{"id":205442,"date":"2026-07-17T14:01:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T09:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/?p=205442"},"modified":"2026-07-17T14:01:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T09:01:31","slug":"decades-of-denial-death-certificate-for-the-disappeared-reopens-iiojks-unhealed-wounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/2026\/07\/17\/decades-of-denial-death-certificate-for-the-disappeared-reopens-iiojks-unhealed-wounds.html","title":{"rendered":"Decades of Denial: Death Certificate for the Disappeared Reopens IIOJK’s Unhealed Wounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After nearly three decades of uncertainty, relentless searching and prolonged legal battles, a court in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) finally declared Abdul Rashid Wani dead. The judgment, delivered in April 2026, brought legal closure to one family but also reopened one of the darkest chapters of Kashmir’s modern history\u2014the unresolved tragedy of enforced disappearances.<\/p>\n

For Wani’s son, Junaid Rashid, the court’s decision was not a revelation. It merely confirmed what his family had painfully suspected for nearly twenty-nine years. He was only five years old when his father, a timber trader from Srinagar, was taken into custody by the Indian Army in July 1997 while travelling to pay suppliers. That evening, his wife and two young children waited, dressed to attend a wedding reception. He never returned.<\/p>\n

For years, the family searched every possible avenue. They approached military camps, police stations, government offices and courts. They sold their family home to finance the search and legal proceedings. According to Junaid, they were even pressured to abandon their pursuit after army officers privately advised them to accept the loss and move on.<\/p>\n

One memory continues to haunt him. He recalls his grandmother pleading before an Indian Army officer who had come to their home: “Just give me my son back.”<\/p>\n

Nearly three decades later, that plea remains unanswered.<\/p>\n

\"\"After examining evidence, including a police investigation, the court concluded that Wani had been taken into custody by an Indian Army major, murdered while in custody and his body disposed of. It ordered the issuance of a death certificate\u2014the first judicial declaration of its kind among thousands of disappearance cases in Kashmir.<\/p>\n

Yet the ruling stopped short of providing what the family had sought for decades. It offered no explanation about where Wani’s body was buried, nor did it bring anyone to justice.<\/p>\n

While the judgment delivered legal recognition, it left the central questions unanswered.<\/p>\n

Abdul Rashid Wani’s story is not an isolated one. It mirrors the experiences of thousands of families whose relatives disappeared after being taken away during military operations, raids or interrogations.<\/p>\n

One such family is that of Manzoor Ahmed Dar, who was taken away from his home in Srinagar in 2002 during a midnight operation by Indian troops. His wife, Jana Begum, later recalled that it felt “like a bird of prey snatched him from us.” Despite years of protests, court proceedings and an identification parade in which she identified the officer she believed had detained her husband, the family never discovered his fate.<\/p>\n

Eventually, after police privately informed them that Dar had died during interrogation, the family performed symbolic funeral rites in 2016. Yet they still do not know where his body lies.<\/p>\n

His daughter, Bilkees Manzoor, summed up the anguish shared by countless Kashmiri families when she said that justice would only come when authorities revealed what had happened to her father and where his body had been buried.<\/p>\n

Many other families continue to live in similar uncertainty, reluctant even to speak publicly because of fear of reprisals.<\/p>\n

\"\"One of the most painful consequences of enforced disappearances has been the emergence of the “half-widows”\u2014women whose husbands disappeared but whose deaths were never officially confirmed.<\/p>\n

Unable either to remarry or to properly mourn, these women have spent decades living between hope and despair.<\/p>\n

Fatima Begum of Bandipora is one such woman. Her husband Mansoor disappeared nearly twenty-five years ago, leaving her to raise her children alone amid severe financial hardship. Eventually she found work as a cleaner in a government school under a compassionate employment scheme.<\/p>\n

Despite rebuilding parts of her life, the uncertainty surrounding her husband’s fate has never disappeared.<\/p>\n

“Kashmir is always full of war and half-widows,” she remarked, capturing the painful reality endured by thousands of women across the territory.<\/p>\n

The psychological and social consequences of enforced disappearances have therefore extended far beyond the missing individuals themselves, affecting generations of parents, spouses and children.<\/p>\n

Human rights organizations have consistently argued that Abdul Rashid Wani’s case reflects a much broader pattern of enforced disappearances in Kashmir.<\/p>\n

The Srinagar-based Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) estimates that as many as 8,000 people have disappeared since the armed conflict escalated in 1989.<\/p>\n

The People’s Union for Democratic Rights, a civil liberties group based in New Delhi, described Wani’s judicial declaration of death as encapsulating Kashmir’s broader human rights tragedy since military violence and mass uprising surged in 1989.
\nAccording to the organization, his case symbolizes thousands of unresolved disappearances that have remained without accountability for decades.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Kashmiri and international human rights defenders have repeatedly called for impartial investigations into these disappearances, emphasizing that justice remains impossible without truth and accountability.<\/p>\n

The issue of enforced disappearances has become inseparable from another disturbing reality\u2014the discovery of hundreds of unmarked and unidentified graves across different parts of Kashmir.<\/p>\n

In 2009, the APDP documented approximately 2,700 unmarked graves in remote areas near the Line of Control.<\/p>\n

Local residents told investigators they had buried bodies left behind by Indian forces, often without knowing the identities of the deceased.<\/p>\n

One cemetery caretaker in Bimyar, Baramulla, told investigators he had personally buried at least 203 unidentified bodies brought by police from different parts of the Valley. According to the APDP, these bodies, many bearing bullet wounds, were buried as “unidentified militants” without any forensic identification or DNA profiling.<\/p>\n

The organization called for exhumation, scientific DNA testing and comparison with samples from families searching for missing relatives.<\/p>\n

Those demands remain largely unanswered.<\/p>\n

Subsequent investigations by the then Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission confirmed the existence of 2,730 bodies buried at 38 locations. The commission acknowledged that many of those buried could be victims of enforced disappearances.<\/p>\n

The commission recommended comprehensive DNA profiling to establish the identities of the deceased and match them with families searching for missing relatives. However, those recommendations have never been implemented.<\/p>\n

The commission itself ceased functioning after the BJP-led Indian government revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status in August 2019.<\/p>\n

Independent investigations by the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice documented nearly 2,700 unidentified graves containing about 2,943 bodies across Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipora districts. \u201cThese graves sprung up at various times during the 1990 to 2010 year of turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir,” said the Tribunal. Rights groups argue that these findings require an independent international investigation to establish the truth.<\/p>\n

Other rights organizations, including APDP and Voice of Victims Jammu and Kashmir, estimate that more than 6,700 unmarked and mass graves exist across the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region.<\/p>\n

Renowned Kashmiri rights activists, Abdul Qadeer Dar, Muhammad Ahsan Untoo and Kumar Wancho said that the people missing in Kashmir since 1989 must be buried somewhere in the Valley as there were no whereabouts provided by the authorities about them.<\/p>\n

Several Indian human rights defenders, including Gautam Navlakha, have similarly maintained that the scale of unmarked graves demands international attention and independent forensic examination.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International has also urged India to conduct prompt, independent and transparent investigations into the unidentified graves and ensure justice for victims’ families.<\/p>\n

The official recognition of Abdul Rashid Wani’s death has undoubtedly provided his family with a measure of legal closure. Yet closure without accountability offers little comfort to families who continue to search for truth.<\/p>\n

The whereabouts of Wani’s body remain unknown. No comprehensive process has been undertaken to identify victims buried in unmarked graves. Thousands of disappearance cases remain unresolved, while generations of Kashmiris continue to bear the emotional, psychological and social consequences of decades-old crimes.<\/p>\n

The passage of time has neither diminished the pain nor erased the demand for justice.<\/p>\n

For thousands of families across Kashmir, the question remains unchanged: not merely whether their loved ones are dead, but where they are, what happened to them, and who will ultimately be held accountable.<\/p>\n

Abdul Rashid Wani’s death certificate may have formally closed one legal case after twenty-nine years, but it has also reopened one of Kashmir’s deepest and most enduring wounds. Until enforced disappearances are independently investigated, unmarked graves scientifically examined, victims identified and those responsible brought to justice, the tragedy of Kashmir’s disappeared will remain one of the region’s most painful unresolved human rights legacies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  After nearly three decades of uncertainty, relentless searching and prolonged legal battles, a court in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) finally declared Abdul Rashid Wani dead. The judgment, delivered in April 2026, brought legal closure to one family but also reopened one of the darkest chapters of Kashmir’s modern history\u2014the unresolved tragedy …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":205446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t