Kashmir - The Untold Story

Further Unbroadcast Material from Kashmir's Torture Trail

The Warden's Tale

In the Yateen Foundation orphanage, in Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, an institution backed by 'Save the Children', warden Mohammed Ayub, describes how violence meted out on children in Kashmir, or violence that they witness, including the killing and torture of parents, fills the children with a desire for revenge that will be hard for India to quash. 'War makes orphans and orphans will make war,' he fears.

A Father's Tale

In the film we have followed Nazeema Wandroo, who lives in a embattled city in the far north of Kashmir, for a year. Her brother, Feroz, 24, was shot in the head by a tear gas canister, and then, critically ill, was arrested under a draconian law by which, without charge or trial, a Kashmiri can be detained to prevent them from committing a crime in the future. Known as the Public Security Act, it is a method of preventative detention which has seen an estimated 20,000 detained without trial, and has been lambasted by Human Rights Watch and the UN. Here, a neighbour, Ghulam Hasan Baht, calls in to comfort Nazeema, as he has done frequently. But for the first time he reveals to her that both of his sons, Ehsan and Zubair, have died too. One was killed b a government gunman, and the other, according to eyewitnesses, was drowned by the Indian security forces in the river outside his home.

The Militant's Tale

Qadir Dar used to be a militant commander, who led 10,000 men in the Muslim Janbaz Force, and who fought India until the mid-1990s when he was captured. He has now surrendered, and has formed a human rights outfit the People's Rights Movement that campaigns to stop torture. He recounts the torture meted out to surrendered militants, never forgetting the inside of the torture chamber.

Interview with the film-maker

Jezza Neumann, multi BAFTA winner director of The Torture Trail, (see also China's stolen Children, Children of Gaza, Poor Kids, War Child etc etc) talks about filming undercover, and in Kashmir, what he witnessed and the difficulties in making a film on torture in a state where everyone is afraid of talking.

Love Begets Love, Hate Begets Hate

A new report will show that as many as one in two Kashmiris have been tortured. India has refused the UN special rapporteur on torture access since 1993. Domestic laws on torture have stalled. Here, Qadir Dar, a former militant commander, who ruled Baramulla, a town in North Kashmir, warns that the torturing of young men detained by the security forces fills them with a desire for revenge, sending Kashmir into a spiral of violence.