On 30 August, the world marks the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. For Kashmiris, this is not an abstract observance but a day that cuts into their deepest wounds.
Since the 1990s, thousands of men and boys have been picked up by Indian forces and never returned. Families have waited for decades without answers. Mothers have grown old holding photographs of their sons, searching graveyards, knocking at court doors, only to be met with silence or intimidation. The disappearance itself is one crime; the endless suffering inflicted on families is another. Both are recognized in international jurisprudence as continuing violations of human rights.
What India does in occupied Jammu and Kashmir is not the behavior of a democracy but of a criminal state that believes it is above the law.
The evidence is overwhelming. In 2011, even the state-run Jammu and Kashmir Human Rights Commission confirmed the presence of 2,730 unmarked mass graves across Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara. Inside them lay more than 2,943 bodies. The official excuse was that these were “foreign militants” killed in clashes, but the families of the disappeared knew the truth. Many of their loved ones had been taken by soldiers, and these graves stood as silent witnesses to India’s criminal policy of elimination.
International law is clear: enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity, condemned by the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the very foundations of customary law. Yet in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, India has turned disappearance into a routine
weapon of war.
International courts have made it clear that enforced disappearance is among the gravest crimes. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, and the African Commission have all ruled that such acts violate the rights to life, liberty, dignity, and family. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has reminded states that disappearance is a breach of peremptory rules from which no state may derogate. India stands in open violation of these principles.
Despite this , India continues with impunity. Its highest court has failed to protect even the basic right to life in Kashmir. Petitions by families of the disappeared have languished for years in the Supreme Court of India. In rare cases where the Court has spoken, it has condemned “excesses” in theory while refusing to hold the armed forces accountable in practice. This exposes the Indian judiciary not as a guardian of rights but as a collaborator in injustice, shielding the state rather than its victims. Justice for Kashmiris will never come from New Delhi.
Even in death, India extends its cruelty. On 1 September, the anniversary of Syed Ali Shah Gilani, his grave in Srinagar remains under military guard. People are not allowed to gather and pay respects to a leader who embodied Kashmiri resistance for decades. This too is a form of disappearance, an attempt to erase memory, to deny a people the right to mourn, to cut the bond between past and present. It follows the same logic as enforced disappearances: to silence voices, remove bodies, and terrorize the living into submission.
What India does in Kashmir is not a local issue; it is an international crime. Enforced disappearance, arbitrary execution, torture, and collective punishment are all prohibited under international humanitarian and human rights law. Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines enforced disappearance as a crime against humanity when committed in a widespread or systematic manner. No one can deny that India’s policy in Kashmir is both widespread and systematic. The international community has the legal and moral obligation to act. To remain silent is to legitimize the disappearance of thousands of human beings.
For too long, India has relied on its size and its claims of democracy to escape accountability. But Kashmir shatters this façade. What India does in occupied Jammu and Kashmir is not the behavior of a democracy but of a criminal state that believes it is above the law.
International law exists precisely to prevent such impunity. The families of Kashmir’s disappeared are not just crying for their sons, brothers, and fathers; they are crying for justice that the law promises them.
This day reminds the world that these promises have been broken. It is time to confront India’s crimes, not with diplomatic silence but with the force of international law. Until that happens, every unmarked grave in Kashmir will remain an indictment not only of India but of the international community’s failure to uphold the law it claims to defend.
The writer is a lawyer and author based in Islamabad. He tweets @m_asifmahmood