• Judge confirms missing man was murdered in military custody 29 years ago
• Human rights groups estimate up to 8,000 people have vanished since 1989
• Indian troops maintain blanket immunity from civilian prosecution, with zero trials permitted to date

SRINAGAR: In a damning indictment of institutionalised impunity in India-held Kashmir, a judge has declared a man dead nearly three decades after his forced disappearance, exposing a decades-long state cover-up of his murder by an Indian army officer.

The ruling ordered a death certificate for Abdul Rashid Wani. It marks the first such judgement among thousands of petitions for the disappeared, offering a rare recognition of loss that many families still do not have.

The judgement cited a police probe that identified the army major who took Wani into custody in July 1997.

The ruling said the army major “had murdered Abdul Rashid Wani in his custody and had disposed of his corpse”, recording his death on the day he vanished. The location of his body remains unknown.

Junaid Rashid was five when his father, a timber trader, was stopped near his Srinagar home while carrying cash for suppliers.

That evening, his family waited for him to take them to a wedding reception, but he never returned.

Now 34, Rashid said, “After 29 years, the government has acknowledged in court that such an atrocity occurred.” His family made every effort, including selling their home, to find Wani, despite army officers pressuring them to stop and offering money, saying, “what has happened has happened.”

Enforced disappearance

Wani’s judicial death “encapsulates the human rights story” in Kashmir since violence surged in 1989, according to the People’s Union for Democratic Rights, a civil liberties group.

The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons estimates up to 8,000 people have vanished. In Kashmir, the wives of the missing men are known as “half-widows” — unable to fully mourn until they know their husbands are dead.

In 2009, it documented around 2,700 unmarked graves near the Line of Control, with residents claiming they buried mutilated bodies left by the Indian forces.

In Kupwara, villagers reportedly buried about 500 bodies from 1990 to 2000. In 2011, held Kashmir’s Human Rights Commission found bodies at 38 sites, but identified only 464 out of 2,730.

Despite calls for DNA testing, no action was taken before the commission was disbanded in 2019 after New Delhi took direct control of held Kashmir.

Other families share similar stories. In 2002, Manzoor Ahmed Dar was seized by soldiers and later privately acknowledged to have died during interrogation.

Accountability remains elusive due to systemic impunity.

Security personnel can be tried in civilian courts only with special government permission. Records show local authorities have made at least 50 requests for prosecution after police investigations found prima facie evidence of human rights abuses, including enforced disappearances.

No such permission has ever been granted. Furthermore, New Delhi has not ratified the binding UN human rights treaty criminalising enforced disappearances.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2026