Srinagar: For more than a decade, Zeenat Mushtaq would make numerous rounds to the Srinagar office of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), in the hope of getting justice for her father, who was killed by security officials at Jammu’s Kot Bhalwal jail in April 1993.
Thirty-one years after her father’s death – an incident that the family terms as a ‘cold-blooded murder’ – Zeenat has lost the slim glimmer of hope which she latched on to in all these years.
“I have lost hope,” she says, nearly five years after the SHRC was wound up in 2019, at the aftermath of the reading down of Article 370 and 35A which led to J&K losing its statehood and being reconstituted as a Union Territory.
The SHRC, a body of immense significance in the strife-torn region where human rights violations have continued over the decades, was among a list of other institutions including the Information and Women’s Commission, which found no place in ‘Naya Kashmir’.
Earlier this year, Zeenat along with many other aggrieved families were hopeful once again, when a panel of the National Human Rights Commission had decided to hear human rights violation cases from the region in an event scheduled from February 7 – 9 in Srinagar.
However, this NHRC public hearing was then abruptly postponed and no further date was announced due to weather conditions, bringing no relief to the victim families.
Never-ending quest for justice
In the 1990s, when Kashmir was faced with massive crackdown on locals, with authorities routinely picking up and shoving them in detention camps and jails, Zeenat’s father Mushtaq Ahmad Botoo was picked up by 10 Garhwal Regiment during a crackdown in 1993, recall family members.
During this period of heightened harassment, humiliation, and torture against Kashmiris in their own land, Botoo was randomly picked up by forces without any charge and was lodged in Badam Bagh army camp and later taken to Kot Bhalwal Jail in Jammu on March 20, 1993.
Almost a month after his imprisonment, the concerned authorities had informed Botoo’s family that he would be released on April 29, 1993 and also notified orders. However, on April 27, 1993 an alleged scuffle took place between the inmates and the security guards (Indo Tibetan Border Police forces) over ill comments made by the latter towards one of the female visitors who had come to see her brother lodged in the jail. The security guards shot Botoo dead.
Later, the security guards claimed that Botoo and others were trying to escape from the Jail.
“My father was unarmed and even if he had tried to run away or escape from the jail, the security guards could have shot him in his leg or anywhere below the waist but he was shot at his vital organs. It was a cold-blooded murder” Zeenat told The Wire.
“From 2009 to 2019, I had been trying to get justice for my father. I was seeking justice for the lost years of my childhood without the shadow of our father, for the depression we still suffer. Initially, I had no hope but I was pursuing my case at SHRC” added Zeenat.
According to Botoo’s family, the SHRC was close to delivering a ruling on the case when the Article 370 move changed the fate of institutions in the region.
“When J&K had its own human rights commission here, we still had hope of getting something resembling justice. What happened to our father can’t be undone. But we were hopeful because we would get calls from the SHRC for our presence and they were concerned about our cases. After the commission ceased to exist, my hope of justice is fading away” said Zeenat.
Zeenat Mushtaq has saved legal documents from over the last many years, as she struggles to get justice for her father, who was killed three decades back. Photo: Tarushi Aswani
Botoo’s case had reached a stage where a magisterial inquiry revealed the causes of the incident in which some persons including detainees and undertrials kept in Sub Jail Kot Bhalwal died and were injured as a result of firing on April 1993.
The magisterial inquiry stated that after 18 years of investigation of the incident, it was learnt that there was a jailbreak attempt, by certain inmates, who also pelted stones at officials inside the jail complex.
However, there was no way to ascertain that Botoo was involved in the incident at this point of time as most of the ITBP/Police personnel have retired from the service and there is no independent witness of the incident other than police and ITBP personnel.
In Botoo’s case, the family was seeking acknowledgement of the wrongs committed at Kot Bhalwal Jail with him and adequate compensation for the same.
The family also says that Jang Bahadur Singh Jamwal, District and Session Judge (Retired), a Member of the J&K SHRC, had directed the government to provide them compensation of Rs 1 lakh which the family declined.
“Our priority is justice” the family members told The Wire.
Till 2019, the SHRC was summoning concerned jailers and accused persons in the case to appear for the hearings before it was shut down.
‘No Institution for Justice’
Since 2011, not a night has passed when Aamir Khuroo, 32, a resident of Kashmir’s Sopore, could sleep in peace. Memories of his younger brother Junaid would constantly haunt him.
On June 23, 2011, a police party raided his house and asked his father, Abdul Qayoom Khuroo, 65, a surrendered militant, to report to the police station in Sopore.
The next day, Abdul Qayoom visited the police station, where he was detained. Thereafter, the concerned SHO asked him to bring his younger son, Junaid to the station.
Later, when Abdul Qayoom brought along his 15-year-old son Junaid, the family claim that the SHO started questioning Junaid about whether he was involved in stone pelting.
Family members say that out of fear, Junaid confessed to the allegation that he was involved in stone pelting. After this, the family members allege that the SHO asked Junaid to sign on a blank paper and asked for a passport size picture of Junaid.
A few days after the questioning, on June 29, 2011, Junaid left for his school to collect his roll number to appear in for the class 10 examination from his school in Sopore’s Noorbagh.
On the same day in the afternoon, his father was called to the same police station to identify Junaid’s body.
Abdul Qayoom alleged that he could see torture marks over his dead son’s body. The Police claimed that Junaid had shot himself with his own pistol but refused to share ballistic and autopsy reports with the family.
For more than a decade now, Junaid’s family members have been struggling to get justice for the dead teenager. They say that Junaid was killed as part of a planned attack to send a message to the stone pelters in the area.
Aamir, Junaid’s elder brother alleged that his brother was picked up and taken to the SOG camp which is on the way to his school. According to the him, the police had informed him that his brother Junaid was a militant and had killed him in an encounter.
After the death of their teenage son, the family had filed a case with SHRC in 2011. In 2019, SHRC gave its judgement in their favour after eight years of hearings.
After the SHRC conducted an investigation, then SHRC member Jamwal said in his recommendations that compensation of Rs. 5 lakh be given to Junaid’s family. He also concluded that Junaid had died in police custody and was killed by the police.
The SHRC member also recommended that a case should be registered in the matter and investigation should be conducted by a person who is an SSP or of higher rank.
The SHRC judgment said that two police officers—Inspector Gazanfar Syeed and Sl Nissar Ahmad—should be dissuaded from their regular police duty so that they should not have a chance to intervene or interfere or hamper any kind of investigation.
“We were very satisfied with the SHRC directives. They had duly investigated the case and we welcomed their final decision. However, the SHRC was shut in 2019 and its cases were transferred to NHRC. Since then, there hasn’t been any implementation of the SHRC’s orders as now there is no institution for justice in Kashmir. Those who were responsible for killing my brother are leading peaceful lives, even when the SHRC had released orders to hold them accountable. All progress that we made with SHRC seems lost,” said Aamir.
‘No way to hold system accountable’
Till the reading down of Article 370 in 2019, SHRC had functioned for 22 years. Human rights and RTI activist MM Shuja feels that along with SHRC, other important commissions were snatched from J&K in 2019, including the Information Commission and Women’s Commission.
Shuja says that on one hand the central government claims that it wants transparency in the system but on the contrary Kashmir doesn’t have any office wherein the concerned persons will be held accountable.
“I am not getting information about the majority of the RTI applications. I am being forced to appeal to the central information commission to intervene. SHRC was an important body. More than 2,800 cases were lying pending at the time of the closure of SHRC, which were later transferred to the NHRC. Among those cases, many were at the concluding stage,” Shuja told The Wire.
He highlighted that since the authorities had transferred the cases to NHRC, the expectations of justice had taken a hit.
“When there is no coordination between the UT administration and the central government, we can’t be expecting any justice from either of these stakeholders” said Shuja.
The Wire also spoke to one of officials of erstwhile SHRC who said that he had no clue or information about the cases that were pending and registered with the commission when it was shut down.
“It has been a long time since the only human rights commission in Kashmir was disbanded. Despite being a part of the commission for a long time, I can’t properly remember the figures of the cases lying pending and registered with the erstwhile SHRC,” the former SHRC member said on condition of anonymity.
In 2023, MHA stated that 1,164 cases from J&K were registered with National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) from October 2019 to December 2022 after disbanding the erstwhile State Human Rights Commission (SHRC). It had also said after the reading of Article 370, at least 765 complaints were pending before the erstwhile SHRC at the time of its winding up in 2019.
