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| Unmarked graves will haunt everyone till truth is told | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Aug 23: The State Human Rights Commission has brought to light a highly disturbing and shocking development. There are 2156 unmarked graves in north Kashmir areas alone where unknown people have been buried during the last 21 years of bloody violence in the Valley.
Taking suo moto cognizance of the matter, the State Human Rights Commission's investigating wing headed by a senior superintendent of police has made the revelation also maintaining that it was a matter of further investigations as to whom these unmarked graves belonged to.
"The graves are still intact and there is a bright chance of DNA matching of the persons buried in these graves", the Human Right Commission's statement has said. When the existence of 2156 unmarked graves in north Kashmir districts of Baramulla, Bandipora and Kupwara has been brought to light, what about other districts in south and central Kashmir areas? There is no doubt that such graves would exist in districts of central and southern areas of the Valley as well.
The discovery of these unmarked graves assumes serious proportions because there are hundreds of persons who are still missing in the State. There are persons about whom nothing was heard after they simply vanished into thin air. The parents of these disappeared persons are holding regular protests and media conferences to attract national and international attention towards the fate of their loved ones.
There is a new breed of widows in Kashmir which have unfortunately earned a name which perhaps is unique to the State of Jammu and Kashmir alone. They are known as half widows. Their husbands have remained untraced ever since they disappeared either in the custody of the security forces or due to some other mysterious reasons during the last 21 years since the separatist violence and cross border terrorism started in the State.
Such woman cannot re-marry because their legal and religious status as widows is yet to be confirmed. Their plight and fate hangs as precariously and as unsurely as that of their husbands about whom nothing has been heard after they disappeared. Some of such disappeared persons are officially claimed to have crossed the border and gone over to Pakistan occupied Kashmir for obtaining training in firearms.
But, whatever the reason for such mysterious disappearances, the fact that unmarked graves have surfaced up, there are fears the missing persons could have been buried in those graves. For parents, wives and children of such unfortunate victims who have been untraced for nearly ten years or even more, the worst fear is likely to come true. It is the duty of the State Human Rights Commission to ensure that their investigations are carried to the logical conclusion. If unmarked graves have been found by the State Human Rights Commission it is the constitutional duty of the Commission to bring into public domain the names and identities of the persons buried in such graves. The public outcry about the identity of persons buried in the unmarked graves would only settle after it is proved conclusively who went into those graves.
The State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has now said he had demanded the setting up of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that would probe all deaths either by the militants or the security forces during the last 21 years in the State. Omar Abdullah said he made that demand as the leader of the NC when the NC was not in power. Omar reiterated his demand this time as the Chief Minister. It is a different debate whether the Chief Minister should have made the demand for setting up of the Commission when he is in power and empowered to ensure that such a Commission is set up. Now that everybody from the separatist leaders to the mainstream leaders have been talking of the unmarked graves and the mystery about who are buried therein, let the truth be brought to the knowledge of the common man whose right to know the truth is bigger and nobler than that of the politicians. |
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