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Dossier
The disappeared
Somewhere between eight and ten thousand men are missing. In 2011 a state human rights commission confirmed 2,730 unmarked graves, and identified 574 of the 2,156 bodies it examined in north Kashmir. Fifteen years later they have not been identified.
The estimate, and whose estimate it is
That attribution is deliberate and it is repeated everywhere this figure appears on the site. APDP was founded in 1994 by Parveena Ahangar, whose own son disappeared, together with other family members of the disappeared. It is a campaigning organisation of victims’ relatives, and its estimate is an estimate. Anyone who tells you the precise number knows less than they claim — because establishing it would require the investigation that has never been permitted.
What is not in dispute is that the practice occurred and that it is unresolved. OHCHR records that cases of enforced disappearance continued to be reported as recently as 2017, and that enforced disappearance is not codified as a criminal offence in Indian law.[1]
The graves
This is the strongest single body of evidence on this site, and it does not come from an advocacy organisation. It comes from an Indian state institution — and it comes in three distinct findings, which are routinely muddled together. This site keeps them separate.
Finding one: 2,730 graves, confirmed 16 April 2011
The Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission took cognizance of the complaints made in two civil society reports — Facts Under Ground and Buried Evidence — and on 16 April 2011 confirmed the existence of 2,730 graves. It recommended forensic examination and DNA testing of the graves and the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry.[2]
Finding two: 574 of 2,156 bodies, north Kashmir
Separately, the SHRC conducted its own investigation into mass graves in northern Kashmir, reported in the Enquiry Report of Unmarked Graves in north Kashmir (SHRC/PIW/2011/1000, 2 July 2011). In the United Nations’ own summary of that enquiry, the Commission “identified 574 bodies out of 2,156 bodies”.[3]
The significance of the 574 is easy to miss. These were bodies buried as unidentified militants — the official account being that the dead were infiltrators from outside. At least 574 of them were local. That is the measurable gap between who the state said it was killing and who was actually in the ground.
The graves lie in the districts of Bandipora, Baramulla and Kupwara. FIDH records that of the graves surveyed there, 2,373 were unmarked. The sites sit close to the Line of Control and are under the close scrutiny of Indian armed forces; access to them is very difficult.[2]
Finding three: Poonch and Rajouri, 24 October 2017 — a different region entirely
On 24 October 2017, responding to a petition by APDP, the SHRC issued an order acknowledging 3,844 unknown, unmarked and mass graves in the districts of Poonch (2,717) and Rajouri (1,127) — in the Jammu division, not the Kashmir valley — and recommended comprehensive investigation using DNA testing, carbon dating and other forensic techniques. The police and the Deputy Commissioners of Poonch and Rajouri acknowledged the presence of 2,080 unidentified persons. OHCHR records the Commission as having directed the Government of Jammu and Kashmir to complete investigations into those 2,080 unmarked graves within six months.[3][2]
The Government of Jammu and Kashmir did not act on the recommendations, citing a “lack of infrastructure”.[2]
Why this site separates the three. The figures 2,730, 2,156, 574, 3,844 and 2,080 refer to different things, in different districts, in different years. Almost every online account of the Kashmir graves collapses them into a single sentence — usually “2,730 bodies”, which is not what any document says. That sort of compression is exactly how a true case gets discredited, so the numbers are kept apart here even though it makes the passage longer. Aggregating across all districts, JKCCS records over 7,000 unmarked and mass graves across seven districts: Baramulla, Bandipora, Kupwara, Poonch, Rajouri, Srinagar and Budgam.
What has been done about the graves
In 2011 the State Human Rights Commission recommended forensic examination, DNA testing and a Commission of Inquiry. In 2017 it recommended DNA testing, carbon dating and other forensic techniques for Poonch and Rajouri, and pressed for complete DNA profiling of the bodies. OHCHR’s 2018 report recommended that India “ensure independent, impartial and credible investigations into all unmarked graves”.{ref(3)}
None of the 2011 recommendations were implemented. The Government of Jammu and Kashmir did not act on the 2017 recommendations either, citing a “lack of infrastructure”. As of September 2026 the graves have not been systematically exhumed and the bodies have not been identified. The single most answerable question in this entire dossier — who is buried there — is unanswered because the exhumation has not been carried out.
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The half-widows
The term used in Kashmir for a woman whose husband has disappeared and whose death has never been confirmed. She is not a widow, because there is no body and no death certificate. The consequences are not merely emotional: without a declaration of death she may face obstacles to remarriage under contested personal-law rulings, and to inheritance, property, custody, pensions and compensation. The state’s failure to account for the disappeared converts itself into decades of legal limbo for the families left behind.
APDP’s monthly sit-in in Srinagar — relatives holding photographs of the missing — has continued for three decades. It is among the longest-running protests of its kind anywhere.
The international position
The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances — all five of its members: Gabriella Citroni (Chair-Rapporteur), Grażyna Baranowska (Vice-Chair), Aua Baldé, Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez and Mohammed Al-Obaidi — was among the fourteen signatories to the UN experts’ statement of 24 November 2025 on Jammu and Kashmir.[4]
India signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in 2007. It has not ratified it. Enforced disappearance remains, as OHCHR noted, uncodified as a criminal offence in Indian law — which means that in the country where between eight and ten thousand men are alleged to have been disappeared, the act itself is not a distinct crime.
Sources & notes
- UN OHCHR, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir, 14 June 2018, “Enforced disappearances”. The National Human Rights Commission of India observed in 2012 that “enforced disappearance was not codified as a criminal offence in domestic law, nor were extant provisions of law used to deter the practice”. India has never allowed a visit by the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, despite issuing a standing invitation to all thematic special procedures in 2011. Cases continued to be reported in 2017.
- FIDH, Kashmir briefing note, 15 March 2019; and JKCCS, Annual Human Rights Review 2019. Both record that the SHRC took cognizance of the complaints in Facts Under Ground and Buried Evidence and on 16 April 2011 confirmed the existence of 2,730 graves, recommending forensic examination, DNA testing and a Commission of Inquiry — none of which were implemented. Both also record the SHRC order of 24 October 2017 acknowledging 3,844 graves in Poonch (2,717) and Rajouri (1,127), and the Government of J&K citing a “lack of infrastructure” for failing to investigate. FIDH records 2,373 of the surveyed graves in Bandipora, Baramulla and Kupwara as unmarked; JKCCS records over 7,000 unmarked and mass graves across seven districts.
- UN OHCHR, 14 June 2018: “In 2011, the SHRC had conducted its own investigation into mass graves in northern Kashmir and identified 574 bodies out of 2,156 bodies”, citing the Office of the Senior Superintendent of Police, J&K State Human Rights Commission, Enquiry Report of Unmarked Graves in north Kashmir (SHRC/PIW/2011/1000), 2 July 2011. The same OHCHR report records that on 24 October 2017 the SHRC directed the Government of J&K to complete investigations into 2,080 unmarked graves in Poonch and Rajouri districts of Jammu division within six months, and carries OHCHR’s recommendation that India ensure independent, impartial and credible investigations into all unmarked graves. A note on a widely repeated error: “2,730 bodies” is not what any of these documents says. 2,730 is a count of graves confirmed in April 2011; the north Kashmir enquiry examined 2,156 bodies and identified 574. This site carried the conflated figure and has corrected it.
- UN OHCHR Special Procedures, 24 November 2025.