Kashmir: Teacher dies in Indian police custody

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir

A 28-year-old teacher Rizwan Asad died in police custody in Jammu and Kashmir late Monday, his family confirmed on Tuesday.

Asad, an Awantipora resident in the Pulwama district, south Kashmir, was reportedly arrested last week by National Investigative Agency of India as part of a crackdown on socio-political and religious organisation Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir, which was banned in February.

“This morning we came to know that my brother has been killed,” Asad’s brother Zulkarnain told media after reports of custodial death emerged.

“My brother has been killed in police custody in cold blood,” he said.

Asad and his father were both associated with the Jamaat-e-Islami group, Zulkarnain said. "It [being associated with Jamaat-e-Islami] is not a crime."

Since his arrest, Asad had been kept at the dreaded anti-insurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) headquarter of the police, called Cargo, in the capital Srinagar city of Jammu and Kashmir.

Police officials also confirmed Asad’s death, however, they were reluctant to comment on how he died in custody.

“We have requested for magisterial inquiry under 176 CrPc (Criminal Procedure Code) to initiate a thorough probe to ascertain the actual cause of death," SP Pani, inspector general of police in Kashmir, told local media.

Police have not yet filed a murder case into Asad's death, though.

Last year, Asad was imprisoned under the Public Safety Act, which allows any person to be imprisoned for up to two years without a trial. The court, however, ordered him to be set free.

“After his release, he had again resumed his life. He was teaching, doing his own things, he was not part of any militant outfit. He was completely innocent,” Zulkarnain said.

“There have been several thousand custodial killings and custodial disappearances by Indian forces in Kashmir. None of them has received any justice, it is because of the complete lack of accountability and total lawlessness that Rizwan could be killed in custody last night,” Khurram Parvez, a top Kashmiri human rights activist, told Anadolu Agency.

Meanwhile, Indian forces were deployed in large numbers in southern Kashmir on Tuesday morning in case of protests and demonstrations by people over deaths in custody.

According to reports from the south, people in several areas have already taken to the streets to protest Asad's death in custody.

The government also shut down the Islamic University in Awantipora where Asad was a guest lecturer.

Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- two of them over Kashmir.

Also, in Siachen glacier in northern Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani troops have fought intermittently since 1984. A cease-fire came into effect in 2003.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or for unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.