people who have gone through the experience say that the actual act is more horrendous and atrocious. Qayoom, who has been through brutal tortures five times in a span of ten years, says that the torture includes every possible inhuman act. The series includes - roller treatment, administrating electric shocks at the most sensitive spots, hanging upside down, forcing of take a lot of water with genitals tied tightly, four to six persons trampling over him, had chilies in rectum and sometimes a rod as well (cog needle method), made to stand without closing eyes for days together, get nails, hair and beard forked out, body singed with cigarette butts, sometime buttocks ironed, and remain naked for days together with a small pot for his fecal matter.

The detainees are supposed to maintain the time table of going to bathroom and there are cases when there is no permission to take baths for months together. They would sometimes be provided a beltless trouser. Qayoom developed non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma after the maltreatment at the interrogation centers. Though doctors have no specific proof to link the malignancy with torture, he believes that the death of cells in his body has triggered somewhere in the torture cell. He is fortunate that the chemotherapy has worked on him. In Kashmir, the methods of interrogation would change with weather, places, individuals and even forces.

During winters and more often on borders those detained would be asked to walk on snow barefooted. This would lead to frost bites and finally to the amputations. Preventing detainees from routine meetings with the family members and providing misleading information about his female relatives has all along been the worst psychological torture and it is yet in progress. After the government managed the revival of police and launched the Special Operations Group (SOG), a counterinsurgency force, the prevalence of torture only but scaled new heights. This is evident from the number of custodial deaths in police camps.

Any visitor to the SOG lock-ups can see a criss cross of nylon ropes dangling from the ceiling giving an impression of the worst human circus. In isolated cases heart rendering torture methods were used by the interrogators (belonging to any security agency) to get the confessions of their liking. During initial days of militancy, the detainees would be given food contaminated with dead insects and pebbles. A son, once, was ordered to suck the private parts of his father. Another man was forced to undress in front of his daughter and wife. A University employee told Kashmir Life that he was detained along-with a stranger. “An officer stripped us and asked to hold each other’s genitals. We had no option but to abide.

All we did was to hang our heads and evade eye contact,” he said. Worse, anyone would turn into an interrogator. Even the sentries detailed for night security turned into interrogators, mostly to draw “sadistic pleasure” out of the victim’s ordeal. In countless cases, the detained could not bear the torture and died. Against just four cases of deaths in custody in 1989, the prevalence of custodial deaths increased exponentially. Human rights organizations maintain that most of the people killed in fake encounters are actually the victims of torture. The security forces used to take them out of the interrogation centers and pumped bullets into their bodies. Actually, the death occurred during torture. Noted human rights activist and spokesman of Coalition of Civil Society, Khurram Parvez says that a conservative estimate suggests that around 100,000 people have been subjected to torture in Kashmir Valley during past two decades. “We are currently surveying 5,000 torture victims. The findings are horrible,” he said.

Khurram says that many of the torture victims have turned into drug-addicts or afflicted with torturous ailments, which would continue with them for rest of their life. He said that an uptown youngster was subjected to brutal torture 14 times. “He has developed an incurable skin disorder, which would haunt him for the entire life,” he said. Doctors at SKIMS and SMHS hospitals say that the cases of acute renal failure (Rabdomylasis) have increased. Even if the torture victims survived, they attained permanent or temporary disabilities and psychological problems. Almost every second person who was administered electric shocks had to be on specific medication for longer periods in order to avoid permanent impotency. Some of them were not fortunate to gain effective recovery. Khurram rues that torture has attained a sort of acceptability in the society.

“Most of the people do not protest against torture and avoid registering complaints after going through the ordeal,” he says. “It is taken as a blessing if someone is released from a torture center alive. Sometimes the victim is too terrified to file a complaint and most of the times his relatives force him to observe silence for the fear of reprisals,” he says. Khurram says that torture is a major weapon to spread scare and subjugate the people psychologically. “In the current uprising in Kashmir, the widespread arrest of youth in the Valley and subsequent maltreatment at police stations is aimed, primarily, at creating scare”, he said. Four months down the line, the method seems to be working.

Even as the police and security agencies together with their counterinsurgency militia of Ikhwanis have perpetrated the methods of torture, there are many cases when separatist militants have also resorted to the inhuman and brutal methods on civilians on one pretext or other. The militants have targeted mainstream political workers and suspected informers. Even the moral policing by militants have made many a civilians their targets. There have been cares where the method of burning stoves under captives’ buttocks was employed.

A suspected informer was blown into pieces with an explosive tied to his body in Srinagar. Several civilians’ throats were slit and parts of body chopped off. One person was freed after his tongue was cut. He later committed suicide. There are scores of unreported cases which would send tremors down the spines. In this backdrop, legislation in Jammu and Kashmir to prevent torture was all the more important. But, the government has always its own priorities, which are mostly contradicting the priorities of common people.

SOURCE:KASHMIR LIFE

Volume 02 Issue 33

India's Guantanamo Bays

World's oldest democracy United States may have been forced to close Guantanamo Bay detention centre, but India who claimed herself the largest democracy runs 40 such illegal secret chambers in Jammu and Kashmir and in its different states, where suspects are subjected to extreme interrogation techniques for months and years. Leading Indian news magazine "The Week" in its forthcoming issue accessed by KTNS has revealed the horror of torture chambers, far from the eyes of law.

"Now I would never dream of doing the things I did when I was in charge," said Maloy Krishna Dhar, former joint director of Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB), while admitting existence of such centres. Top police officers also told the journal that these chambers were their precious assets. "They are our own little Guantanamo Bays," they said.

Quoting K. S. Subramanian, former director general of police, who has also served in the Intelligence Bureau (IB), these sites exist and are being used to detain and interrogate suspected terrorists and it has been going on for a long time. His colleague Dhar also agrees that it was because of these centres that militancy in Punjab and Kashmir was contained. The investigating team of the magazine has identified 15 secret interrogation centres-three each in Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat and in Jammu and Kashmir, two in Kolkatta and one in Assam. But, officials admit that there could be more and roughly put their numbers at 40. In Palanpur region of Gujarat all security agencies share one detention centre.

The report said that these sites existed and were being used to detain and interrogate suspects and it had been going on for a long time. An officer, who worked in one of the detention centres admitted that extreme physical and psychological torture, based loosely on the regime in Guantanamo Bay, was used to extract information from the detainees. It included assault on the senses like sleep deprivation, keeping prisoners naked to degrade and humiliate them, and forcibly administering drugs through the rectum to further break down their dignity

Mostly suspects are brought blindfolded so they can hardly pinpoint the place. The only faces they got to see were those of the interrogators.

An officer who worked in one of the detention centres admitted that extreme physical and psychological torture, based loosely on the regime in Guantanamo Bay, is used to extract information from the detainees. It includes assault on the senses (pounding the ear with loud and disturbing music) and sleep deprivation, keeping prisoners naked to degrade and humiliate them, and forcibly administering drugs through the rectum to further break down their dignity. "The interrogators isolate key operatives so that the interrogator is the only person they see each day," he said. "In extreme cases we use pethidine injections. It will make a person crazy."

The biggest of the three detention centres in Mumbai, the Aarey Colony facility in Goregaon, has four rooms. The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) questioned Saeed Khan (name changed), one of the accused in the Malegaon blasts of September 2006, here. He was served food at irregular intervals (led to temporary disorientation) and was denied sleep. Another secret detention centre maintained in the city by the ATS at Kalachowky has a sound-proof room. Sohail Shaikh, accused in the July 2006 train bombings, was held here for close to two months. "He was kept in isolation for days together," said an officer. "He crumbled after being subjected to hostile sessions. The smallest of the three facilities at Chembur has just two rooms.

Parvez Ahmed Radoo, 30, of Baramulla district in Kashmir valley, a student in India’s Pune University was illegally detained in Indian city Delhi for over a month for what the Indian secret agencies claimed trying to plot mass murder in the Indian capital Delhi on behalf of the what they called Jaish-e-Mohammed. Parvez wrote an open letter from the Tihar jail, where he is currently held, in which he said he was arrested from the airport on September 12 and kept in custody for a month. Apparently, he was first taken to the Lodhi Colony police station and then to an apartment in Dwarka locality in South-West Delhi where electrodes were attached to his genitals and power was switched on.

In Dehi, the magazine team found secret detention centres at Dwarka in south-west Delhi, the Interstate Cell of the Crime Branch near the diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri in central Delhi, and the Lodhi Colony police station in south Delhi.

What Former India secret agency IB’s deputy chief Dhar says such detention and torture centres were an inevitable part of the war on terrorism. Security agencies need such facilities. "If you produce a suspect before court, he will never give you anything after that," he said. In other words, once you record the arrest you are within the realm of the law and you have to acknowledge the rights of the accused-arrested and contend with his lawyer.

Moulvi Iqbal from Indian state Uttar Pradesh, who was described a suspected member of the Harkat-ul-Jihadi-Islami who is currently lodged in Tihar, was held at a secret detention centre for two months according to his relatives. They said that during interrogation a chip was implanted under his skin so that his movements could be tracked if he tried to escape. "He fears that the chip is still inside his skin," said one of his relatives. "That has shattered him."

Kolkata has its own Gitmos in Bhabani Bhawan, the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department, and the Alipore Retreat in Tollygunj, a large bungalow that is said to have 20 rooms. "A large number of innocent people, as well as suspected terrorists, have disappeared after being taken to such secret detention centres," said Kirity Roy, a Kolkata-based human rights lawyer. "Their bodies would later be found, if at all, in the fields."

In Kashmir which is under occupation of India the notorious Papa-2 interrogation centre was closed down few years back when government of India planed to build bridges with people. (Here it may mention the Papa-2 is a dread one center head by SOG and Indian paramilitary forces) But still there are many like the Cargo Special Operation Group (SOG) camp in Haftchinar area in Srinagar and Humhama in Budgam district. Then there are the joint interrogation centres in Khanabal area of Islamabad district and Talab Tillo in Jammu and one in Poonch House in Jammu. Detentions at Joint Interrogation Centres (JICs) could last months. Lawyers in Kashmir have filed 15,000 petitions since 1990 seeking the whereabouts of the detainees and the charges against them without avail.

The most recent victim of the torture regime was Manzoor Ahmed Beigh, 40, who was arrested by the SOG personnel from Aloochi Bagh in Srinagar on May 18. His family said that he was chained up, hung upside down from the ceiling and ruthlessly beaten up. He died the same night. Following public outrage, the officer in charge of the camp was dismissed from the service in June.

Maqbool Sahil, a Srinagar-based photojournalist who was held at Hari Niwas interrogation centre for 15 days, says it is a miracle that he is alive today. "If you tell them [interrogators] you are innocent, they will torture you so ruthlessly that you will break down and confess to anything," he said.

K. Subramanian believes that it is a murky business. The Indian ministry of home affairs does not directly handle such operations; they are the task of agencies like the RAW and the IB.

Fayaz and Mohammad: Victims of Torture

Feroz Ahmed Ganai, a twenty-eight-year-old contractor, was arrested by the BSF on November 29, 1995. On December 12, he was brought to the Bone and Joint Hospital with a gangrenous broken leg and acute renal failure. According to doctors in the emergency ward, Ganai had been brought in by the commander of the BSF 1st Battalion who claimed that Ganai was a militant and that he had broken his leg trying to escape. However, Ganai told the doctors that the BSF had broken his leg on the first day of interrogation. Ganai pleaded with the doctors, "Keep me here - otherwise they will kill me."
A doctor who examined Ganai stated that his leg had been broken about fourteen days earlier.
It had become gangrenous, with secondary blistering. The leg below the knee was entirely black at the time he was admitted and had to be amputated. The patient had received no medical care for the injury prior to his admission. Both kidneys had failed because of the gangrene and because of the beatings. The patient was in a state of shock; his blood was infected. He had contusions all over his body and face.
It took the BSF three to four hours to arrange for blood transfusions. But the doctors did not use that blood because upon screening it was found to contain sexually-transmitted diseases. Instead they used the hospital's blood bank and amputated Ganai's left leg from above the knee. On December 13, he was sent to Soura for kidney treatment.
While Ganai was under treatment at the Bone and Joint Hospital and the Soura Institute, he remained in BSF custody. Since his arrest, no family member or lawyer had been permitted to see him. In response to a petition filed by the family, on December 19, the High Court ordered that the family be permitted visits and that one person nominated by the mother be allowed to sit with him at the hospital. However, the BSF ignored the order.
When Human Rights Watch/Asia visited the Bone and Joint Hospital in January 1996, we observed six uniformed BSF soldiers accompanying Ganai, who was walking on crutches, out of the hospital. We have been unable to obtain any further knowledge of his whereabouts or condition.
In response to a letter from Human Rights Watch/Asia, the National Human Rights Commission requested information from the BSF in Kashmir about Ganai's case. BSF Commander S. S. Kothiyal responded with a statement claiming that Ganai, who was a “chief of Jamat-ul Mujahideen [a little-known militant group], was arrested on November 29, 1995, and that when he had tried to escape in heavy snow, he broke his leg. Because Ganai “did not observe proper precautions as advised by the doctor and kept on moving his leg” the leg became gangrenous and had to be amputated. The BSF commander also claims that family visits were permitted.
The BSF statement is flatly contradicted by the testimony of doctors who treated Ganai and by the High Court’s December 19 ruling on family visits. According to a statement by the NHRC, as of May 1996, Ganai was in custody at a Joint Interrogation Centre in Srinagar.





Mohammad I., a seventeen-year-old student, was arrested by the 163rd Battalion of the BSF in April 1995 from the old town neighborhood of Srinagar. Along with ten others, he was taken to the local interrogation center at Baramulla. He was kept there for three and a half months. He stated:
“I was interrogated six days a week, all day, for the entire time. The interrogation room was a small room with no windows, only a door. There were ropes and wooden clubs and wires and a car battery. On the first day, I was separated from the others, my legs were tied and I was beaten with clubs and a wooden stick with nails in it, usually on my legs, but sometimes on my hands. They repeatedly accused him of being a militant. I told them I was not. They also tortured me with the roller. They made me lie with my legs tied while two soldiers rolled the roller over my thighs until I fainted”
One day a soldier extinguished cigarettes into Mohammad's right hand to form the letter "F," saying, "You said you wanted freedom.” When Human Rights Watch/Asia interviewed Mohammad I. in January 1996, his right hand was still grossly disfigured from the burns.
Mohammad I. stated that he was given electric shock to his testicles for sixteen days. The shocks were given consecutively, lasting two or three minutes, until he would go into convulsions and faint. After the first three and a half months he was shifted to the Baramulla JIC, where he was not tortured. He was held there until December 20 when the district sessions court in Baramulla ordered him released on bail on the grounds of his medical condition.
Mohammad I. had no medical care while detained. According to a doctor who treated him in Srinagar, he has suffered episodes of manic-depression and needs psychiatric treatment. He has also lost 50 percent mobility in his right hand, passes blood in his urine and has become impotent.

Source:(UNHCR Report on Kashmir,1996)

"...I want to see my son free and I will fight till my last breath,”

Ironically, the investigation conducted by the Delhi police themselves discovered that this man couldn't have been involved in the crime he's being accused of...two years later, he's still being tortured in an Indian prison.

A Kashmiri Student writes from The Tihar Jail

“I was brutally tortured, forced to drink my urine and kept with a pig in the jail cell,” writes Muhammad Rafiq Shah of suburban Alesteng here in his letter from the Tihar jail where he is languishing for the past three years without trial. Rafiq was a student of Kashmir University when arrested for ‘carrying out blasts” on the eve of Diwali in New Delhi on October 29, 2005. The then vice-chancellor Kashmir University has testified Rafiq was in the campus on the day of blasts.

The then Delhi Police chief, KK Paul, had given Rafiq a clean chit. But its Special Cell claims he’s guilty.

“I am innocent and falsely implicated in the case by the Special Cell of Delhi Police in collaboration with Special Task Force of Kashmir Police. I was a regular student of the department of Islamic Studies in Kashmir University where I was pursuing Masters Degree. I was picked up by the joint team of Delhi and Kashmir police from my home at midnight,” Rafiq states in the letter.

“I was brought to Delhi where I was brutally tortured, forced to drink urine. I was kept naked and forced to suck private parts of co-accused. Rats were let into my trousers and when I cried, the police officials laughed and took my pictures with their mobile phones. To shake my religious sentiments, my body was touched with a small pig. Later I was kept locked with the pig in a single cell. The police officials used to say ‘every Kashmiri is a terrorist.’ A gun was pointed at my forehead and I was made to sign a bundle of blank papers,” he writes.

“In 2006, five persons were produced before the print and electronic media by the UP Police in which they spilled the beans of the Delhi blasts. I fail to understand why I am being victimized when my innocence is crystal clear. I have full faith in Almighty Allah and that justice will prevail and the police will get exposed,” the letter adds.

Rafiq’s mother, Mehmooda Akhtar, maintains that her son is innocent. “I can’t bear the inhuman treatment of my innocent son by the Delhi Police. Due to torture he has developed various disorders. I will hold the chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad responsible for my son’s plight. What happened to his assurance that no Kashmiri will be harassed outside the state,” she asked.

“We made many representations to ministers and bureaucrats. They only gave hollow assurances. I want to see my son free and I will fight till my last breath,” she said.

Even the then vice-chancellor of Kashmir University, Professor Abdul Wahid Qureshi had testified that Rafiq was in the Islamic Studies department on the day of Delhi blasts. “Rafiq was a regular student. According to teachers and records, on the day of blasts in Delhi he was in classroom. The university has played its role by issuing certificate in this regard to his parents,” Wahid had told Greater Kashmir in June last year.

Curiously, in its January 21, 2006 issue, The Times of India reported under the headline ‘Test doesn’t show Rafiq was 29/10 bomber’: "The claim made by the Special Cell of Delhi Police that they have arrested the Govindpuri bomber is fast falling apart. The narco-analysis test of the accused Muhammad Rafiq Shah was perhaps their last hope. But even that has failed to prove that Rafiq was the one who planted the bomb in the DTC bus at Govindpuri on October 29.”

Quoting KK Paul, the report adds that Rafiq “does not seem to be the Govindpuri bomber; it seems at this stage that all the bombers have fled the country. Even in annual press conference, he (Paul) has refrained from stating Rafiq was the actual bomber even when Special Cell had requested for test identification of the accused. The Special Cell however insisted that Rafiq was the bomber. As it has now turned out, the only reason was that Rafiq’s face resembled with that of the accused in the portrait prepared by the cops.”

The sketch of the bomber was prepared on description provided by one Rajiv Sinha who has been made a key witness in the case. The Special Cell had released three portraits of the bomber; one with a French beard, the other with a moustache and the third a clean-shaven one. Finally they tracked down Rafiq, whose face resembled with one of the portraits, in Srinagar.

Source:GreaterKashmir,2006

Fayaz: A Victim of Torture

Fayaz Ahmad, a resident of Koligam, Lolab Kupwara, told human rights activists that he was arrested during a raid in November 1992 at about 6:00 A.M. According to his account, he was taken to a nearby camp where informants pointed him out as an alleged militant. He was then taken to an interrogation center where he was severely beaten, and then plunged into cold water and given electric shocks. As he was being tortured, the security forces demanded that he confess to being a militant. He was then shifted to another camp where his feet were burned on an iron stove, and he was given electric shocks to his hips. One soldier beat him with iron chains. He was stripped and hung upside down, and then made to lie outside in the snow. For the next twenty-four hours the beatings and interrogation continued.

Fayaz was kept at the Koligam Lolab BSF camp, where the 161st battalion of the BSF was stationed. After a month, he was later shifted to Kupwara where he was kept for five days at another interrogation center. There, his legs were burned with a hot iron and with scalding water.

Fayaz was then shifted to Drugmulla BSF Camp and kept there for six days and interrogated regularly. He was then shifted to the Badami Bagh cantonment area of Srinagar. He was ordered to confess everything and threatened that if he did not, he would be thrown into the boiling water tank. Fayaz said the security forces also cut him in the leg and poured petrol on him and lit it, giving him serious burns. They again ordered him to confess to being a militant. Sometime after, Fayaz was taken to the army camp hospital, where he was kept for a month.

Fayaz was brought to the Police Control Room on May 6, 1993 and then taken to the Soura Medical Institute where he was admitted in Trauma Ward No. 2 bed No. 12 bearing MRD. No. 105894. He was discharged on September 19, 1993.

Fayaz Ahmad’s mother stated that after her son was arrested, she tried to approach the officer in charge, but he ordered her to leave and threatened to rape her if she did not.

Fayaz stated that during his detention at the 161st BSF camp at Koligam, Kupwara, one other detainee, Ghulam Hassan of Khurhama, was beaten to death.

Shiraz & Ilyas: Victims of Torture

SHIRAZ, a student, who was arrested by Commanding Officer Joshi of the 81st Battalion of the BSF on January 25, 1995 narrates his ordeal to Human Rights Watch.

Commanding Officer Joshi accused me of being a Pakistani national. At the BSF base camp I was brought to some other Kashmiris to speak with them so they could check my accent. They kept me in base camp until January 27. On the morning of January 27, my hands and legs were tied to the bed, and I was made to lie back on a steel bed. Uniformed BSG soldiers put a piece of cloth in my mouth. Three of them leaned on my chest and head. Then they pumped water into my nose. I was suffocating and choking. I started bleeding from my mouth. Then the soldiers turned me over and beat me on my back and feet with a long iron rod. They also hit me with a leather belt which they had dipped in water. My back was bleeding. There was blood splattered on the wall in the room. Then they made me lie down face up on bed again and tied my hands and feet to bed. They applied electric shock to my feet, genitals, chest, and tongue for twenty minutes in all. Two wires - one on either side of my body - were attached to a generator with a crank which one of the soldiers turned. If he turned the crank fast, the shock was severe; if he turned it slowly, less so.

The following day Shiraz was shifted to the BSF Papa II interrogation centre in Srinagar where he was interrogated by a BSF officer who had "SP"[superintendent] on his uniform and was called Vikas by his subordinates.

He told me that if I spoke on the telephone with my uncle in Karachi, they would not torture me. I have no uncle in Karachi. He said if I would not admit to being a Pakistani national, they would torture me. He said, “First we will destroy your kidneys, then your lungs, then you will die” I was tied to the bed with my legs spread out at nearly a 180-degree angle. For the next thirty minutes, I was again given electric shock to my legs and genitals, and they took lit matches and burned my beard, and finally they applied shocks to my head until I fell unconscious. At one point during interrogation, Vikas, the BSF officer said, “No one knows you are in our custody; we can just throw you in the river and no one will ever know.”

When Shiraz woke up, BSF deputy inspector general Rajinder Mani, the BSF chief interrogator, began questioning him about public opinion in Kashmir. On the evening of January 30, a doctor examined Shiraz because he had not urinated in thirty-six hours, had swelling all over his body and bloody stools. He was given some medicine, but the swelling continued. On February 2, Shiraz was transferred to the Badami Bagh Cantonment army hospital, where he described how he had been tortured. He was given penicillin. However, Shiraz was afraid to tell them that he was allergic to penicillin, and the swelling worsened. On the evening of February 2, Shiraz overheard a doctor tell a BSF officer from Papa II that his kidneys had failed, that his liver was failing and that he had only six hours left to live. The doctor advised the officer that Shiraz “should be thrown on the roadside because it would be a custodial killing if he were to die in the hospital.”

That night, the officer came to me and said they would take me to the Soura Institute Instead, BSF soldiers took me from Army hospital to the police control room in Srinagar. The BSF officer who took me there told me I should not tell anyone in the press what had happened to me. He also said, "If you want to save your life, go to Soura [hospital] yourself." I was at the police control room for two hours. At 8:00pm the Jammu and Kashmir police took me home. At 1:30am I started vomiting pink fluid. The morning of February 3 I was taken to SMHS hospital, where I stayed for two days. My condition worsened. On the morning of February 4, I was taken to the Soura Institute where I remained for eighteen days. I was given five sessions of dialysis so my kidneys recovered. Since then that terrible experience is always on my mind. When I see a BSF officer, there are no words to express what I feel, because that whole episode - what happened to me - comes to my eyes. I am still very weak. I tire easily. I feel eighty years old.

Ilyas a government employee from Srinagar was arrested by the BSF during a crackdown on November 2, 1995 narrates his ordeal to Human Rights Watch.

At 10:00am I went outside with my sister and asked a BSF officer to allow me and my sister to leave so that she could take an exam. She was allowed to go, but I was not. When I returned home, I discovered that the BSF had already searched the house and left. At 11:30 am several dozen BSF soldiers surrounded the house. Six soldiers entered the house and asked for me by name and said they had to conduct a search of the house again because they had specific information that I had connections with some militants. After they searched the house, they ordered me to come with them. They accused me of knowing the hideout locations of militants. I said I did not. Then they said that militants had been coming to my house. I replied that they did come to my house and to other houses - they enter any home at will and there is nothing we can do to stop them. But since January 1995, no militant had entered my house.

The BSF took Ilyas and one of his neighbours to a nearby BSF camp. Outside one of the buildings, he saw five civilians sitting on the lawn with their pherans pulled around their heads. Some of them were moaning as if in pain. Ilyas was taken to a room where six BSF soldiers were waiting. In the room were a chair, some clothes, and a telephone that is used to send electromagnetic signals.

I was told to remain standing. They asked me my name and when I told them, several of them cursed me. One asked me,” Tell me where the militants are" I said I don't know. Another said, "They come to your house" I said yes but not since January 1995. Then one of the officers said, “You will not divulge information, so take off your clothes.” I hesitated. Then one of the officers struck me on the head several times while another kicked me in the back and said, “Take off your clothes.” I took off my clothes. They told me to sit, and I sat on the chair. Then one of them kicked me in the back and said, “You are not an officer here this chair is for an officer.” Then I sat on the floor with only my undershirt on and they told me to sit in front of the chair and put my hands behind me on the chair. Then one of them sat on my shoulders so that I could not move my head or arms. Another one grabbed my legs and forced them apart at nearly 180 degrees - as far as they would go. I began crying.

The soldiers continued to ask Ilyas for the names of militants, and he replied that he did not know any. While the two soldiers were still holding his legs apart and the third was still sitting on his shoulders, two others stood on his thighs, causing him great pain in the groin. After two minutes of this, one of the soldiers, an officer, asked, “Why do you want to die? Why don't you tell us the names?” Ilyas again denied that he knew any. Two other BSF soldiers came into the room, and they were told to “get the telephone” Ilyas described what happened next:

One soldier then picked up the box and brought it over, and the other pulled two wires out of the box. While the first soldier rotated the crank on the box, the second touched my genitals and thighs with the wires. I cried out. This continued for two or three minutes. Then the officer asked me, "Will you now reveal the names?" I said I don't know anyone He asked what connections I had with militancy, and I said none except I am a social worker and a Kashmiri. Militants come into our homes as you do; how can we stop them? Then the officer signalled with his hand to the two soldiers holding the telephone apparatus. They again applied the wires to my thighs and genitals for three or four minutes. I was crying at each shock. After that the officer told them to stop. Throughout this the other five officers continued to sit on me and hold my legs apart. The one sitting on my shoulders was pulling my hair. The officer asked if I was married. I said no, and he said, "We will render you impotent if you do not cooperate"

The soldiers gave Ilyas electric shocks two more times. The fourth time one of the soldiers placed a green chilli on one of the wires, which increased the pain. Ilyas fell unconscious, and when he came to sense, a soldier told him to stand up and helped him walk around the room. When he came outside he saw the soldiers who had interrogated him questioning the neighbour who had been arrested with him. Ilyas was told to sit with the others on the lawn, and the neighbour joined them a short time later. At about 3:00 pm, they were taken to BSF headquarters in Srinagar, one kilometre away. On the morning on November 3, they were taken to the Papa II interrogation center, where they were separated. Ilyas was made to wait on the lawn where more than ten other persons were being held. He was not tortured there, but most of the other detainees were called up one by one, questioned and then beaten with canes and leather belts.

Ilyas told Human Rights Watch:

"Two detainees were stripped and forced to climb a wooden pole about twelve feet high. Then a BSF soldier would apply shocks to the man with wires. When the man would slip down, crying, they would beat him with lathis [canes]. I also saw at least two persons in Papa II on November 4 who was not able to walk. I talked to one of them. He identified himself as Badshah Khan, district commander of the JKLF in Kupwara, a border district in northwest Kashmir. He told me his back had been burned after kerosene oil had been poured on it. He identified another person there as Alam Khan."

In the evening Ilyas was taken back to the BSF camp. On November 6 he was again taken to Papa II where the soldiers told him he should work for the BSF as an informer. Ilyas refused. That evening, when he was brought back to the base camp, the Jammu and Kashmir police were called, and he was handed over to them. The police took Ilyas and his neighbour home. Since his torture, Ilyas has suffered numbness in his penis and impotence.

(Shiraz and Ilyas are changed names)

Torture of 90's In Kashmir

The infamous torture centre of 90s Papa 2 and Hariniwas may have been converted into palatial mansions,
but the inhuman practices have not ended even with decline in violence. Majid Maqbool narrates some recent instances of torture in police custody.
Two men turn up at Abdul Majid Beigh’s shop at Hari Singh High Street in Srinagar. “Your brother has been arrested by SOG Cargo. He is in SMHS hospital now,” they tell Beigh.
A panicked Beigh rushes to hospital to find his brother dead.
On the morning of May 18, the 40-year-old Manzoor Ahmad Beigh had left his home in Alochi Bagh, as usual on a scooter. He dropped his 16 year old daughter at school on his way to work. In the afternoon his brother Majeed was staring at his body lying on a stretcher in hospital.
Father of three children, Manzoor was a dealer of used cars. “He was picked up an SOG inspector on his way to work, and later killed,” alleged Majeed, puffing cigarette after cigarette in the lawn of their home filled with mourners. “It’s a custodial murder. I saw torture marks on his body in the hospital. His throat had a torture mark, his underarms were swollen,” he said.
Outside their home, Manzoor’s sister is surrounded by women trying to pacify her. Lying inconsolable on the concrete path leading to the door of their home, she is unable to make sense of her brother’s death.
“Bahe lage balaye mayane bayooo (Let me shield you my brother) …” she lets out a cry, repeatedly. “Ye chuna apuz, mayne bayooo… yehagasena apuz aasun maynea bayoo… (tell me this is a lie, shouldn’t this be a lie)”
Government ordered an enquiry into the incident, a routine course taken after such deaths. Several others, who are being tortured despite decline in violence, cause the government little concern.
Last year, in the wake of Amarnath land row, many youth were arrested and tortured. Abid Beigh, 21, of Habbakadal is one of them.
In the past one year, Abid was hit by a bullet – thrice. He survived to be arrested – twice and tortured each time.
The first bullet, says Abid, came from the Army when protesters were fired at. And the bullet hit his right leg. Another bullet, when he was part of another protest rally, hit his left arm. On third occasion, the same year, the third bullet hit him on the back, above hips. But Abid survived to tell the tale. Not of three narrow escapes from death but of torture.
First arrested in September 2008, Abid was lodged in Nowhatta police station for one month. “That day the CRPF came to my house and beat up my parents before arresting me,” he recalls. “In the police station, instead of police, CRPF tortures the inmates,” he said.
This month he was released from Central Jail after one and a half month detention. “They would beat me continuously. They would hang me, at times keep me standing on one leg,” recalls Abid.
He developed kidney problems soon after his release. “For nine days, they kept a brick on my crotch,” he says. “My right kidney is damaged and doctors had to insert a pipe to make it functional.”
After his release from Nowhatta police station, Abid was arrested again on February 16 from his shop in Lal Chowk. “The STF, concerned Police Station and Maisuma Police Station came and told me that SSP wants to talk to you,” says Abid.
“Then they put me in custody again for 46 days. I was taken to different places like MR Gunj, then to Cargo camp, Nowhatta Police Station, Karan Nagar and then to the jail in Rainawari.”
His parents were allowed to see him only thrice during this period. He vividly remembers the places where he and youth like him were tortured. The wounds might have healed but the memories are fresh.
“In Cargo camp there is one lock up, a small hall that has only one small window where they interrogate and ruthlessly beat up people,” Abid recalls.
He knows many youth like him who were tortured in custody but are reluctant to talk about it for fear of reprisals. His parents, says Abid, had to give in writing to police after his release that he “won’t indulge in stone pelting for a year.”
“When I was in custody, they would tell my parents that if they (parents) approach media, they will never let me free,” he said. “They would tell my parents that ‘your son is our target as he indulges is stone pelting’,” he adds.
Dr Zaid A Wani, consultant psychiatrist at the Government Medical College, Srinagar, has treated many torture victims over the years. Wani says that torture victims do not come directly to psychiatrists.
“They go to other places, to surgeons, and after four months they come to us because of the recurring symptoms,” says Dr Wani.
In November, a torture victim who came to Dr Wani for consultation, was reluctant to talk about it at first but opened up after his second visit.
“He was a 30 year old man and complained of headaches, appetite loss, sleeping disorders, concentration loss and nightmares,” the doctor recalls. On investigation, and in subsequent visits, the man started talking about his torture in custody. “He told us how he was kept hooded in custody, kept on his feet all the time, regularly beaten, and he also said how he was tortured with cigarette butts on his body,” says Dr Wani.
“The man said they would tell him in custody that they are going to kill him. And in the middle of the night he would be suddenly forced to wake up, and taken out in the open.”
After release the man had recurrent nightmares, increased startle reflexes, and would rarely come out of his home.
Torture is considered to be an international crime and violation of human rights, declared unacceptable by Article 5 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Signatories of the Third Geneva Convention and Fourth Geneva Convention officially agree not to torture prisoners in armed conflicts. United Nations Convention Against Torture, which has been ratified by 145 states, prohibits torture.
But in Kashmir, torture cases – both physical and mental – have largely gone undocumented.
At a seminar “Campaign against Torture” organized in April by Jammu and Kashmir People’s Rights’ Movement (PRM) and the J&K Coalition of Civil Society (CCS), lawyers, human rights activists and torture victims, spoke about the futility of approaching the law because ‘there is no law in Indian constitution which can deliver justice to the victims of torture.’
PRM is a group of former militants advocating their concerns. It has documented about 250 cases of torture cases so far.
Rights activists said that for lack of evidence mental torture is not even considered in law.
Abdul Qadeer, Chairman PRM says there are more than 60,000 people who have been subjected to torture in Kashmir. “Every fifth Kashmiri is a victim of physical or mental torture but not many victims come forward to talk about it, and hence most of the torture cases are undocumented,” he said.

And then there are people who have been subjected to torture outside the jails. “You might get a record of those tortured in jails but there are many people who have been tortured in different buildings, in the open fields, playing ground, schools etc, of which there is no available record,” said Qadeer.

Source:Kashmir Life Weekly