Man who sent 235 nameless bodies in grave, walks to his own

BARAMULLA: Atta Mohammad Khan, Kashmir’s gravedigger believed to have buried 235 unidentified bodies that the police brought to his village during militancy, died at his home in North Kashmir’s border town of Uri on Sunday night. Khan was 73.

Khan, a farmer of Chahal Bimbyar village, was battling asthma for the past few years.

“He was in the hospital, but we recently brought him home. He died of kidney failure,” said his son, Manzoor Ahmad.

Khan was a known face in the civil society circles in Kashmir Valley after his help to uncover the existence of unmarked mass graves in Kashmir in 2008 and 2009.

In 2013, he documented his testimony in a book of essays titled ‘Of Occupation and Resistance; Writings from Kashmir’, which was compiled by local journalist Fahad Shah.

Khan wrote that he buried more than 235 bullet-riddled and mutilated bodies of unknown people, whom police would hand over to him claiming they were foreign militants. He wrote that some of them later turned out to be locals.

“The army used to hand over bodies to local police stations and the policemen had to bury them. The policemen in turn used to come to gravediggers like me with the bodies. From 2003, the brutal period started, which lasted till 2006. It used to be one body, three bodies or sometimes more than six per day. It continued for years and I would bury them here in the same graveyard,” he wrote.

Two civil society bodies under the banner of Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) have acknowledged the role of Khan for his courage saying their reports, documenting the presence of unmarked graves in Kashmir, would not have been possible without his help.

The reports, published in 2008 and 2009, documented the presence of some 2,700 unknown, unmarked, and mass graves, containing 2,943 people in three northern districts of Kashmir Valley, close to the Line of Control.

After an enquiry, the reports were acknowledged by the State Human Rights Commission in 2011, admitting the presence of 2,156, unidentified bodies buried in 38 sites in north Kashmir.

JKCCS programme coordinator Khurram Parvez described Khan “brave Kashmiri, who despite an atmosphere of militarisation and repression, continued to speak truth”.

“Many other gravediggers didn’t cooperate with civil society bodies, but Mohammad did. He faced threats, yet he came forward,” he said.

A brave Kashmiri: APDP

Atta Mohammad is one such brave Kashmiri who despite an atmosphere of militarization and repression, continued to speak truth. In the last 25 years of violent repression, Atta Mohammad in his village received 235 unidentified bullet ridden dead bodies, most of whom the armed forces claimed are militants killed in encounters. This included the dead body of a six-moth old baby girl.

According to Atta Mohammad, he felt the forces that killed these unidentified persons, would not have paid respect to the dead; therefore he chose to give them a proper burial. On some occasions, he and the local community members would retain some belonging of the dead, which helped in identification, when their families came looking for them.

So far Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) through sustained research work, have been able to document the existence of 7000 unmarked graves in Baramulla, Kupwara, Bandipora, Poonch and Rajouri districts of Jammu and Kashmir. The government has no records to prove the identity of these unidentified persons.

There are many places where local gravediggers have been involved in burying the unidentified dead persons after the dead bodies were hand over to them by the army or Police. Atta Mohammad is amongst very few people who came out in the open to testify as the witness. He was perhaps the only gravedigger who did not mind being identified by his name publicly despite being intimidated by the Police. He was very keen that his testimony should have been used by the government for conducting a credible investigation into the phenomenon of unmarked graves in Jammu and Kashmir.

APDP pays rich tribute to this courageous man, who lived his life in abject poverty and did not compromise on speaking the truth.

Follow this link to join our WhatsApp group: Join Now

MONTHLY	Rs 100
YEARLY	Rs 1000
LIFETIME	Rs 10000

CLICK FOR DETAILS