Washington: A US report has slammed the terrorists in Jammu-Kashmir and North East and naxalite groups in central India for indulging in gross violation of human rights.
"Separatist insurgents and terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, the Northeastern states, and the Naxalite belt committed numerous serious abuses, including killings of elected political leaders, armed forces personnel, police, government officials, and civilians," the State Department said in its Congressional mandated annual report on human rights for the year 2013.
"Insurgents were responsible for numerous cases of kidnapping, torture, rape, extortion, and the use of child soldiers," said the report, which was released on Thursday by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
The report said, Internal Displacement Monitoring Center estimated that 540,000 persons were displaced due to conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, the Northeastern states, and the Naxalite belt.
Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) have fled the Kashmir Valley to Jammu, Delhi, and other areas in the country since 1990 because of conflict and violent intimidation by separatists, it said.
According to the India Ministry of Home Affairs' 2012-13 annual report, 59,442 Kashmiri Pandit families remained displaced from their homes. Violence between ethnic groups in the states of Assam, Manipur, and Mizoram displaced an unknown number of persons during the year, and more than 115,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) remained from previous incidents of communal violence dating back to 1993, it said. In central and eastern India armed conflicts between Naxalite (Maoist) insurgents and government security forces over land and mineral resources in tribal forest areas continued, affecting 182 of the country's 626 districts in 20 of its 28 states.
Statistics posted in March by the International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), operated by the Norwegian Refugee Council and the United Nations, reported at least 148,000 IDPs in the Naxalite conflict areas, mostly located in the states of Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.
