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'''Hriday Nath Wanchoo''' was a Kashmiri communist trade-unionist, who is remembered for ensuring the socioeconomic upliftment of sanitation workers and documenting abuse of human rights by the state.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1992-12-31 |title=Opinion {{!}} In India, Misery and Corruption Fuel Violence; Kashmiri Activist Dead |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/31/opinion/l-in-india-misery-and-corruption-fuel-violence-kashmiri-activist-dead-160092.html |access-date=2022-03-23 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=WANCHOO |first=DR AMIT |title=Hridai: A heart that understood human suffering |url=https://www.greaterkashmir.com/todays-paper/hridai-a-heart-that-understood-human-suffering |access-date=2022-03-23 |website=Greater Kashmir |language=en}}</ref> He was one of the two Hindu ministers in the "government in-absentia" run by [[Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front]], in early 1990s.

== Career and politics ==
Wanchoo was employed as the Khilafarzi officer in Srinagar municipality.<ref name=":0" /> Wanchoo documented extrajudicial murders, rapes, and illegal detentions by Indian security forces often filing petitions for legal recourse.<ref name=":1">Varadarajan, Patanjali M. ''A Report on Torture, Extra-judicial Executions, Rape, Arbitrary Arrests, Disappearances and other Violations of Basic Human Rights by the Indian Security Forces in Indian-administered Kashmir''. (Undertaken in co-operation with Federation Internationale des Droits de L'Homme)</ref> In May 1992, he was inducted as a member of the Central Committee of the "Kashmir Liberation Council", established by [[Ghulam Qadir Wani]] and others for the cause of achieving Kashmiri Independence from India.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Prakash |first=Ved |title=Terrorism in Northern India: Jammu and Kashmir and the Punjab |publisher=Kalpaz Publications |year=2008 |isbn=9788178357348 |volume=1 |location=Delhi |pages=91-92 |language=en |chapter=Terrorist Outfits in Jammu and Kashmir}}</ref>

== Death ==
Wanchoo was assassinated by "unidentified gunmen" on 5 December 1992.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Behind the Kashmir Conflict - Threats against Human Rights Defenders (Human Rights Watch Report, July 1999) |url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/kashmir/defenders.htm |access-date=2022-03-23 |website=www.hrw.org}}</ref> Local activists accused the government of having released two militants in exchange for an extra-judicial execution, one of whom was later killed in an "[[Encounter killings by police|encounter]]"; [[Human Rights Watch]] noted Wanchoo's murder to fit into the state's brutal suppression of conversations on human rights.<ref name=":2" /> Days before his death, Wanchoo had confessed in private, about threats to his life from local administration as well as the security apparatus.<ref name=":1" />

However, the [[Central Bureau of Investigation]], upon probing the murder, laid the blame on a militant group called "Jamait-ul-Mujahidin". Three of its members — Mohammad Shafi Khan (aka Shafi Shariati), a faculty member of the [[University of Kashmir]] specialising in [[Persian language|Persian]]; [[Ashiq Hussain Faktoo]], a budding separatist; Ghulam Qadir Bhat — went to trial, all of whom had confessed to their crimes.<ref name=":3">{{Cite court|litigants=Central Bureau Of Investigation v. Ashiq Hussain Faktoo & Ors|court=Supreme Court of India|date=30 January 2003|url=https://indiankanoon.org/doc/262771/}}</ref> Whereas the trial court acquitted all of them citing procedural deficiencies in obtaining confessional statements and the absence of ''any'' other corroborative evidence, the Supreme Court of India overturned the judgement and sentenced all of them to life imprisonment.<ref name=":3" />

The judgement remains disputed; Scholars Seema Kaji and [[Sumantra Bose]] suspect the Indian state to have had a role in the murder.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bose |first=Sumantra |title=Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace |date=2009-07-01 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-02855-5 |pages=132 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Kashmir, Gender and Militarization in - Oxford Islamic Studies Online |url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t343/e0165 |access-date=2022-03-23 |website=www.oxfordislamicstudies.com}}</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Year of birth missing]]
[[Category:Place of birth missing]]
[[Category:1992 deaths]]
[[Category:Assassinated Indian people]]
[[Category:Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front]]
[[Category:Activists from Jammu and Kashmir]]
[[Category:Indian trade unionists]]
[[Category:Indian communists]]

Hriday Nath Wanchoo - Revision history

Bot at 19:09, 1 December 2022