Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I have only two minutes left, so I am going to speak very fast. I wish to refer to an article written by Dr Angana Chatterji, the associate professor of social and cultural anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Along with her cameraman and a number of other people, she went to Jammu and occupied Kashmir. Her article states:

“Dirt, rubble, thick grass, hillside and flatland, crowded with graves. Signifiers of military and paramilitary terror, masked from the world. Constructed by institutions of state to conceal massacre. Placed next to homes, fields, schools, an army practice range. Unknown, unmarked. Over 940 graves in a segment of Baramulla district alone. Some containing more than one cadaver. Dug by locals, coerced by the police, on village land. Bodies dragged through the night, some tortured, burnt, desecrated. Circulating mythology claims these graves uniformly house ‘foreign militants’. Exhumation and identification have not occurred in most cases. When undertaken”—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Sadly, we have to start the wind-ups now, and I apologise to the hon. Lady.