Probe requested of unmarked Kashmir graves

An Indian policeman looks at portraits of missing people during a protest rally to demand information of their whereabouts during the International Day of the Disappeared in Srinagar on August 30, 2011.—AFP

SRINAGAR: A state-run human rights body has asked authorities to investigate the alleged existence of unmarked graves holding thousands of unidentified bodies in the Indian-administered Kashmir.
The Jammu-Kashmir State Human Rights Commission on Friday acted on a petition by a local rights group claiming that 3,844 unmarked graves existed in 208 sites in remote Rajouri and Poonch districts.
Tariq Banday, secretary of the commission, says the Jammu-Kashmir state government has been asked to investigate the allegations and provide its findings within a month.
Local rights groups say the graves might contain the bodies of Kashmiri civilians who have disappeared and may have been killed by government forces in a decades-old armed conflict in the Himalayan region.