India's Secret Army

The following article is based on Human Rights Watch/Asia's report, "India's Secret Army in Kashmir: New Patterns of Abuse Emerge in the Conflict," May 1996, vol. 8, no.4

The war against the civilian Muslim population in Kashmir is being waged by two armies. The obvious aggressors are the Indian Security Forces but many people do not realize that there is a second, and in some ways more dangerous, aggressor in Kashmir: the militias.

Working alongside Indian security forces is a secret, illegal army; state-sponsored paramilitary groups that are composed of captured and surrendered former militants who are described as "renegades" by the Indian government. Many of these groups are responsible for grave human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture and illegal detention.

These groups are made up of surrendered militants who then go to work for the Indian army. Because they are from the local population and do not wear uniforms, in many cases it is impossible to identify members. These groups are state-sponsored and act with impunity. They have the protection of the army and often openly co-operate with military personnel.

Many human rights agency that have documented abuses in Kashmir have verified the existence of these groups through interviews with civilians as well as government officials. One witness, a police officer, told the human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, that: "the government has recruited criminals who loot and steal and extort and these criminals are living in security force camps. This is the third force-the renegades. It is completely true that they exist. ... It is 100 percent true that police investigate crimes, arrest individuals and then the army interferes and lets them go so they can work with the army as renegade forces."

The government uses the groups in a number of ways: as informers who watch and report on the activities of the militants; as spies to infiltrate existing militant organizations; or as members of paramilitary "renegade" organizations to attack members of Jamaat-e Islami, Hezb-ul Mujahidin and other pro-independence groups. Members of these militias are also used to support Indian government policies.

Both regular, uniformed Indian army and federal security forces and state-sponsored paramilitary groups have committed serious and widespread human rights violations in Kashmir. These violations have characterized the behavior of regular troops since the conflict began in 1990. While reports of some kinds of abuse have decreased since 1994, such as the indiscriminate use of lethal force against unarmed demonstrators, other abuses, notably summary executions and torture, have remained unchanged, due in part to the activities of the state-sponsored militias.

Another witness, a Kashmiri doctor, told Human Rights Watch: "when someone misbehaved, he was wearing a uniform, so he was accountable. We could call his commander. Now, when these renegades misbehave, there is no one to call. No one accepts responsibility for them, though we know the government is sponsoring them."

The paramilitary militias have principally targeted Hezb-ul Mujahedin militants and members of the banned pro-Pakistan political party, Jamaat-e Islami. Like their counterparts in the regular security forces, they have also killed civilians in reprisal for militant attacks on their forces.

While attempting to reassure the international community that they have taken steps to curb human rights abuses in Kashmir, Indian forces have in effect subcontracted some of their abusive tactics to groups with no official accountability. The extrajudicial killings, abductions and assaults committed by these groups against suspected militants are instead described as resulting from "inter-group rivalries."

But civilians have also been their victims, and the militia groups have singled out journalists, human rights activists and medical workers for attack. They have been given free rein to patrol major hospitals in Srinagar, particularly the Soura Institute, the Sri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital and the Bone and Joint Hospital.

They have murdered, threatened, beaten and detained hospital staff; in some cases these abuses have occurred in full view of security force bunkers or in the presence of security force officers. They have also removed patients from hospitals.

In some cases, attacks by these paramilitary groups appear to have been carried out on orders from security officers. In other cases, the groups appear to operate on their own, within broadly defined limits to their discretionary powers and the full expectation on the part of the security forces that they will use their discretion to take initiatives within the overall counterinsurgency strategy of fighting terror with terror. Their actions are taken with the knowledge and complicity of official security forces. When arrested by local police, members of these groups have been released on orders of the security forces. Not one has been prosecuted for human rights abuses.

Attacks on Human Rights Activists
Human rights activists have increasingly come under attack in Kashmir. The impact on Kashmir's human rights community has been devastating. Lawyers who had formerly taken up petitions on behalf of victims of abuses no longer do so out of fear of reprisals, particularly from the mercenary groups. Many have left Kashmir. The few human rights activists who have continued to document abuses in Kashmir do so at considerable risk to themselves.

The Murder of Jalil Andrabi
The body of Jalil Andrabi, a prominent human rights lawyer and pro-independence political activist associated with the JKLF, was found in the Kursuraj Bagh area of Srinagar on the banks of the Jhelum River. According to press reports, the body was in a burlap bag. Andrabi, who was forty-two, had been shot in the head and his eyes had been gouged out. He had apparently been dead for at least one week.

The murder sparked widespread protests in Kashmir and condemnation from civil liberties groups in India and abroad. In Srinagar, a protest march was broken up by police who beat up members of the crowd, smashed a number of reporters' cameras and seized the body. The police also fired shots in the air to disperse the crowd.

Since 1984, Andrabi had filed petitions in the High Court on behalf of detainees and had publicized the fact that the security forces routinely ignored High Court orders to produce detainees in court. At the time he was abducted, he was preparing for a trip to Geneva to attend the meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission where he hoped to raise concern about the human rights situation in Kashmir.

Attacks on the Press
Ikhwan-ul Muslimoon and other state-sponsored armed groups in Kashmir have demonstrated a particular antipathy toward the press. In July 1995, four journalists with the dailies Greater Kashmir and Naida-I Mushraq were abducted by Ikhwan-ul Muslimoon forces and held for four days. After ordering several newspapers to temporarily cease publication in November 1995, the group's leader, Koko Parray, accused all of the Kashmir journalists of being militants: "There is little difference between the editors and the Hizbul Mujahidin. Journalists are writing posters and pamphlets for them." After several days, the papers were permitted to resume publication.

Attacks on Medical Workers
Ikwan-ul Muslimoon forces have been patrolling the Soura Institute and the Bone and Joint Hospital since mid-1995. Ikhwan-ul Muslimoon patrols are sometimes carried out jointly with other security forces. Their activities inside the hospitals, including assaults on staff and detentions of staff, patients and visitors, are carried out with the knowledge of BSF forces, who maintain bunkers at the entrances of the hospitals.

A Jammu and Kashmir police station is also located at the entrance to the Soura institute. Ikhwan-ul Muslimoon forces enter the hospital on a regular basis and patrol it armed with automatic weapons. They often carry walkie-talkies and speak into them in the course of their searches and patrols. They have threatened and harassed hospital staff and patients, looking for militants, and have taken suspects away to "camps."

Before mid-1995, BSF forces themselves used to patrol the hospital, looking for militants. They would conduct search operations, known in Kashmir as "crackdowns," inside Soura, ordering all staff to line up and be searched. Any staff member or patient who is suspected of being involved with the militants is taken away; anyone who resists or objects is threatened or beaten.

Conclusion
Since 1993, the Indian government has embarked on a campaign to improve its image which has been severely tarnished by the appalling human rights record of its police and security forces.

The vast majority of security personnel responsible for abuses are never punished or are subjected only to mild disciplinary measures. The Indian government has done nothing to curb the most flagrant abuse-summary executions and torture-or punish those responsible. Instead of ensuring that its troops abide by the rule of law, India has sponsored irregular militias that operate completely outside the law to carry out its counterinsurgency operations.

Compounding the tragedy in Kashmir is the fact that many of India's trading partners, eager to embrace one of Asia's greatest "emerging markets" or concerned more with South Asian security relations than with human rights, have muffled earlier criticisms that had served to force India to acknowledge the need for reform.

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