Agencies/New Delhi


Soldiers salute during a wreath-laying ceremony for Navdeep Singh, an army officer who was killed in Saturday’s Kashmir border clash, at a garrison in Srinagar yesterday
More than 2,000 corpses have been found buried in several unmarked graves in Kashmir, believed to be victims of the state’s separatist revolt, a government human rights commission said in a report.
The graves were found in dozens of villages near the Line of Control, the military line dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
“At 38 places visited in north Kashmir, there were 2,156 unidentified dead bodies buried in unmarked graves,” the inquiry report by the Indian government’s Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (J&KSHRC) said.
The report, released on Saturday, comes after a three-year inquiry by an 11-member team led by a senior police official.
Nearly 50,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since a revolt against New Delhi’s rule began in 1989.
Indian security forces in Kashmir have been accused of murdering innocent civilians in staged gun battles and passing them off as separatist militants to earn rewards and promotions.
Indian authorities have consistently denied systematic human rights violations in Kashmir and say they probe all such reports and punish the guilty.
The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), which estimates around 10,000 people went missing during nearly two decades of separatist revolt, says many missing people may have ended up in these unmarked graves.
“We appeal to international human rights groups and Indian authorities to identify the people buried,” said Parveena Ahanger, founder and chairperson of the APDP.
International human rights groups have also repeatedly asked the Indian authorities to investigate the unmarked graves.
On Saturday, Indian soldiers shot dead 12 separatist militants trying to cross from Pakistan into the state, where popular protests against Indian rule have mounted.
Fears are growing in India of an escalation in rebel incursions into Kashmir from Pakistan before winter snow blocks the Himalayan mountain passes.
“In the biggest success so far this year, the army today killed 12 terrorists in Gurez Sector, thereby foiling a major infiltration attempt,” army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel J S Brar said, describing it as the most fierce gun battle this year.
An Indian army officer was also killed, he added.
The guerrillas were crossing the Kishenganga River on Friday night when they were detected and asked to surrender.
“But they started firing at the troops resulting in a gunfight that ended today (Saturday) afternoon. Six bodies of the slain terrorists have been retrieved from the river while the bodies of the other six slain terrorists were washed away into the Pakistan side of the border,” Maj Gen S K Chaturvedi told reporters in Gurez.
The army displayed arms and ammunition recovered from the slain guerrillas.