NEW DELHI, May 14: Prominent human rights activists today promised to send an enquiry team to Jammu and Kashmir to investigate allegations of rape, torture and custodial deaths made by the All Party Hurriyat Conference.

The assurance follows an indefinite fast begun by Yasin Malik on Monday. The group of activists includes Rajender Sachar, Madhu Kishwar, Rajni Kothari, Tapan Bose, Sumanto Bannerjee, Tapan Bose and Nithya Ramakrishnan.

In a statement they said that Yasin Malik's allegation that 167 custodial killings by security forces had taken place between October 1996 and April 1997, was a matter of great concern. In addition, the Hurriyat Conference had also alleged there had been several cases of rape and torture .

``If reports of these atrocities are true, as citizens committed to a democratic polity, we find them condemnable and unacceptable.''

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