ICRC response on WikiLeaks' Kashmir revelations soon

The International Committee of the Red Cross said today it will soon respond to the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables on human rights violations in Kashmir.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday it will soon respond to the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables on human rights violations in Kashmir.

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"We are verifying the details about the WikiLeaks revelations. We are in touch with our higher authorities in Geneva," an official in the New Delhi office of ICRC said.

"We will come out with a response soon. We have to check several details as the incidence pertained to the year 2005," he added.

British daily Guardian Friday reported that cables released by WikiLeaks have revealed that US diplomats were secretly briefed by ICRC staff about the use of electrocution, beatings, sexual humiliation and other methods of systematic abuse against hundreds of detainees in Kashmir in 2005.

The most highly charged dispatch is likely to be an April 2005 cable from the US embassy in Delhi which reports that the ICRC had become frustrated with the Indian government which, it said, had not acted to halt the "continued ill-treatment of detainees".