Pakistan’s Foreign Office, in a sharply worded statement, has expressed alarm over a new communication by UN experts on the situation in Indian-administered Kashmir. The language from Geneva leaves little room for ambiguity. Experts describe “serious human rights violations following the Pahalgam saga, documenting arbitrary detentions, forced evictions, home demolitions and sweeping internet restrictions that undermine claims of “normalcy” in the Valley. They speak of around 2,800 people detained, among them journalists and human-rights defenders, under counterterrorism laws that allow prolonged incarceration on vague allegations. Allegations of torture, incommunicado detention and denial of legal safeguards stand at the centre of their concern. New Delhi’s response has been familiar: dismiss the allegations as “misinformed”, challenge the numbers, and move on. Yet the findings, detailed and consistent with developments since 2019, cannot be lightly set aside.
For Kashmiris, none of this is new. Since India revoked the region’s semi-autonomous status six years ago, the Valley has been governed through emergency powers and central rule. What Delhi presents as the restoration of order has instead normalised a grid of surveillance, preventive detention and administrative control. One feature of the present sweep stands out with the reach of punishment beyond the accused. After the blast near Red Fort, authorities have intensified raids across Kashmir, detaining or questioning hundreds. In one now-reported case, a shopkeeper set himself on fire after being briefly detained while his son remained in custody–a measure of the fear the crackdown has generated. These scenes echo the demolitions carried out after the Pahalgam attack, where homes linked to suspects were reduced to rubble despite the Supreme Court’s guidelines declaring punitive bulldozer actions unconstitutional when used as collective punishment. Kashmiri students in cities across India have been profiled and questioned, while Muslim neighbourhoods in other states continue to face bulldozers under the banner of anti-encroachment drives.
What is harder to ignore is the silence abroad. When smaller states face accusations of similar violations, emergency sessions and sanctions threats are not uncommon. In India’s case, strategic partnerships and market interests have produced a striking reluctance to speak plainly. The Kashmir dispute is habitually filed away as a bilateral matter, even as UN investigators outline how mass detentions, demolitions, expulsions and communications blackouts breach basic international conventions. Islamabad has seized on the findings to call for an end to collective punishment, the release of political prisoners and respect for international law; demands that mirror what the experts themselves have urged. Isn’t it high time we realise how a dispute left unresolved for decades has hardened into a system that alienates an entire population? The more the state leans on curfews, preventive detention and demolitions, the further it drifts from any prospect of durable peace. The UN statement may be brushed aside in Delhi and quietly overlooked elsewhere, but it sets out a truth that denial cannot erase. Kashmiris are entitled to the same basic protections others take for granted. *