Sopore-massacre fact finding probe originally compiled by IKS is an eye-opener to the world that India: LFK
ISLAMABAD, Jan 06 (SABAH): Legal Forum for Kashmir (LFK) launches an archival study based report titled, “Slaughter in Sopore” on 6th January 2023 to commemorate 30th anniversary of the heinous Sopore Massacre carried out by India’s Occupying Forces.
The fact finding probe originally compiled by Institute of Kashmir studies-IKS is eye-opener to the world that India and it’s occupying forces have a history of perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity in IIOJK.
LFK has been archiving various investigative reports that have donned invisibility. Our aim is to bring such work into the public domain. This report on the Sopore massacre is an attempt to disseminate the defiant work carried out by IKS.
On the morning of January 6, 1993, Indian Occupying Forces of 94 Battalion, Border Security Force (94 Bn. BSF), led by Commanding Officer S. Thangappan, shot and killed 46 people and injured dozens more.
In connection with the carnage at Sopore, the following facts about State terrorism have been brought to light by local and international human rights organizations:
(a) State terrorism seems to have crossed all limits when you find such persons among the victims whose age is more than 55 years. The victims include an insane and sick man and a lady traveling in a bus.
b) State terrorism has not spared even the State government employees. In the list of victims, most of the victims are government employees.
(c) Fourteen passengers traveling in the RTC bus JKY 1901, were killed mercilessly on the spot inside the bus. This is clearly an example of state terrorism. There is hardly any parallel to such brutalities.
(d) Most of the killed and injured persons comprise the victims who were busy in shops or at other business establishments or were out attending to their job. These victims were all civilians engaged in earning their day-today livelihood.
(e) It also reveals the extreme level of degradation to which the Indian force has fallen when one finds at least four such victims who were shot at point-blank range and then thrown into the burning fire. Does humanity in the world find such an example elsewhere also?
(f) The State terrorism is so unsparing that even the state’s police personnel are not safe, One Mr. Mushtaq Ahmad Shah, s/o Ghulam Ahmad Shah, r/o Trehgam Kupwara, posted at Police Station Sopore, who, while on his duty of collecting the dead bodies of the victims of the state terror, was shot at, though he had a narrow escape and was only injured in the face.
(g) In the Sopore massacre the civilians killed were:
• Seven in the age group of 50 and Above
• Thirty-three in the age group of 20 50
• Five under the age of 20
Most of the human rights organizations of the world had quickly and sharply reacted to this carnage in Sopore.
Amnesty International, the U.K.-based organization issued an initial report vide its extra-ordinary hand out No: UA 05/93. Al index ASA 20/03/93. did. 8-1-93, 0 Sopore. In this report the Amnesty had expressed deep concern over the extra-judicial killings of people at Sopore by paramilitary forces and at the inadequacy of the Government’s response to effectively investigate the killings. The organization was concerned that the investigation lacks independence required for a fully effective and impartial investigation.
Human rights activists and some senior lawyers of Kashmir have argued that despite court directions in various cases no action has been taken against the armed forces involved in criminal cases and alleged excesses. They confront with court orders and evidence in support of their argument, and have an impunity under various Indian Black laws like AFSPA, and Disturbed Areas Act.
Despite the passage of 3 decades, none of the perpetrators from 94th Battalion of BSF have been held accountable for martyring 46 civilians and injuring dozens more.