About Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons

For the last three decades, Kashmir has become the most militarized zone in the world. With about 700,000 armed and paramilitary forces stationed here, the ratio of civilian to security personnel is about 1:7. The resulting heavy military presence in Kashmir has directly impacted the life and liberty of the common people. As a result, Kashmiris have been governed by draconian legislations awarding arbitrary and excessive powers of preventive detention, arrest, search, seizure and power to shoot to kill on suspicion, use of lethal force, by state laws such as the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act, and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1990).

Immunity is inscribed in this legal architecture to maintain the presence of the armed forces, spawning a culture of impunity. While human rights violations by security forces have been rampant over the last two decades, there has been no accountability of the same. Despite investigations and judicial enquiries no one has been punished for egregious crimes such as extra judicial executions, custodial torture, rape and enforced disappearances.

Additionally, disappearances and extra-judicial killings are also attributed to armed counter-insurgency renegades (“ikwanis”), primarily former militants who had either surrendered or changed sides, used by security forces in the region to intimidate civilians in various ways particularly those attempting to access justice and realize constitutionally guaranteed human rights.

Unofficial estimates put the number of disappeared persons between 1989 and 2006 at anywhere between 8000-10,000. A majority of those disappeared are young men, including minors, others include people of all ages, professions and backgrounds, many of whom have no connection with the armed opposition groups operating in Kashmir.

Although India signed the International Convention for Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances in 2007, it has failed to ratify the Convention and only a fraction of the cases on disappearances have been investigated. Even though the number of disappearances has reduced in the recent past, the struggle for justice in existing and remaining cases continues.

In the pursuit of justice, Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) is a collective of relatives of victims of enforced and involuntary disappearances in Kashmir. Disappearances often end in extra-judicial killings or death by torture. The APDP was formed in 1994 to organize efforts to seek justice and get information on the whereabouts of missing family members. It presently consists of family members of about one thousand victims.

APDP actively campaigns for an end to the practice and crime of involuntary and enforced disappearances at local, national and international platforms. Members of the APDP have been engaged in documenting enforced disappearances in Kashmir since 1989 and have collected information on over one thousand such cases, so far. On the 10th of each month families of the disappeared come together under the aegis of APDP to hold a public protest in Srinagar to commemorate the disappearance of their loved ones and to seek answers from the state about the whereabouts of the missing persons.

APDP continues to face major challenges in meeting its objectives due to acts of omission and commission by state agencies. This constitutes serious breaches of fundamental rights guaranteed under the Indian Constitution as well as rights recognized in the Declaration Rights of Human Rights Defenders and marks the Indian state’s failure to create conditions to ensure the implementation of all human rights and freedoms.

Development for these webpages was supported in part by the University of Warwick’s Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Account Award, held by Dr. Goldie Osuri, Department of Sociology.