http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/12/kashmir/index.html

Rights group blasts Kashmir abuse
POSTED: 11:42 p.m. EDT, September 12, 2006

From Mukhtar Ahmad

CNN

SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir (CNN) -- The U.S.-based rights
group Human Rights Watch has lambasted the Indian government for what
it calls "its failure in checking rights violations by its security
forces and militants in Jammu and Kashmir."

The accusation is part of HRW's 156-page report titled "Everyone Lives
In Fear: Patterns of Impunity in Jammu and Kashmir."

HRW Asia Director Brad Adams said that the report "documents recent
abuses by the army and paramilitaries, as well as by the militants,
many of whom are backed by Pakistan."

The chief government spokesman of India's Jammu and Kashmir state,
however, defended the Indian military's actions in the regions saying
authorities had prosecuted several security men and found them guilty
of human rights violations.

Kuldip Khoda also defended the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which
comes under fire in the Human Rights Watch report for allowing
government forces to detain people without trial for up to two years,
and making human rights prosecutions difficult.

"I must clarify that there is no need to repeal special laws as we are
facing a proxy war in Kashmir. We have to have a safety system for our
forces and we don't want them to be prosecuted for false allegations,"
Khoda told The Associated Press.

Adams said Indian security forces had committed torture, disappearances
and arbitrary detentions and they continued to "execute Kashmiris in
faked encounter killing" claiming that these killings took place during
armed clashes with militants.

"The report shows how impunity has fueled the insurgency. If the Indian
authorities had addressed these abuses seriously when they took place,
public confidence in the authorities would have increased and future
abuses may have been substantially reduced," Adams said.

Also Tuesday, nearly 2,000 members of a pro-independence separatist
Kashmiri group held a daylong hunger strike in Srinagar alleging human
rights abuses by Indian security forces, AP reported.

Yasin Malik, chairman of the Jammy Kashmir Liberation Front, said
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised to end human rights
abuses in the Indian-held portion of Kashmir during a visit to the
Himalayan territory in May.

However, excesses by security forces had continued, he said.

The HRW report also documents serious abuses by militants, many of whom
continue to receive backing from Pakistan.

"Numerous massacres, bombings, killings and attacks on schools
attributed to the militants are often intentionally downplayed by
supporters of Kashmiri independence or its accession to Pakistan, " the
report says.

"There is considerable evidence that over many years Pakistan has
provided Kashmiri militants with training, weapons, funding and
sanctuary.

Musharraf blames the West
"Under U.S. pressure after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Pakistan
banned several militant groups in January 2002 including
Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, but these groups have continued
to operate after changing names. India blames these groups for many
armed attacks."

Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, meanwhile has blamed the
West for breeding terrorism in his country by bringing in thousands of
mujahedeen to fight the Soviets in neighboring Afghanistan then leaving
Pakistan alone a decade later to face the armed warriors.

"Whatever extremism or terrorism is in Pakistan is a direct fallout of
the 26 years of warfare and militancy around us. It gets back to 1979
when the West, the United States and Pakistan waged a war against the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan," Musharraf told EU lawmakers,
according to the AP.

India and Pakistan initiated a peace dialogue in January 2004 to settle
the decades-old Kashmir dispute, but the process has been put on hold
by India after a series of train blasts which killed more than 200
people in Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment capital, in July
this year.

Musharraf is to meet India's Singh at a summit of the Non-Aligned
Movement in Havana, Cuba, later this week.

"My meeting with Mr. Manmohan Singh I hope will be substantive and will
move this process forward. I feel the time is right and the opportunity
for a solution is great," Musharraf said.

He said the two countries had made progress in confidence-building
measures, but had stalled over the conflict resolution.