Extrajudicial killings in IIOJK

India's reign of terror in Occupied Kashmir continues, with the latest incident being an attempt to frame a war crime as a policing incident. Indian security forces murdered three young men, reportedly just teenagers, and have since been trying to portray them as "terrorists". Their families, however, say they are not linked to any freedom fighters or other militants. It is also interesting that Indian authorities — despite claiming that the victims were "hardcore" militants — produced no evidence suggesting that they had been on a watchlist.

Perhaps that is why the local police are now denying that they were part of the operation. The initial press releases attributed the encounter at a house to a joint operation by the Indian Army and the local and federal police forces, but within hours, the local police claimed it was an army operation, and the police forces had joined much later. The Indian military's story also keeps changing, sometimes claiming that they were shot at, and sometimes that grenades were lobbed at them. Even their timelines don't match up with statements from the victims' families. In fact, one victim's family says he was pulled out of a car and shot.

A recent report suggests that at least 65 Kashmiris have been extrajudicially killed in the occupied territory in 2020, aside from at least 232 freedom fighters killed in the year to date. Amazingly, it would seem that local police forces – which are drawn from Occupied Kashmir, unlike the federal police and army — are actually getting fed up with the behaviour of troops sent in by New Delhi. Keep in mind that earlier this week, the local police actually booked an army officer and two civilians for killing three labourers in an 'encounter' in Shopian in July. In that incident, an army captain kidnapped the three innocent men, murdered them, and then planted evidence on them. Unfortunately, the officer is shielded by India's Army Act and has still not been arrested, nor has the military put him on trial.

It seems the Indian Army approves of outright war crimes against the people it claims to represent.