WASHINGTON, March 1: Indian security forces in Kashmir have used extra-judicial killings as a weapon to suppress armed militants as well as civilians opposed to the Indian rule, says a US report on human rights.

The State Department's annual report acknowledged that India generally respects the human rights of its citizens but in Kashmir Indian police and security forces committed "extra-judicial killings, including staged encounter killings, and custodial deaths."

The US report said Indian officials often used special anti-terrorism legislation to justify the excessive use of force while combating active insurgencies in Kashmir and several north-eastern states.

Security force officials who committed human rights abuses generally enjoyed de facto legal impunity, the State Department said. Other Indian human rights violations included: torture and rape by police and other government agents; poor prison conditions; lengthy pre-trial detention without charge, and prolonged detention while undergoing trial.

Extensive violence and legal and social discrimination against women; forced prostitution; child prostitution and female infanticide and trafficking in women and children also were mentioned in the report.

Serious discrimination and violence against indigenous people and scheduled castes and tribes; widespread inter-caste and communal violence; religiously motivated violence against Muslims and Christians also occurred.

Human rights groups alleged that security forces killed numerous captured non-Kashmiri militants from other countries, often after torturing them, and staged many encounters, summarily executing suspected militants and civilians believed to be assisting them.

The Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission reportedly received 15 complaints relating to custodial deaths in 2003 and 27 complaints relating to disappearances, the report says.

According to human rights activists, press reports, and anecdotal accounts, the bodies of persons detained by security forces in Jammu and Kashmir were often returned to relatives or otherwise discovered with multiple bullet wounds and marks of torture.

In February in the Bandipora area of north Kashmir, five civilian porters were killed after security forces allegedly used them as human shields in a gunfight with militants.

Human rights activists maintained that in cases of illegal conduct, the government increasingly substituted financial compensation to victims' families for punishment of security officers.

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the Disturbed Areas Act remained in effect in Jammu and Kashmir. The Disturbed Areas Act gives police extraordinary powers of arrest and detention, and the AFSPA provides search and arrest powers without warrants. Human rights groups alleged that security forces operated with virtual impunity in areas under the Act.

Accountability by the Jammu and Kashmir government remained a serious problem. Indian human rights groups estimate that 30,000 to 35,000 persons have died during the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, but there were no reliable estimates of the number of deaths resulting directly from abuses. Security forces have committed thousands of serious human rights violations over the course of the 15-year insurgency.