The numbers, and who counted them

Every load-bearing figure on this site in one place, with its source, its date and its limitations. If a number here cannot be traced, it should not be here — tell us.

The disagreement, first

No table on this page matters as much as this one. It is the same year, the same territory, and the same paragraph of the same UN report.^[1]

Conflict deaths in Jammu & Kashmir, 2018 — two counts
Counted by	Civilians	Militants	Security forces	Total
JKCCS Kashmiri civil society	~160	267	159	586
Ministry of Home Affairs Government of India, to 2 Dec 2018	37	238	86	not stated
Difference on civilians	~4.3×	1.1×	1.8×	—

Every figure on this site

Figure	What it counts	Source	Date	Limits
70,000+	People killed since 1989 — the count kept by Kashmiri civil society	IPTK + APDP, Alleged Perpetrators, and Kashmiri civil society generally	Dec 2012 onward	Stated by IPTK as “more than 70,000 deaths”. An advocacy figure, named as such, and not sourced within that report’s own passage. Printed because it is the count the people of the territory keep — see the note below the table.
~40,000–47,000	The same dead, on the lower totals that circulate in Indian official and media accounts	Indian official and media accounts	various	This site could not trace a single authoritative Government of India total. The absence is itself the finding.
0	Independent counts of the dead ever permitted in Jammu and Kashmir	—	1989–2026	OHCHR asked for a commission of inquiry in 2018 and for access in 2018 and 2019. Neither India nor Pakistan granted it. This is why the two counts above cannot be reconciled.
1,253	People blinded by metal pellets	Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, Srinagar, via UN OHCHR	mid-2016 – end 2018	Counts those blinded, not those hit. Hospital caseload, so undercounts anyone not treated there.
8,000–10,000	Men subjected to enforced disappearance	APDP — organisation of victims’ families	since 1990	An advocacy organisation’s estimate, not a UN or judicial finding. Establishing a true figure would require the investigation never permitted.
2,730	Graves — not bodies — confirmed to exist	J&K State Human Rights Commission, via FIDH and JKCCS	16 Apr 2011	A count of graves. The SHRC recommended forensic examination, DNA testing and a Commission of Inquiry; none was implemented.
574 of 2,156	Bodies examined in the SHRC north Kashmir enquiry that were identified — as local Kashmiris	SHRC enquiry SHRC/PIW/2011/1000, via UN OHCHR 14 Jun 2018	2 July 2011	Buried as unidentified infiltrators; at least 574 were local. A separate finding from the 2,730 graves.
2,080	Unidentified persons in graves the SHRC directed be investigated — in Poonch and Rajouri, Jammu division	SHRC order, recorded in UN OHCHR 14 Jun 2018	24 Oct 2017	A different region and a different year from the north Kashmir enquiry. FIDH and JKCCS record the same order as acknowledging 3,844 graves — Poonch 2,717, Rajouri 1,127.
0	Prosecutions of armed forces personnel sanctioned under AFSPA	UN OHCHR	to 8 July 2019	OHCHR’s finding covers ‘nearly three decades’ to July 2019. This site does not assert what happened after that date without a source.
432	Torture case studies documented	APDP + JKCCS	20 May 2019	Advocacy organisations, named. The most detailed record in existence; not a random sample.
301	Of those 432 victims, civilians	APDP + JKCCS	2019	The report’s central finding on who torture was used against.
49 (11.3%)	Of the 432, died during or after torture	APDP + JKCCS	2019	40 of the 49 deaths attributed to torture injuries.
222 (51.4%)	Of the 432, suffered lasting health problems	APDP + JKCCS	2019	209 of them chronic. No compensation received.
29.4%	Of the 432, subjected to genital electrocution	APDP + JKCCS	2019	Applies to victims of both sexes.
12	Of the 24 women among the 432, raped by armed personnel	APDP + JKCCS	2019	—
121	Case studies naming the Rashtriya Rifles	APDP + JKCCS	2019	Most-named regiment, of 288 army-regiment mentions.
500	Individual alleged perpetrators identified from 214 cases	IPTK + APDP, Alleged Perpetrators	Dec 2012	Compiled over two years largely from official state documents. 235 army, 123 paramilitary, 111 J&K Police, 31 government-backed militants. Advocacy organisations, named.
2 + 3	Major Generals and Brigadiers among the alleged perpetrators	IPTK + APDP	Dec 2012	Plus 9 Colonels, 78 Majors, 25 Captains, 37 senior federal paramilitary officials, a recently retired DGP of J&K Police and a serving Inspector General.
124	Extra-judicial killings recorded across those 214 cases	IPTK + APDP	Dec 2012	Plus 65 enforced disappearances, 59 instances of torture, 9 rapes. Some cases involve more than one.
96	Of the 214 cases, those naming the Rashtriya Rifles	IPTK + APDP	Dec 2012	Ahead of BSF (70) and CRPF (34). Independently matches the 2019 torture report’s finding on the same formation.
27	Of the 432 cases, those that reached the State Human Rights Commission	APDP + JKCCS	2019	Roughly one in sixteen. Reaching a commission is not a prosecution.
~23	Women gang-raped at Kunan Poshpora by soldiers of the 4 Rajputana Rifles	UN OHCHR 14 Jun 2018, paras. 129–131 — per survivors and the Deputy Commissioner of Kupwara’s official report	23 Feb 1991	Denied by the Army and the Government of India. Police stopped investigating by Oct 1991, declaring the case ‘untraceable’. No conviction.
at least 53	Killed by the BSF at Sopore	Amnesty International ASA 20/17/93	6 Jan 1993	Some secondary sources give 43 or 57. Amnesty’s primary case study says at least 53.
at least 47	Killed by the CRPF at a funeral procession, Srinagar	Amnesty International ASA 20/17/93	21 May 1990	—
13	Killed by the BSF at Sopore	Amnesty International ASA 20/17/93	13 Apr 1992	—
1,081	Civilians killed by security forces in extrajudicial killings	JKCCS, via UN OHCHR	2008–2018	JKCCS figure; named as such.
213	Days with no internet at all	Internet Society Pulse; SFLC.in tracker	from 5 Aug 2019	Plus ~550 days of partial or no connectivity. 4G restored 5 Feb 2021.
65 of 134	India’s 2018 internet shutdowns that were in J&K	Civil society tracker, via UN OHCHR	2018	Half of all Indian shutdowns were in the Kashmir Valley.
25	Internet shutdowns in J&K in four months	UN OHCHR	Jan–Apr 2019	—
74–95%	Kashmir Valley respondents who would vote for independence — Baramula 95%, Srinagar 82%, Badgam 75%, Anantnag 74%	Chatham House / Bradnock, Kashmir: Paths to Peace	May 2010	3,774 face-to-face interviews, both sides of the LoC, Sept–Oct 2009. Quota sampling; 15 years old; no comparable survey permitted since.
2%	Respondents across Indian-administered J&K who would vote to join Pakistan	Chatham House / Bradnock	May 2010	6% in Srinagar. Printed on a site argued from a Pakistani perspective because it is what the only serious survey found.
43%	Independence support across the whole territory — the most popular single option, but not a territory-wide majority	Chatham House / Bradnock	May 2010	A majority in only four districts, all in the Kashmir Valley; 1% or less in five others; near zero in Jammu Division. The polarisation is the argument for a vote.
96%	Srinagar respondents naming unemployment as a main problem facing Kashmir	Chatham House / Bradnock	May 2010	98% Anantnag, 94% Baramula, 87% across J&K. Ranked above corruption (68%) and human rights abuses (43%) by the same people.
>90%	Of Pakistan’s crops watered by the Indus system, whose three western rivers flow through contested Jammu and Kashmir	CSIS	2025	Also: >75% of Pakistan’s renewable water originates outside its borders, almost entirely from the Indus. India held the 1960 treaty “in abeyance” from April 2025.
45%	Adults in the Kashmir Valley with symptoms of significant mental distress	MSF + University of Kashmir + IMHANS	2015 survey	~1.8m adults. Symptom screening (‘probable’), not confirmed clinical diagnosis. 5,600 households.
19%	Adults with symptoms of probable PTSD	Same survey	2015	41% probable depression; 26% probable anxiety.
~2,800	Detained after the Pahalgam attack	UN Special Procedures (14 mandate holders)	24 Nov 2025	Includes journalists and human rights defenders. Held under PSA or UAPA.
~8,000	Social media accounts blocked	UN Special Procedures	24 Nov 2025	Includes journalists and independent media outlets.
~1,900	Muslims and Rohingya expelled to Bangladesh and Myanmar	UN Special Procedures	24 Nov 2025	Often without due process; identified as a non-refoulement breach.
26	Killed at Pahalgam	UN Special Procedures; HRW World Report 2026	22 Apr 2025	Mostly Hindu tourists. Condemned unequivocally by the UN experts and by this site.
40	CRPF personnel killed at Pulwama	UN OHCHR	14 Feb 2019	—
29	Of 2018’s civilian deaths, caused by Pakistani shelling across the LoC	JKCCS, via UN OHCHR	2018	Printed because the same paragraph is the source for the 71 attributed to Indian forces.
25	Books banned; bookshops raided	Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026	Aug 2025	Included A Dismantled State by Anuradha Bhasin.
14	UN special-procedure mandate holders signing the Kashmir statement	UN OHCHR	24 Nov 2025	All named on the record page.

Figures this site will not print

A data page is defined as much by what it refuses to carry. These are the numbers that circulate widely and are absent here, with the reason.

Troop deployment numbers. “Six hundred thousand”, “seven hundred thousand”, “the most militarised place on earth” — all widely repeated, none traceable to a verifiable official or independent count. Deployment figures are not published.
Troop numbers. “Six hundred thousand”, “seven hundred thousand”, “the most militarised place on earth” — all widely repeated, none traceable to a verifiable official or independent count. Deployment figures are not published.
Kashmiri Pandit displacement and death figures. Genuinely disputed between government records, community organisations and academic studies. This site will not manufacture precision here in either direction. Discussed on Hard Questions.
Casualties from the four-day India–Pakistan exchange of 2025. Both governments made claims; neither has been independently verified. Reported as claims, attributed, never as fact.
Domicile certificates issued to non-residents, and land transferred. Central to File 11 and deliberately left blank, because no reliable independent figure has been found.

On the death toll, and why this site prints it

An earlier version of this page refused to print any total for the dead, on the grounds that the circulating range was too wide to source. That was the wrong call, and it broke this site’s own rule.

The rule is print both counts and name who counted. That is what this site does for 2018, where JKCCS counted 586 dead and India’s Home Ministry counted a fraction of the civilians. Refusing a figure is not more rigorous than attributing it — it is just silence, and silence about the number of dead is exactly what the people who did the killing would prefer.

So: more than 70,000 is the count kept by Kashmiri civil society and stated by the International People’s Tribunal. Lower totals of roughly 40,000–47,000 circulate in Indian official and media accounts. Both are above. Neither can be verified, because no independent count has ever been permitted — OHCHR asked for a commission of inquiry in 2018 and was refused, and asked for access twice and was refused. The international record →

The gap between 47,000 and 70,000 is twenty-three thousand people. That a dispute of that size can persist for thirty-seven years, unresolved, is not a statistical curiosity. It is the clearest possible argument for the investigation that has never been allowed.

How to check any of this

Take a figure from the table above, open the source document, and search it. The two OHCHR reports are paragraph-numbered and free; the Amnesty reports carry index numbers; the MSF survey publishes its methodology. Direct links to every primary document are in the library.

If a number here does not survive that test, tell us and it will be corrected or removed. That offer is the whole point of the page.

Sources & notes

UN OHCHR, Update of the Situation of Human Rights in Indian-Administered Kashmir and Pakistan-Administered Kashmir from May 2018 to April 2019, 8 July 2019, paras. 7–8.