SRINAGAR, Feb 18: More than 300 people have been killed in police custody in occupied Kashmir since an insurgency began in 1989, according to a police report obtained on Monday.

The state police report, obtained by AFP from a source, said 331 people had died in custody and 111 had disappeared after being arrested — the first time security officials have given numbers on custodial killings and disappearances.

Local human rights groups, however, say some 8,000 people are missing, most of them after they were arrested by the security forces. But officials say many of these people had crossed over to Pakistan. Police in Kashmir are also investigating five cases where innocent civilians were detained and killed, and then passed off as militants.

Nearly a dozen police officers have been arrested and charged with murder in those cases. Still, rights groups say the number of such cases have declined over the past year, matching a similar drop in violence attributed to the ongoing peace process between New Delhi and Islamabad.—AFP