Bulldozers from British construction equipment giant JCB are being used to commit “gross human rights violations” in Indian-controlled Kashmir, human rights group Amnesty International has said, as Narendra Modi’s government exerts a mass eviction drive in the valley.
Tensions are running high in several districts in Kashmir over the past several days, after Indian authorities demolished parts of homes, businesses and farmlands they say encroach on state land.
Activists and residents dispute the accusation, saying the Indian government was using “the law” as a pretext to economically disempower Kashmiris and institute demographic change.
The evictions were temporarily halted without explanation or clarification from officials.
Many residents told Amnesty that authorities had neither informed them nor followed any process before demolishing their property.
Amnesty added that several residents even possessed documents proving ownership of their properties, but officials had refused to allow them to make their case before bulldozers destroyed their homes.
In a statement released last week, Amnesty International UK’s Economic Affairs director Peter Frankental said that the UK firm JCB, whose bulldozers were being used to dismember homes and businesses, “should be horrified that their equipment is being used in some of these demolitions” and called on the company to take “active steps to prevent this”.
“At the very least, JCB should use their dealer and customer contracts and their diagnostic technology to prevent such misuse, including by decommissioning machines remotely where possible.
“If JCB fails to act over Kashmir it would be another example of the company falling short of its obligation to conduct proper human rights due diligence over how its machines are being used around the world.”
JCB did not reply to MEE’s multiple requests for comment by the time of publication, and it is not known whether or not JCB was aware that its machines were being used to conduct these evictions.
Settler-colonial project
Amnesty’s statement came a day after Legal Forum for Kashmir (LFK), an international advocacy group based in Pakistan, released a report detailing the eviction project in 20 districts in the valley.
The 187-page report, “The Great Land Grab: Disempowering People in Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir”, argues that when India revoked Article 370 which ended Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status in August 2019 – including Article 35A that restricted land ownership to Kashmiri permanent residents – it opened the floodgates for the Indian government to exercise several other laws to dispossess Kashmiris.
“Under the Reorganization Act 2019 the occupying state repealed and amended more than 200 laws which claimed to safeguard the land and citizenship rights of indigenous Kashmiris,” the report said, likening the process in Kashmir to Israel’s settler colonial project in Palestine.
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