Kashmir: Mental problems as consecuense of enforced disappearances and other violations

In occupied Kashmir, the number of mental patients in the wake of Indian state terrorism has crossed the one hundred thousand figure, according to the report issued on World Mental Health Day.

This has been revealed in a report issued by the Research Section of Kashmir Media Service on the occasion of World Mental Health Day, on Friday. The report says that over 80,000 Kashmiris visited mental health professionals in the year 2006 and more than 60,000 people were registered as patients with the lone Psychiatric hospital of Srinagar alone as compared to 1,500 in 1989.
 
Quoting informed sources of Srinagar, the report points out that from around 1700 mental patients in the Kashmir Valley in 1990 the sufferers have increased to 48,000 in 2002, 62,000 in 2004, and 82,000 in 2006. It adds that thousands who suffered the disastrous effects of the October 2005 earthquake are now experiencing symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The KMS report maintains that bombings, beatings, torture, unjustified arrest and detention, extra-judicial killings, and, Indian troops’ sense of impunity from prosecution, are among the violations recounted and such abuses have affected the local psyche adversely.

According to the report enforced disappearance is one of the most harrowing consequences of the armed conflict in Kashmir and during the last 19 years more than 10,000 people have been subjected to enforced disappearance by the troops. Of the disappeared persons, between 2000-2005 a majority were married males. Although men have been subjected to disappearance largely, but women have been badly affected because of being related to them as daughters, mothers, sisters and wives.

The report also refers to a study conducted by Medecins Sans Frontieres in mid 2005, which reveals that Kashmiri women are among the worst sufferers of sexual violence in the world. It further mentions that since 1989, sexual violence has been routinely perpetrated by the troops on Kashmiri women.