Custodial Violence in Kashmir by the Indian Security Forces: A Spontaneous Consequence or a Deliberate Counter-Insurgency Policy?

Satnam Singh Deol, Rayees Ahmad Ganai

Guru Nanak Dev University, India

Abstract:

Kashmir has been facing insurgency since more than twenty years. There has been an alarming rise into the cases of custodial violence since the deployment of counter-insurgency security forces in the region. The present study is an attempt to answer the research question that whether custodial violence in Kashmir is an unavoidable consequence of the counter-insurgency operations by the security forces or is it a deliberately selected method of the counter-insurgency policy of the state? The study, through empirical observations, concludes that the magnitude, nature and other attributes of custodial violence in Kashmir do not establish custodial violence as mere an obvious and unavoidable consequence of the counter-insurgency operations. In fact custodial violence has been constantly pursued by the Indian security forces in Kashmir as a deliberately formulated counter-insurgency policy to kill, injure, threaten and humiliate the youth to prohibit them from getting indulged into militancy. The impunity provided by the Indian state to the security forces in Kashmir through inhuman legislations further confirms the aforesaid finding.

Keyword:

Insurgency, Human Rights, Custodial Torture, Custodial Deaths.