On 30th August, the world all over is observing the international day of enforced disappearances. Similarly APDP too will be observing it.
With the extensive militarisation that started in early nineties came the phenomenon of enforced disappearances. Under the Indian State’s militarization of Kashmir among other brutalities, enforced disappearances have been used as a tool to suppress the people and their voices.
The state not only denies the phenomena of enforced disappearances ,instead , it has legislated certain laws , like AFSPA , and provided full impunity to the perpetrators, thus protecting them , thereby creating hurdles in acquiring justice.
Nevertheless, APDP has been resisting this suppression for years now and has raised the issue of the enforced disappearances with the world community.
On 10th of every month, the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) stages a silent sit-in protest in Srinagar against Enforced Disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir. As part of its programme, APDP is observing a day long protest event on 30th August 2017, at Partab Park, Srinagar.
The event will be open to all. The event will feature the art work on the enforced disappearances besides the participation of the people from all walks of the life; students, journalists, writers, academicians and activists.
The state has been at war with the memory of the people and it has time and again tied various tactics to erase this issue from the public memory. APDP is fighting that battle too, to not let people forget the issue and to counter the state’s designs.
APDD has been documenting the cases and had been active to bring the issue of ED to the public; it is a counter movement against the forgetfulness.
In a situation where India has not ratified the International Convention For Protection of all Persons From Enforced Disappearances and the vagueness of India’s Domestic Law that does not enumerate Enforced Disappearance as an offence, the challenges in pursuing legal struggle is insurmountable. There is an official state policy that ensures impunity to Indian Armed Forces and promotes silencing of the past.
We reiterate our demand for ratification of International Convention for Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. The ratification will help to bring out the special nature and circumstances in which such crimes are perpetrated and will make more evident the multiple rights that are violated as a result of an enforced disappearance. We also demand that law on enforced disappearance be passed by the Jammu and Kashmir legislature so that the vagueness and ambiguity in the Indian domestic penal provisions can be overcome.
APDP commemorates the struggles of the victim families to seek justice. APDP wants the world community to pressurize the Indian state to look into the systemic and systematic enforced disappearances and bring the perpetuators to the book and punish them.
APDP also commemorates thanks the people of Jammu Kashmir for supporting it for the pursuance of justice. Without the peoples help in the movement, the continuing of the demand for justice would not have been possible.
APDP also condemns the state for using brute forces against the civilians. It urges the state to stop the use of pellet guns which have blinded thousands of people, especially teenagers and women. It condemns the acts of terror of the state.
APDP urges the world community to pressurize the Indian state to stop all kinds of human rights violations in Jammu Kashmir.
Parveena Ahanger
(Chairperson) APDP, Hyderpora, Srinagar