The National Human Rights Commission has woken up to address Jammu and Kashmir’s human rights void by holding a maiden, open public hearing on rights violations after the 2019 scrapping of the special status and abolition of the region’s own rights watchdog.

An NHRC notice said it would hold “a Camp Sitting and Open Public Hearing on grievances of the general public regarding alleged human rights violations in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir from February 7 to February 9 in Srinagar”.

The announcement has come less than a year after the Supreme Court asked the central government to consider “bringing a mechanism which will allow people of Jammu and Kashmir to file their complaints to the NHRC from J&K itself”.

The NHRC notice asks people to register by January 29 their complaints of “alleged violation of human rights by a public servant or negligence by a public servant in prevention of such violation”.

“Such complaints, if deemed fit for the enquiry, shall be taken up at the open public hearing,” it reads.

Jammu and Kashmir has been facing a void in the area of rights watchdogs since the Centre wound up the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), among several other institutions, following the 2019 scrapping of the special status. Several human rights organisations ceased to exist subsequently because of the government’s zero tolerance for dissent.

Rights activist Khurram Parvez, described by the UN’s human rights body as a “tireless advocate for the families of disappeared”, has been under arrest since 2021.

The government-appointed SHRC was investigating thousands of rights violation cases, mostly involving security forces.

In March 2020, the Centre empowered the NHRC to deal with all human rights concerns in the Union Territory but that is believed to have offered little comfort to residents because of the absence of its local offices.

The move did not help the Centre stave off allegations about the absence of a redress mechanism.

In September 2020, the Centre received flak from the UN rights body, with nine rapporteurs asking it to explain why it had closed the SHRC.

The rapporteurs also asked the government to investigate alleged instances of forced disappearance and mass graves in Jammu and Kashmir.

The UN rights body’s letter to the Centre said the “sudden closure” of the SHRC had left families of victims with limited options and although the SRC had only “recommendatory powers”, its activities led to the acknowledgement of crimes that the government had been “previously denying”.

The letter made special mention of the 1991 Kunan Poshpora incident in which dozens of women were allegedly raped by the forces — an accusation the government has never accepted.

The letter also cited the massacre in Sailan Poonch where security forces allegedly shot 19 people at point-blank range in August 1998.

In both cases, the SHRC acknowledged that the crimes had taken place. It is not known whether the Centre has reacted to the UN body’s criticism.

The SHRC was also probing the hundreds of forced disappearances and the mass graves of unidentified people.

The government claims the graves are of Pakistani militants killed in gunfights, but the Kashmir-basedAssociation of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) suspects that many of them could be the graves of their missing sons.