It seems the cries of the Kashmiri Muslims of Indian occupied Kashmir have finally reached the ears of the international community. Some of the international human rights bodies have been pleading with the United Nations Secretary General to take cognizance of the situation in the Indian held Kashmir and the massive human rights abuses there by the Indian troops.

The Human Rights Watch has asked the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who is due to visit India in April to make human rights violations, such as extra-judicial killings (in conflict areas), a central part of his discussions with the Indian government officials. The South Asia Director of the HRW asked the secretary general not to gloss over the serious domestic violence. He should in particular press the Indian government to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which provides immunity to soldiers responsible for serious human rights violations and has led to widespread abuses in Jammu and Kashmir, besides other places.

Another encouraging development has been that the team of United Nations led by Special Rapporteur which visited India recently also visited occupied Kashmir and met the human rights activists and parents and family members of the disappeared persons allegedly killed by the army or the police in custody. The leader of the delegation Christof Heyns said that right to life is the most important of all human rights and 'the United Nations has come to know that this important right is being violated in Kashmir.' He told the media that he met and talked to the affected persons or their family members, the volunteers and human rights activists and 'will soon prepare an interim report and subsequently will submit our final report to UN's Human Rights Council'. The UN team also met the head of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons and the head of Coalition of Civil Societies who submitted papers and documents to him containing details of extra-judicial killings and deaths.

It may be recalled here that besides thousands of killings and disappearances in the Indian occupied Kashmir during the last three decades, about 4000 unmarked graves suspected to be of those killed and secretly buried by the Indian security forces , have been found in occupied Kashmir. According to the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons and International Peoples Tribunal for Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir, there are around 2717 graves in 90 graveyards of Poonch and 1127 graves in 118 graveyards in Rajouri area of occupied Kashmir. A government commission, however, said that 2156 unidentified bodies had been reported buried at 38 sites in the state. Now the local police have submitted a fresh list of such graves to the commission. It only confirms what the families of the disappeared persons had been wailing about for years. All these reports take one back to the unresolved issue of Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim majority area forcefully occupied by India at the time of partition of the sub-continent into India and Pakistan according to which the Muslim majority areas had to be part of Pakistan. The Muslims of Kashmir who constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, have waging a struggle for the last over six decades against the illegal occupation of their homeland by India. But India which has disregarded the UN Security Council resolutions asking for a plebiscite to decide the future of the state, has been deploying 600,000 troops in the area to suppress the Kashmiri people demanding their right to self-determination. Will the international community now rise to the occasion to put a stop to the Indian atrocities on the Kashmiri people and help them to exercise their right to self determination to throw off the Indian yoke?

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