Chairman Jammu & Kashmir Salvation Movement (JKSM) Altaf Ahmed Bhat. PHOTO: EXPRESS
ISLAMABAD:
As Kashmir marks another grim anniversary of the Gaw Kadal massacre, senior Hurriyat leader Altaf Ahmed Bhat has renewed calls for international accountability and called for an independent global inquiry into serious human rights violations and war crimes committed by Indian forces in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
In a statement issued from Islamabad on the eve of the anniversary of the massacre, the chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Movement and senior leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference paid solemn tribute to the martyrs of Gaw Kadal, who were killed on January 21, 1990, when Indian forces indiscriminately opened peaceful protests against Srina.
He said the massacre was one of the darkest chapters in Kashmir’s modern history and a stark symbol of the brutal response to unarmed civil resistance.
Recalling the events that led to the bloodshed, Altaf Ahmed Bhat said the protesters at Gaw Kadal had rallied against the reported abuse of Kashmiri women by Indian troops a day earlier, only to be met with bullets instead of justice.
More than fifty civilians were killed and hundreds injured, many of them permanently.
“The victims of Gaw Kadal were not combatants. They were ordinary people demanding dignity, safety and accountability. Their only ‘crime’ was raising their voice,” he said.
Altaf Ahmed Bhat noted that despite the passage of thirty-five years, no one has been held responsible for the massacre. “The denial of justice to the victims and their families is not an exception; it reflects a larger pattern of institutional impunity that has prevailed in occupied Kashmir since 1989,” he said.
He stated that the Kashmiri people have paid an unbearable price for demanding their internationally recognized right to self-determination.
Citing documented data, he said that since 1989, nearly ninety-six thousand Kashmiris have been killed, including thousands in custody or staged encounters.
Hundreds of thousands have been arrested, tens of thousands of homes destroyed, thousands of women widowed, children orphaned and women subjected to sexual violence.
“These are not isolated incidents. They represent a sustained campaign of repression against an entire population,” he added.
He stressed that the Kashmir issue is not just a political dispute but a humanitarian crisis that requires urgent global attention.
“When massacres like Gaw Kadal go unpunished, it encourages further violations. Silence by the international community comes at a price and Kashmiris continue to pay it with their lives,” he noted.
Altaf Ahmed Bhat called on the UN, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the European Union and other international human rights bodies to launch impartial investigations into massacres, enforced disappearances, custodial killings and other serious violations in occupied Kashmir.
He called on world powers to go beyond statements of concern and take concrete steps to ensure accountability.
