For more than three decades, the graveyards of Kashmir have stood not only as places of mourning but also as tools in a larger battle of narratives. Instead of being quiet memorials, they became symbols in an information war. Western NGOs, separatist groups, and Pakistan’s propaganda machine repeatedly promoted a single narrative: that unmarked graves in the Valley were “evidence” of mass atrocities committed by Indian security forces.

In 2009, reports like Buried Evidence by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK) went further and claimed that these graves contained victims of “enforced disappearances.”

This claim was amplified by international organisations such as the Community Human Rights and Advocacy Centre (CHRAC), Amnesty International, The London School of Economics and Political Science, and Human Rights Watch. All of them demanded “international probes”, implying that the Indian state, and in particular the Indian Armed Forces, were responsible for the “disappearances” of local people in Kashmir.

Now, a new study has presented a very different picture. The Save Youth Save Future (SYSF) Foundation, after years of careful ground research, published its report titled “Unraveling the Truth: A Critical Study of Unmarked and Unidentified Graves in Kashmir Valley (2025).” The study covered Baramulla, Kupwara, Bandipora, and Ganderbal districts, documenting more than 373 graveyards. In total, the researchers recorded 4,056 graves.

The findings directly challenge decades of propaganda:

• 2,493 graves of foreign terrorists, mostly Pakistanis, Afghans, and others who crossed the Line of Control.

• 1,208 graves of local Kashmiri terrorists recruited into militancy.

• 70 graves of tribal invaders from 1947.

• 276 unmarked graves.

This means 93.2% of all graves have been identified and documented. Far from being “mass graves of innocent civilians,” these graves mostly belong to terrorists neutralised in counter-insurgency operations.

Numbers That End the Myth

The SYSF report is clear: “A significant number of the graves contain unidentified individuals, many of whom were foreign militants who infiltrated across the Line of Control and were killed in security operations.” This single line alone challenges the story that these graves were evidence of mass civilian killings. They were not the result of a genocidal state policy. Instead, they were terrorists killed in battles, many of whom remained unclaimed because their handlers in Rawalpindi denied their very existence.

The study further notes: “Unidentified burials became a practical necessity rather than a deliberate policy of concealment.” This means that militants who carried no identity documents were buried quickly by villagers or mosque committees. Such actions were a matter of practicality, not cover-ups. With 93.2% of graves identified as terrorists or invaders, the claim of “thousands of disappeared Kashmiris” cannot stand.

Pakistan’s Role in Filling the Graves

The SYSF report firmly places these graves in the broader context of Pakistan’s proxy war. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the ISI redirected its jihadist infrastructure towards Kashmir. As the report states: “Pakistan provided logistical support, funding, arms, and facilitated the movement of both Kashmiri militants and Pakistani militants across the Line of Control.”

Groups such as Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jaish-e-Mohammed turned Kashmir into a battlefield. Foreign fighters carried no documentation, and many were buried as “unidentified terrorists.”

The report also underlines that this shift—from local political unrest to cross-border jihadist terrorism—completely changed the character of the conflict. The graveyards, in reality, carry Pakistan’s imprint across the soil of Kashmir.

How Propaganda Distorted the Story

The so-called human rights industry used these graves to tell a different story—one of Indian atrocities. Organisations like APDP, IPTK, and Amnesty International claimed that the graves contained “disappeared civilians.” But SYSF exposes their flawed methods: “In the absence of forensic verification such as DNA testing, these reports treated different categories of the deceased as the same, without clearly distinguishing between local civilians, local militants, and foreign militants.”

This blurring of categories created the heart of the deception. By mixing up terrorists and civilians, advocacy reports inflated numbers and tried to paint India as a genocidal state. SYSF is direct in its criticism: “These early investigations had notable limitations… shaped by ideological predispositions.”

Even the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), in its 2011 inquiry, concluded that many of the graves belonged to foreign terrorists killed in encounters. But this important detail was largely ignored, as the propaganda machine was focused on demonising India.

The Real Victims Forgotten

While the world focused on the so-called “unmarked graves,” there was little attention paid to the true victims of militancy in Kashmir. The genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in 1989–90 rarely features in international reports. Likewise, massacres of Muslims who resisted terrorists—such as Wandhama (1998), Chittisinghpora (2000), and Nadimarg (2003)—were downplayed.

SYSF notes that terrorists themselves unleashed widespread violence: “Militant groups resorted to forced disappearances, targeted assassinations of political activists, intimidation of minority communities (notably Kashmiri Pandits and moderate Muslims), and the systematic suppression of dissenting voices.”

These graves also exist, but they are absent from glossy reports produced by Amnesty and others. The selective outrage tells its own story of bias and silence.

Accountability: India Acts, Pakistan Denies

Critics often bring up incidents like Pathribal (2000), Machil (2010), and Amshipora (2020)—tragic cases where civilians were killed in fake encounters. The SYSF study does not ignore these. It openly records that the CBI described Pathribal as a “cold-blooded murder”, that five Army personnel were sentenced in the Machil case, and that the officer involved in Amshipora was court-martialed. These examples show that when wrongs occurred, India did not hide them—it punished those responsible. This is what accountability looks like in a functioning democracy.

In contrast, the situation across the border is very different. SYSF points out how “mass graves in Balochistan” have been uncovered alongside widespread allegations of enforced disappearances. Yet in Pakistan, credible investigations are consistently blocked, and justice is denied to victims. The contrast is stark: India investigates mistakes and acts against its own men, while Pakistan institutionalises such abuses.

Propaganda That Kept the Myth Alive

Why has the story of “unmarked graves = Indian atrocities” continued for so long? Because for separatists and Pakistan, it was propaganda gold. SYSF puts it bluntly: “Militant groups and separatist networks… actively exploited the imagery of unmarked graves to fuel propaganda, making sweeping allegations without credible substantiation.”

Western NGOs chasing headlines repeated these unverified claims. Pakistani diplomats used these reports at the United Nations to discredit India. Separatist leaders passed them on to angry Kashmiri youth to stoke resentment. The graves, in effect, became psychological weapons in Pakistan’s information war. But the truth, now backed by detailed data, is different: the graves overwhelmingly belong to terrorists sent across by Pakistan.

Kashmir’s Graves Are Not Bosnia or Rwanda

Another misleading comparison made over the years has been to equate Kashmir’s graves with the mass genocide graves of Bosnia or Rwanda. SYSF makes the distinction clear: “Unlike mass grave situations in post-conflict societies like Iran, Bosnia or Rwanda where state-led repression was a defining cause, the Kashmir context is different.”

Here, the graves arose out of the day-to-day operational realities of counter-terrorism, where Indian forces confronted cross-border militants. They are not the result of state-planned ethnic cleansing. To continue presenting Kashmir in the same light as Bosnia or Rwanda is not only misleading—it is dishonest.

Why the SYSF Report Is Important

The SYSF report is not an attempt to whitewash reality. It acknowledges that there were excesses. It recognises the grief of families still waiting for answers about their missing relatives. It even calls for DNA verification wherever possible. But its central contribution is that it puts the graves in their correct context: the war of terrorism, Pakistan’s proxy strategy, and the unavoidable operational realities of counter-insurgency.

This report is rare and significant because it is a local effort aimed at correcting decades of distortion spread by advocacy-driven reports. By documenting 93.2% of graves, SYSF has delivered concrete data that strikes at the very root of the propaganda narrative.

Graves That Reveal the Truth

The evidence today is stronger than the propaganda:

• 93.2% of Kashmir’s graves are now documented.

• The overwhelming majority belong to terrorists, both foreign and local, killed in encounters.

• Only 276 graves remain unmarked, which makes up just 6.8% of the total.

As SYSF concludes, these graves are not signs of systematic Indian atrocities but “complex artifacts of a live and evolving conflict, shaped by operational necessities as well as human tragedy.”

The carefully crafted lies pushed by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and separatist groups collapse under the weight of this data. The graves are not monuments to Indian brutality; they are in truth epitaphs of Pakistan’s jihadi terrorism. Kashmiris deserve to know this reality. The men filling these graveyards were not victims of India; they were pawns used by Rawalpindi.

It was not the Indian Army that created this bloodbath—it was the Indian Army that contained it. Terrorism, exported from Pakistan, is what caused the loss of life and the suffering of families in the Valley. The Indian Armed Forces tried to control that violence. And because of their efforts, countless Kashmiri lives were saved.