VI. VIOLATIONS BY INDIAN GOVERNMENT FORCES: ABUSES BY UNIFORMED INDIAN SECURITY PERSONNEL

Extrajudicial Executions and Reprisal Killings

The systematic, summary execution of suspected militants by regular Indian forces in Kashmir has been a hallmark of counterinsurgency operations in the conflict. After escalating sharply in 1992-93, when military authorities in Kashmir launched a "catch-and-kill" operation against the militants, these killings have only declined to the extent that some have been subcontracted to irregular state-sponsored forces. There has been no change in policy about the practice. Army and BSF forces have continued to execute captured militant suspects routinely, in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law. In six and a half years of war, such executions and disappearances in Kashmir number well into the hundreds, if not higher.

Most extrajudicial killings carried out by Indian security forces in Kashmir occur after "crackdowns"- cordon and search operations during which all the men of a neighborhood or village are called to assemble for an identification parade in front of hooded informers. Those whom the informers point out are taken away for torture and interrogation, and some are simply taken away and shot. Officials in Kashmir routinely claim that the detainee was killed in an "encounter" with the security forces, or was shot trying to escape. Human rights groups in Kashmir have documented hundreds of such killings. In its annual report covering events of 1995, the U. S. State Department stated that "[H]uman rights groups consider credible reports that dozens of such killings occur every month. "" Detainees have also disappeared in the custody of the security forces.

Since 1994, there have been fewer incidents in which government forces engaged in reprisal killings of civilians or used lethal force on a large scale against peaceful demonstrators. However, incidents in which the security forces have opened fire on civilians during crackdowns have continued. In the two cases described below, those who were shot were clearly identified as civilians. As with other summary executions, the authorities generally claim that civilian casualties during such operations result from "cross-fire. "

Security legislation has increased the likelihood of such abuses by authorizing the security forces to shoot to kill and to destroy civilian property. Under these laws, the security forces are protected from prosecution for human rights violations.

The Killing of Mohammad B. and Sheikh Y

On January 20, 1995, Indian army forces of the 2nd Grenades unit conducted a crackdown in Batmaloo, Srinagar. At least two men taken into custody by the soldiers were summarily executed. Ghulam B. , forty-eight, described the killing of his brother, Mohammad, a forty-two-year-old businessman.

At about 10:00 Am on January 20, 1995, 1 was in my house in Batmaloo, Srinagar, along with my mother and father, Mohammad and his wife and children, and a servant. Mohammad was on the phone to Delhi when we heard gunfire outside, and we all went into a single room. Fifteen minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Four uniformed army soldiers of the 2nd Grenades came inside and pulled my ninety-year-old father, Mohammad, the servant and me outside. The soldiers were accusing us of being "terrorists. " They accused Mohammad of being Afghan.

Leaving the father at the house, the soldiers took the men with them, along with a nephew, G. Some twenty- five soldiers were gathered around outside. They ordered the men to get shovels and shovel snow for half an hour. Then four of the soldiers took Ghulam and broke down the door of a nearby house belonging to Ghulam's uncle. Ghulam and Mohammad were made to search some six other houses; the soldiers were looking for guns and militants. The search went on for half an hour. Ghulam told Human Rights Watch:

From time to time, the soldiers would hit me and point their guns at my head and tell me they would kill me. Several times while I was with soldiers, they came under gunfire [from militant forces] and they would force me to stand in front of them as they ran and returned fire.

At 11:30AM, the soldiers completed the searches of six houses and took Ghulam to a more populated neighborhood in the same area. At that point, he saw the soldiers take Mohammad away. An announcement was made through the loudspeakers at the mosque that everyone in the area should come out of their houses and assemble outside the graveyard. Ghulam continued to search apartments in the area with the soldiers and six other civilians.

At about 4:00 PM Ghulam was with the soldier when they again came under heavy gunfire. The soldiers fired back, again using him as shield. A number of soldiers were injured in the fire, and Ghulam and other civilians were ordered to carry the wounded soldiers to army vehicles at the main intersection. As they began to do so, one of the civilians, Hassan Shah, a retired policeman who was over sixty, was shot in the arm.

We asked permission to carry Shah to the SMHS hospital, half a kilometer way, on foot and by auto rickshaw. Mohinder Singh, commander of the 2nd Grenades, allowed us to do so. I ran away to my sister's house and phoned my mother. She asked me, "Where is your brother? I told her I did not know. I stayed at my sister's house that night.

The crackdown was on a Friday. On Saturday, in Nagerwal, residents reported that two bodies had been thrown out of the window of a nearby school at 4:00 PM on the day of the crackdown, and that the bodies were riddled with bullets.

On Saturday, Ghulam went to the Ram Munshi Bagh police station and found Mohammad's body. described the condition of the body:

There was blood around the mouth and blood on his hands. There were two other bodies there as well. I asked for the body back, and the police had me sign a paper for it.

A neighbor, Sheikh A. , was with Mohammad after the soldiers took him away. He told Human Rights Watch that the soldiers came to his house and ordered him and his nineteen-year-old son, Sheikh Y. , to come with them.

At 9:OOAm I was in my house with my wife, son and daughter. Sheikh Y. went outside to buy some food, but returned to say that the army was nearby. All of us went upstairs to the second floor. The soldiers knocked on the door, entered the house and yelled for all of us to come downstairs or we would be killed. The soldiers took me and my son outside and took us in the direction of the government middle school in Lachmanpara, which is commonly used as an interrogation center during crackdowns. Before we arrived at the school, the soldiers told me to go to the graveyard nearby. I went and found twenty-five or thirty other people sitting there. I could hear the soldiers questioning my son. They were accusing him of firing on soldiers. My son denied it. Then a soldier took him inside the school. As I sat in the graveyard, I could hear cries from my son inside the school. I stood up, but Mohammad, who was with him in the graveyard, warned me to sit down, as the soldiers were nervous and might shoot me.

A short while later, the soldiers came up with an informer who surveyed the group of men seated at the graveyard, then pointed at Mohammad and said to the soldiers, "Take him, he is a militant. " The soldiers told Mohammad to stand up and called him an "Afghani [sic] militant. " Mohammad told them he had a grinding machine and was a businessman, not a militant. The soldiers took him into the school. Then the soldiers took Sheikh A. and the others in the graveyard and made them sit in snow. They were kept at the graveyard until 9:00 pm

In the afternoon some people were taken from the cemetery and were made to carry metal pipes. When they were brought back to the cemetery, they told Sheikh A. that the soldiers had used the pipes to spray kerosene on the mosque in the area, which the soldiers had then burned down. Later in the afternoon, Sheikh A. was also made to carry pipes, and he saw the mosque burning. Then he was brought back to the cemetery. At 9:00 Pm the men were allowed to go home. Sheikh A. returned with a gas lamp to search inside the school, but was unable to find anyone. Later that night a neighbor told him that two bodies had been thrown from one of the school's windows. He examined the site and found blood on the snow nearby but no bodies. Later that night, at Jammu and Kashmir, he learned from a police officer that three civilians from Batmaloo had been killed earlier that day in "crossfire" between the army and the militants. Sheikh A. told Human Rights Watch/Asia:

The following day, in the morning, I went to the police station at Ram Munshi Bagh, but I was told that the bodies were not there, but were at the Joint Interrogation Center, Sonawar. I went there, but they were not there. I went back to the police station where I saw trucks with the bodies of my son, Mohammad and a third man. After that I went to the police station to file an FIR against the army for the deaths of my son and Mohammad. But I was told by a friend, who is a police officer, that he had been told not to accept any FIRs against the army or security forces. Then I went to the district magistrate, who ordered the police to accept the FIR. So the police registered the FIR on February 7, 1995.

The Killing of Ghulam Ahmed Bhat

Ghulam Ahmed Bhat, eighteen, was killed by troops of the Seventh Battalion of the BSF on December 2 1, 1995. As a result of a childhood illness, Ghulam had been unable to hear or speak since he was four years old.

At about 10:OOAM on December 2 1, Ghulam was standing in a lane in front of the house in Bulbulankar, Nawakadal, in Srinagar, along with his mother and a number of other people. The neighborhood was unusually crowded because a procession was planned in honor of Kurshid Ahmed Bhat, chief of the Al Jihad Force who was killed on December 17, 1995. " A crackdown was just beginning, and BSF troops from the Seventh Battallion, under Commander "Peter" Sharma, entered the neighborhood. Seeing the BSF soldiers running, Ghulam started to run and his mother ran after him to protect him.

After running along a long, narrow lane, Ghulam stopped and tried to show the soldiers that he was deaf and dumb. Then he started running again. Ghulam's mother told Human Rights Watch/Asia:

Three soldiers came after him, and one fired a machine gun burst, killing him. One soldier then kicked the body to make sure he was dead. I began crying, but the soldiers would not allow me to take Ghulam's body. About half an hour after he was shot, two or three BSF soldiers came to the area. One put a pistol on Ghulam's chest; and the other one put bullets in the pocket of his pheran. At 2:00pm, the crackdown was lifted, and the Jammu and Kashmir police arrived. They screamed at the BSF that the boy was not a militant and that they should not have killed him.

The police took the body to the police station. At 5:OOPM, the body was brought home by neighbors. There was a bullet wound in the back of the head. At the time the body was handed over from police, the mother's brother, Mohammad Siddiq, was made to sign a blank paper. The next morning, two shopkeepers and a neighbor came to the mother's house and said they were coming on behalf of Commander "Peter" Sharma and said that he would pay her Rs. 200,000 not to bring a case against the BSF in court. She did not accept, and filed a case against the BSF.

The Killing of Khurshid Ahmed Bhat

Khurshid Ahmed Bhat, alias "Khalid Javeed," former head of Jihad Force, was killed after being taken into custody by BSF forces on December 18, 1995. At 9:30pm, a patrol party of several BSF vehicles came to the neighborhood of Butyar, in Srinagar. From his upstairs window, N. D. , a witness, saw BSF troops encircling the house of one of his neighbors. At 10:30 PM, they entered the house and N. D. heard cries coming from the house. N. D. told Human Rights Watch/Asia:

The BSF brought my neighbor and his son out of the house and into the inner courtyard. They beat them and asked them where Javeed was. They said they did not know. One of the soldiers knocked the father to the ground, and when his wife came out and pleaded with the soldiers not to beat her husband and son, one soldier ripped off the top portion of her pheran and struck her on the chest. When the daughter came out the soldier did the same to her. At this point, Khurshid Ahmed Bhat walked out of the house. The soldiers immediately hit him with their rifles on his thighs and on the back of his head. Blood came out of his mouth. The soldiers then took hold of the daughter and told Khurshid to ""engage in nasty acts with her. " He refused and said "I am the man you want, that's it. "

The soldiers put Bhat into a truck and drove away. They left at midnight. The next morning, BSF soldiers came to the area and fired shots into the air for more than half an hour, and then withdrew. Shortly after that, the Jammu and Kashmir police came and told the residents that a dead body had been found, and they needed someone to come and identify it. N. D. went with others from the neighborhood to see the body at the local police station. N. D. described the condition of the body:

There was a lot of blood and several wounds on the forehead and nose, a cut in the mouth, wounds on the back and chest, cuts on the legs and arms, and a broken elbow.

Human Rights Watch/Asia saw photographs of the body. There was a bullet wound in the forehead, a bullet wound on the nose and a large open wound on the back of the head. There were also scrapes and cuts on the chest and mouth.

In an official report of the killing, the government claimed that Bhat died in an encounter with security forces.

Bhat's relatives have stated that they were approached by BSF Commander "Peter" Sharma, whose troops were responsible for the murder, and offered money not to bring a case in court. The family refused and has registered a case against the BSF. To Human Rights Watch/Asia's knowledge, no investigation has taken place.

The Shooting of Ghulam M.

In some cases, the security forces have opened fire on civilians even after the civilians have identified themselves. Ghulam M. was shot and injured by BSF soldiers outside his home in Ganderbal, thirty kilometers north of Srinagar, on December 6, 1995.

At about 8:00pm, I heard gunfire near my house. An hour later, I went outside to my shop to make sure that my two sons, who worked there, were safe. I was accompanied by a cousin and another son. We were carrying a gas light. As we reached the shop, we saw a soldier wearing white military boots lying on the road. He called out, "Who are you?" I replied that we were civilians. Then shots rang out. I was hit by a bullet in the right knee. My son cried out, "You've shot my father," and the BSF soldier yelled abusive language at him.

Ghulam M. was taken to the Bone and Joint Hospital, and his right leg was amputated from above the knee.

Torture

Torture has remained a constant in Kashmir. In his report of January 9, 1996, U. N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Nigel Rodley stated:

[The Special Rapporteur has] received information that torture was practiced routinely by the army, the Border Security Force (BSF) and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) against the vast majority of persons arrested for political reasons in Jammu and Kashmir. Official investigations into allegations of torture, including those that resulted in custodial deaths, were said to be rare. On the few occasions when such investigations had taken place, they were carried out by the security forces themselves, rather than by an independent body.

There is no evidence that the government of India has taken serious steps to curb the practice of torture in Kashmir. Most detainees taken into custody by the security forces in Kashmir continue to be tortured. The methods that have long been practiced in the state are fairly crude, and the security forces have demonstrated little concern for disguising injuries caused by torture. These methods include prolonged beatings, electric shock, burning with heated objects and crushing the muscles with a wooden roller. Detainees are generally held in temporary detention centers, controlled by the various security forces, without access to the courts, relatives or medical care.

Although the government has made some effort to publicize courts-martial and punishments of security personnel who have committed rape, many charges of rape continue to go uninvestigated. As with other methods of torture, rape has been used to punish suspected militant sympathizers and create a climate of fear.

Detention Procedures that Facilitate Torture

Torture usually takes place in interrogation centers operated by the security forces, and it almost always occurs in the first hours or days after the victim is detained. Every security force has its own interrogation centers in Kashmir, which include temporary detention centers at BSF, CRPF and army camps, hotels and other buildings that have been taken over by security forces. ' Detainees are first interrogated by the detaining security force for periods of time which may range from several hours to several weeks. During this time the detainee is not produced before a court or given access to anyone outside the interrogation center. Those suspected of being militants may then be interrogated at Joint Interrogation Centres (JlCs) at which each security force is represented. Detention at the JIC may last for months.

Indian security personnel routinely ignore procedural safeguards designed to prevent torture when taking persons into custody. Although Indian law requires that everyone taken into custody must be produced before a magistrate within twenty-four hours, in fact, detainees are rarely produced at all. " Prohibitions and safeguards against torture in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCrP),' which prohibit the use of coerced confessions and prescribe inquiries into deaths in custody and prison terms for officers guilty of torture, are also routinely disregarded. To Human Rights Watch/Asia's knowledge, the government has never made public any action it has taken to hold security personnel responsible for torture in Kashmir criminally liable for their actions. The U. N. Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (Resolution 34/169, December 17, 1979) states, in Article 5, that "no law enforcement officials may inflict, instigate, or tolerate any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment nor may any law enforcement official invoke superior order in exceptional circumstances such as . . . internal political instability or any other public emergency . . . as justification for torture. "

Lawyers in Kashmir have filed more than 15,000 habeas corpus petitions since 1990 calling on state authorities to reveal the whereabouts of detainees and the charges against them. However, in the vast majority of cases, the authorities have not responded, and the petitions remain pending in the courts. A large number of bail applications are also pending. Even when the High Court has ordered state authorities to produce detainees in court or release those against whom no charges have been brought, state and security force officials have refused to comply. Lawyers have also filed petitions charging officials with contempt for non-compliance, but these petitions have also received no response.

Under pressure from the authorities, the courts routinely grant government officials extended time to respond to petitions. Detainees who have been held for up to a year have not been granted access to legal counsel. The Jammu and Kashmir Bar Association has a list of I 00 persons held as of October 1995 in one joint interrogation center in Kotbalwal, near Jammu. They have been held there without charge after they were first detained for one year under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act. In some cases, after a year had passed without formal charges being brought, the security forces filed another FIR to hold the detainee on the pretext of a new investigation. Fearing reprisals, judges have been reluctant to challenge the actions of the security forces.

In response to a petition about the mistreatment of detainees in the state, in October 1994, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court ordered that in each district a committee be created of district judges, district magistrates, senior superintendents of police (SSPS) and district medical officers to visit every jail and interrogation center and submit a report to the High Court about the conditions and facilities every two weeks. In May 1995, the state government appealed the order, and a Division Bench made up of two judges of the High Court affirmed the initial ruling, with the amendment that the reports be submitted every two months. However, the security forces refused to provide lists of the detention centers, so that as of January 1996, the court had received only four reports in total from the thirteen districts in the state in the eight months since the court's ruling.

In December 1995, the district judge in Anantnag complained that the army had not provided him with a list of detention centers, and as a result he was only able to visit the JIC in Anantnag. He reported that at the JIC, many detainees were detained "not pursuant to any law. " He noted that fifty-two detainees were housed in "five small cell type rooms. . . Patently, the accommodation is too short to lodge dozens of persons . . . [A)II . . . complained about the 11 61 lack of medical facilities. One year earlier, he had documented torture by the security forces, including forcing detainees to sit for extended periods of time in cold water, electric shock, pulling the legs apart at a wide angle, and suspending detainees upside down . In his December 1994 report, the judge noted that marks of violence on the 11 61 detainees were "quite visible.

There is no question that civil and security officials in Kashmir are aware of the widespread use of torture. Petitions pending before the Jammu and Kashmir High Court provide ample documentation, including medical evidence, of the systematic use of torture.

Torture of S. K.

Human Rights Watch/Asia interviewed S. K. , a student, who was arrested by Commanding Officer Joshi of the 81st Battalion of the BSF on January 25, 1995.

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 S. K. was shifted to the BSF Papa 11 interrogation center 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 S. K. 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 S. K. 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, S. K. was transferred to the Badami Bagh Cantonment army hospital, where he described how he had been tortured. He was given penicillin. However, S. K. was afraid to tell them that he was allergic to penicillin, and the swelling worsened. On the evening of February 2, S. K. overheard a doctor tell a BSF officer from Papa 11 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 S. K. "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:OOPm 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, 1 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.

Torture of E.

E. a government employee from Srinagar, was arrested by the BSF during a crackdown on November 2, 1995.

At I O:OOAM 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 1 1:30 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 E. and one of his neighbors 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. E. was taken to a room where six BSF soldiers were waiting. In the room was 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 curse d 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 E. 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?" E. again denied that he knew any. Two other BSF soldiers came into the room, and they were told to "get the telephone. " E. 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 signaled 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 E. electric shocks two more times. The fourth time one of the soldiers placed a green chili on one of the wires, which increased the pain. E. fell unconscious, and when he came to, 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 neighbor who had been arrested with him. E. was told to sit with the others on the lawn, and the neighbor joined them a short time later. At about 3:00 Pm, they were taken to BSF headquarters in Srinagar, one kilometer away. On the morning on November 3, they were taken to the Papa 11 interrogation center, where they were separated. E. 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. E. told Human Rights Watch/Asia:

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 were 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 E. was taken back to the BSF camp. On November 6 he was again taken to Papa 11 where the soldiers told him he should work for the BSF as an informer. E. 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 E. and his neighbor home. Since his torture, E. has suffered numbness in his penis and impotence.

Torture of Feroz Ahmed Ganai

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.

Torture of S.

S. , a doctor from Tral, a village about forty kilometers south of Srinagar, was arrested by the BSF and tortured. He told Human Rights Watch/Asia that on May 15, 1995, he was arrested by a local BSF commander, "Jamil Khan," who accused him of treating a militant who had been injured escaping from Charar-e Sharif I He was taken first to a BSF camp in Tral, and then to Lathpora, a BSF camp in Pulwama district.

I was questioned by Intelligence Officer Sharma for about an hour at midnight and for an hour the next morning. On the morning of May 16, I was taken to the BSF camp at Bunar, still in Pulwama district. The BSF commander questioned me, then he put me into a cell in which there were several basins of water, several ropes, several cricket bats, and some electric equipment. About five BSF soldiers were in the room. They kept me there for one hour. First they made me take off my clothes. Then they forced my head five or six times into a basin of water. Then they covered my head with a plastic bag so that I could not breathe. Then they made me sit down with my knees raised and a rod inserted behind and under them while my hands were tied against my legs.

S. was then sent to the Papa II interrogation center where he was questioned further. He was released at 3:00 PM.

Torture of Mohammad I

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 1. 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.

Sexual Assault/Attempted Rape by Rashtriya Rifles Soldiers in Wurwun

On the night of December 30, soldiers from the Rashtriya Rifles unit of the Indian army entered a house in Wurwun village, district Pulwama, seventeen kilometers south of Srinagar, assaulted several family members and sexually assaulted and attempted to rape three women. Rahti Akhtar, forty-five, testified that she first heard dogs barking at 1 1:3 0 Pm When she looked outside, she saw about eight soldiers enter the courtyard and encircle the house. A few approached the door and knocked. The soldiers asked her to give them some food, and she said that she would send it to the camp. She recognized some of the soldiers as ones she had seen in the area. Fahmeela Akhtar, fifteen, told Human Rights Watch/Asia that at I 1:30PM, she was awakened by her mother telling her that the army had come. Her mother then tried to call out to their neighbors, but the soldiers yelled at her to keep quiet.

Then Fahmeela's sister, Mubera Akhtar, seventeen, opened the front door of the house. Three army soldiers entered and stood at the door. One said , "Keep quiet, " then bolted the door from the inside. The soldiers were all in uniforms bearing the Rashtriya Rifles insignia, and they were wearing white boots. All three were drunk. Mubera said to one of the soldiers, "If you want to search, please let us go outside, and you search for what you want. " The soldier told her to keep quiet and then at gunpoint forced the men into one room and the five women and three children into another and closed the doors. One soldier remained inside the room with the men. Two soldiers were inside the room with the women.

Nazir, twenty-two, and Mohammad, twenty-four, heard their mother's cries and came downstairs. When the soldiers said that they wanted to search, Nazir asked them if the family could wait outside. He told Human Rights Watch/Asia:

The soldiers refused and forced us at gunpoint into one room. One of them hit me with the butt of his gun. They were carrying Kalashnikov, rifles. They smelled of alcohol. One soldier stayed outside the room; the door was not bolted. I could hear my sisters' cries from the other room.

Fahmeela told Human Rights Watch/Asia:

First the soldiers forced Mubera and Amira to the floor and lay on top of them and molested them. One soldier pulled off the top portion of my clothes. I opened the door and tried to run, but the soldier caught me and pulled me back and started to molest me. I was screaming.

Nazir and Mohammad managed to escape from their room. Nazir told Human Rights Watch/Asia:

I climbed out the window and went to the front door, where I saw three soldiers standing. I could not enter the house, but I managed to get into the corridor. Mohammad came into the corridor at the same time. Then the soldiers grabbed us and took us outside. I got hold of a congri and threw it at one of the soldiers and slipped away.

The soldiers had bolted the front doors of the two neighbors' houses, but when the residents went to the second floors of their houses and screamed, other residents of the village came and unbolted the doors and the soldiers ran out of the Akhtar house. The crowd pursued them. As they ran, the soldiers fired their guns in the air. The neighbors followed the soldiers to the entrance of the camp. The soldiers had been in the house for about fifteen minutes.

The next day, when the residents noticed that a soldier's cap was scorched, they yelled, "He is one of them!" The soldier claimed that he burned his cap while ironing it.

On the following day, December 3 1, residents of the village gathered to protest the incident, and soldiers from the army camp attempted to disperse them. The next day, the commanding army officer came with some of the soldiers to the village along with a local officer. Rahti told Human Rights Watch/Asia:

The commanding officer told us not to tell anyone what had happened. He said that in exchange, the army would not search houses in the area or conduct a crackdown in the area or arrest any young men. He said, "We are already involved in two cases of this kind. Please don't involve us in a third case. "

Despite this, the residents lodged a formal complaint with the local police. Afterwards, soldiers from the camp came around warning people not to talk about the incident.

As Human Rights Watch/Asia was conducting these interviews, we observed fifteen to twenty soldiers walking rapidly down the road with three young men from the village in their custody: Nazir Ahmed Dar, twenty-six; Khurshid Ahmed Malik, twenty-six; and Javeed Ahmed Rathore ' twenty-four. The three were among the leaders of the gathering in the village the day after the attempted rape. As this report went to print, Human Rights Watch/Asia was unable to determine whether the men were detained for any length of time or released.

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