 "Poll, election, lok sabha")
Four years after the Central government revoked the special status of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) under Article 370 of the Constitution, a report by a citizens' forum released on Thursday emphasised that ongoing human rights violations in the region necessitate early elections.
This marks the fourth report by the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir (The Forum). Titled "Five Years Without an Elected Administration: Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, August 2022 – July 2023," the report was unveiled by The Forum, along with National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, and members of parliament including Manoj Jha (Rashtriya Janata Dal), Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party), Kanimozhi (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), Shashi Tharoor (Congress), Sitaram Yechury (Communist Party of India – Marxist), and Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami (People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration).
The Forum's co-chairs are Gopal Pillai, former Union Home Secretary, and Radha Kumar, former member of the Group of Interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir.
In July 2023, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs filed a counter-affidavit before the Supreme Court against petitions challenging the constitutionality of the Presidential Orders of August 5, 2019. These orders, which diminished Article 370 of the Indian Constitution as well as the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act of August 9, 2019, were defended as having "brought unprecedented development, progress, security, and stability to the region."
The Forum, in three annual and two thematic reports, has documented more than three dozen economic, political, and social rights violations occurring between August 2019 and July 2022. It also details economic losses exceeding Rs 50,000 crores.
Notably, up until June 2023, J&K has been denied the right to representation for five years.
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The report asserts that civilian insecurity persists and "targeted attacks" on Pandits and migrant workers, both Hindu and Muslim, continue. While the number of deaths due to armed attacks and counter-insurgency activities fell compared to 2021-22, the report called the number of police deaths, including Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers, "unacceptably high."
The report indicates, "71 CRPF troops were killed in the four years between 2019-2022, twice as many as in the previous four years, 2014-2018, when 35 died. Comparatively, in the four years between 2012-2015, which can be characterized as an uneasy interregnum between the post-peace process years and the rise of conflict in the BJP-PDP coalition, 27 CRPF troops were killed."
Additionally, "In 2023, J&K was found to have the highest number of licensed gun holders among union territories and the highest per capita among states as well as union territories, standing at 500,105 in June 2023, or four guns per hundred people."
Highlighting the resurgence of militancy in the Jammu region, the report states, "After decades of peace, the border areas of Poonch and Rajouri districts in Jammu division are re-emerging as hotspots for militancy with cross-border support from Pakistani-held territories of the former state."
The report criticises the 2022 delimitation of new legislative constituencies, which added the Muslim-majority Poonch and Rajouri to Kashmir’s Anantnag. It proposes that the sharpening of communal divides in Jammu may have increased alienation in these Muslim-majority areas.
Regarding elections, The Forum notes, "It has been nine years since the last legislative election in Jammu and Kashmir. The Union administration accepted the delimitation commission’s report a year ago and fresh electoral rolls were prepared eight months ago. All the preparations for an election have been completed, yet the election commission has yet to announce dates for it."
Criticising the state of prisons, The Forum highlighted that J&K matches Delhi in having the highest proportion of undertrials in its prison population — at 91 per cent, compared to the national average of 76 per cent.
The region’s prisons, designed to accommodate 3,629 inmates, were housing 5,300 as of June 2023, according to the report.
