On 30th August, the world all over is observing the international day of enforced disappearances. Similarly APDP too observes it every year. However, this year, due to the civil curfew imposed by the state against the protests against scrapping of article 35A, APDP will not hold sit-in protest—in solidarity with the people of Jammu and Kashmir against the scrapping of 35A.
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.
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 its 2017 report, on Human Rights Violations in Jammu and Kashmir, the UNOHRC, strongly condemned the Indian state and stated that “Impunity for enforced or involuntary disappearances in Kashmir continues as there has been little movement towards credibly investigating complaints, including into alleged sites of mass graves in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region.”
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. This was also stated UN High Commissioner for Human Right, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, and “There is almost total impunity for enforced disappearances….”
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 condemns the state for using brute forces against the civilians. In the recent months, the state forces have maimed hundreds and detained around 100 people in the southern Kashmir. 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.