The government wouldn’t respond to the latest report by Kashmiri non-governmental organisations that have documented alleged disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir over the past two decades.
However, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson said the government interacted with the U.N. rights panel and addressed any complaints.
Asked for a response to the demand by the NGOs and international groups like Amnesty International for a U.N. Special Rapporteur to look into the cases, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup told The Hindu that “the government of India regularly engages with the Working Group of the U.N. Human Rights Commission through its mission in Geneva.”
The spokesperson said all complaints on “disappeared people”, or people arrested or killed without accountable processes are referred by the committee to the government. “We send all such cases to the MHA for investigation.”
In March 2015, Juan Mendez, a Special Rapporteur had accused India along with countries like U.S., Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan of being “unresponsive” to the U.N.’s requests for country visits.
At the time an official statement had said that, “India has extended a standing invitation to U.N. Special Rapporteurs to visit India on a mutually convenient time.”
“We already have hosted nine Special Rapporteurs. We are therefore not averse to their visits. It is a matter of sequencing and timing.”
