The brief argues that the removal of Kashmiri Hindus from the Valley must be read through the law of atrocity crimes, not through the language of “fear,” “sporadic violence,” or “voluntary migration.” Where civilians flee under targeted killings, sexual violence, intimidation, and the collapse of any real safety, the law treats the outcome as coerced displacement. The report applies the tribunal-tested standard of “genuine choice”: if staying is realistically impossible, leaving is not consent.
The report aligns the record of atrocities with a structured legal framework. It traces a core objective consistent with ethnic cleansing: the creation of an ethnically homogeneous space through terror-driven removal. It then shows how the victim group was selected on inherited identity, not conduct, Kashmiri Hindus marked as a community. It documents the methods used to compel flight and prevent return: targeted assassinations and massacres, rape and sexual violence as terror, threats and social intimidation, property stripping and cultural erasure. Emblematic cases are examined to demonstrate how individual crimes served a collective outcome, including the assassination of advocate Tika Lal Taploo and the abduction, rape, and murder of Sarla Bhat.
Legally, the brief explains that “ethnic cleansing” is not a standalone treaty offence, yet the conduct it describes is fully prosecutable through established categories: persecution, murder, rape, and forcible transfer as crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes within a conflict setting. It situates these findings within Indian constitutional guarantees, equality, life, movement, and religious freedom, alongside public international law standards on forced displacement and persecution.
The report also sets out a responsibility chain. It argues that the perpetrator ecosystem was sustained by Pakistan-backed jihad infrastructure and local terrorist networks, and that the enabling environment was reinforced by ideological mobilisation and “soft separatist” cover that normalised denial and insulated perpetrators. Groups discussed include JKLF, Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-linked networks, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, and separatist fronts operating as political shields, most prominently the Hurriyat Conference. The brief outlines the legal rationale for examining cross-border financing, training, infiltration, and sanctuary under doctrines of state responsibility and aiding-and-assisting.
CIHS - Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies 