Kashmir Court Issues First Death Certificate for Man Taken into Custody in 1997

A judge in Indian-administered Kashmir declared in April 2026 that Abdul Rashid Wani, a timber trader taken into army custody in July 1997, had been murdered that same day and ordered the issuance of a death certificate, Al Jazeera reported. The ruling was the first of its kind among thousands of petitions filed by families of the disappeared.

The judgment cited a police investigation that named the army major who detained Wani near his Srinagar home while he carried cash to pay suppliers.

Wani’s wife and two children had been waiting for him to return for a wedding reception. His son Junaid Rashid, who was five at the time, is now 34. “The government has now, after 29 years, acknowledged in court that such an atrocity was done,” Rashid said.

He added that an earlier ruling might have changed the course of many lives in Kashmir, including his mother’s health. Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since 1947. Rebel groups launched an armed struggle in 1989, and at least 500,000 Indian soldiers remain stationed in the territory.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have been killed since then. The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons estimates as many as 8,000 people remain missing. The group mapped 2,700 unmarked graves in 2009, and a 2011 state human rights commission report found that authorities could identify only 464 of 2,730 bodies at 38 sites.

The commission was later shut down. In a separate case, Jana Begum’s husband Manzoor Ahmed Dar was detained at midnight in 2002. Her family performed symbolic funeral rites in 2016 after police privately told them he had died during interrogation.