Kashmir Lolab area home to mass graves

Three and a half hour drive through alpine forests, autumn meadows, beautiful orchards, overlooking snow-capped mountains, leads us to one of the most exotic places in Indian-controlled Kashmir - Lolab.

However, there is an ugly truth hidden few feet under the earth beneath. The horrible story of one of the world’s longstanding conflicts. 

Situated close to the ceasefire line between India and Pakistan, Lolab has a graveyard where scores of unidentified bodies lie buried. Most of the graves remain unmarked. Interestingly, there are many graves with tin plates erected on them, giving numbers and details of identification of the dead buried inside. 

The graveyard hogged the headlines in 2010 when three youth who were dubbed as militants and killed near the ceasefire line and buried in this graveyard, were identified by their relatives after their pictures appeared in the press. The bodies were later exhumed. 

According to the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir, there are more than 60000 graves dotting the Kashmir landscape and every grave has a story - a tragic story - to tell. 

In 2011, state-run human rights commission confirmed the presence of scores of unmarked mass graves across 55 villages of north Kashmir, carrying over 2000 unidentified bodies. 

The authorities claimed that the graves carry the bodies of foreign militants killed in counter unrest operations. However, the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice (PTHRJ), in its report, rebuffed the government version and said the graveyards investigated carried mostly the bodies of those mowed down in fake encounters between 1990 and 2009. 

Despite incessant pleas by the commission, the government authorities in Kashmir turned down the demand for wide-scale DNA testing of bodies in these unmarked graves. 

With alleged government indifference, critics say the human rights violations continue unabated in this disputed Himalayan region and the people are now demanding their right to self determination and independence from India.