UPSURGE AND REPRESSION

It was in the fateful years of 80s that youth engaged with police in pitched street battles and 'raised slogans not only against India but against political and religious leaders of Kashmir as well. The pitched stone battles between police and people occurred almost daily in the valley and continued for days together.

In Oct. 1983 one day international match between cricket teams of India and West Indies in the Sonawar Cricket Stadium and display of a historical and revolutionary film "OMAR MUKHTAR" in the cinema halls of Srinagar and Sopore infused more energy and blood in our political movement. In 1984, after seeing the first night show of Omar Mukhtar, the mob came out of the Regal Cinema hall, spontaneously raised slogans against India. and Sheikh Abdullah and also destroyed pictures of Sheikh Abdullah and other pro-Indian leaders and sign board of National conference in the city. In 1984. Muhammad Maqbool Butt was sent to gallows by India in Delhi, Without any objection by the state Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah. Perhaps his martyrdom also was meant to shape the destiny of Kashmir, and more tremors started shaking valley everyday. On Sunday, 26 August, 84, Gh. Hassan Naik a tailor of Baramulla was tortured to death under army interrogation in Baramulia. This tragic event also paralysed life for many days in cities and towns of the valley.

From 1984 onwards the struggle for the freedom of Kashmir became more pronounced and its intensity was felt every where after each succeeding year, and the arbitrary actions of puppet rulers against the people of Kashmir increased every day and night.

After large scale rigging in 1987 elections, political leaders, workers and their sympathisers, were arrested and detained under various black laws, which paralysed law and order and people started using petrol bombs in street battles against police. This was a clear signal to the Indian Govt. that the present generation of Kashmiris would go to any extent to achieve the goal of independence.

In 1988 our political movement paved way for some sort of armed resistance. Holding of guns and throwing of bombs on Indian forces boosted up morale of general public in 1989. In 1990 mass political mobilisation and use of guns by young men against Indian troops reached to its peak. The spring of 1990 demonstrated an unbounded and graceful public morale, when mosques and streets echoed with anti India slogans by the sea of human beings and the noise of hand grenades and gun fires was heard everywhere in cities and towns till India declared Kashmir a disturbed region and invoked the J & K Armed Forces special powers Act 1958 to kill innocent men, women and children of Kashmir. This was a license for genocide, animal lust and brutality given to the Indian, armed forces in Kashmir. In this way India came with a heavy hand to stop people from walking daily enemas to Sonawar, to the Head Quarter of the Military observers Group of UNO in Srinagar, and tried to curb the basic rights of the people of Kashmir. India also started implementing her plan of youth liquidation in 1990. Accordingly, crack-down and cordon of cities and towns, house to house search, identification parade, fake encounters, detention, interrogation and torture killings under police custody on a massive scale, took place in every part of the valley. Different military operations have been conducted till date such as operation Shiva, Operation Tiger, Operation Fox, Operation Ghost and Operation Good will etc.

The cold blooded murder of Mirwaiz molvi Muhammad Farooq was inflicted on Monday 21, May 1990, followed by ghastly massacre of over 200 mourners in a big funeral carrying the coffin of martyred Mirwaiz under heavy rain of bullets by Indian occupation troops at Gogwara downtown.

Illustrated weekly of India, a famous magazine explains the Operation Tiger in these words:

"Witness the recently launched operation tiger which is different from previous operations only in so far as it tacitly sanctions deaths during interrogation and marks an acceleration in the number of fake encounters which have become a routine occurrence in strife torn Punjab. Although D.G.P. Bedi avers the intentions, senior police officials privately confess that it is a "catch and kill policy. As a senior Govt; official thunders-"Militants should be segregated and shot". This line of action is blindly pursued even in cases where the man's complicity has not been ascertained."

Official hand outs issued by the authorities blatantly attempt to white wash such cases.

The above mentioned Indian journal has identified some innocent Kashmiris whose murder gives eye witness journalists a gory-sight when they see a fifteen year old Muhammad Yaqoob with part of his arm ripped off, exposing the entrails. The magazine writes that incidents like this have been increasingly common in the bleeding vale of Kashmir. "The same quotes a senior Govt. official in Srinagar, "you are eliminating militants in arithmetical progression and generating a new set of militants by geometrical progress". The magazine again discloses the purpose behind these ruthless killings" and most of these senseless killings are perpetrated by the personnel of the BSF. The message is 'clear, terrorise the people to submission. And with every such incident the people's hatred for the Indian forces receives a fresh impetus. The illustrated weekly of India makes further sensational disclosures on Indian political hypocrisy in these words".

BSF Inspector General IG. Patel allegedly remains in regular touch with the BJP top brass and willingly toes their hard-line on Kashmir. After serving in the valley in various capacities for the last 7-8 years he has just received an extension in reward for his services".

He writes that the "people's support for the movement is growing by leaps and bounds

The Indian Forces are committing heinous crimes against the people of Kashmir for the last four years. Molestation of women and gang-rapes in different parts of the held territory such as KUNAN POSHPORA and Chanaporah, Wular Bandipore, Sopore and other parts are a clear proof of Indian brutalities in Kashmir. In Kalusa Bandipur innocent wife of Bashir Ahmed Sheikh senior worker of J&K peoples League was interrogated, tortured and dragged out of her house by occupation troops, to divulge information about her husband. Wife of another worker then of the same village was also beaten by soldiers during a search operation in 1993. Khursheed Adil a young man of Sopore was brutally murdered in BSF custody in 1991. His custodial death remains a mystery as his dead body was not handed over to his parents. The number of such frightful cases has now risen' to thousands.

All this is a part of their master plan to liquidate and humiliate Kashmiri men and women and eliminate all the young men who have attained military age. With this design in view, in the first week of January 1993 a BSF regiment cordoned off Sopore a densely populated city and a business centre to prove their upper hand on mujahideen. The Sopore carnage took place on 6th January 1993 in which residential houses and shops were burnt to ashes and a number of men and women were butchered or roasted alive by men of paramilitary forces. After some months this tragic episode was repeated in the shape of the massacre of Bijbihara to silence the peaceful demonstrators, who had gathered in the streets to protest against the siege of Dargah Hazratbal by Indian Occupation troops. Mr. Venkitesh Ramakrishnar made following observations, in his report from Srinagar in "Frontline" dated, 11-2-94, Under the adaptation" Simmering State".

"The atmosphere around Hazratbal is in more ways than one .symbolic of the general situation in the valley. Outwardly the Government and its security forces have control. But, when it domes to the actual exercise of authority and the people's power of influence, the Government seems to have no hold at all. According to observers, this is true of the whole State. "

Sopore, where the BSF and militants fought a bloody battle last year, is now swarming with BSF. personnel. The guns have fallen silent and it appeared to be business as usual. But the other factors pointed out by the senior officers include the absence of large scale participation Of local police forces especially the Jammu and Kashmir Armed police in counter insurgency operations. "For Any counter-insurgency operation to succeed the local Police have to get involved in a big way. Only then would the political process also become meaningful," one of them pointed out.

According to representatives of human rights organizations and National Conference leaders, cases of innocents being tortured by the security agencies continue. Senior security officials also admit this. One of them told Frontline that approximately 25 per cent of the people being rounded up by the forces during "Crackdown" operations are innocents. But human rights organizations say this is a very low estimate. "it is not only in rounding up and detention that innocents are victimised. A large number of these people actually get killed by the forces," said an activist associated with the institute of Kashmir Studies. A recent study published by the Institute says that of the 289 custodial deaths in the State in the year till September 1993, 121 were of non-militants.

Some officials in the security forces do not deny this possibility. "But what can we do? The government asks forces like the BSF and the Army to conduct interrogation in camps, a task for which they are not trained, and this leads to atrocities at times. How can we help if the Government does not have a clear policy on what to do and how to do?" asked a senior officer". (Excerpts from Frontline Madras" Dr. Karan Singh raised his voice in favour of Kashmiri pundits, but in the same breath the admitted, "It is difficult to offer any explanations when you hear stories of atrocities on the part of Indian forces. The stories are now too well documented for us to ignore them". (Sunday Calcutta 20-27 November 1993, Page 28) .

"And for the first time, he states on the record that there can be no going back to the pre 1989 status quo. His view is that the situation has changed for ever and that Kashmir can never become just another Indian state as it was before the crisis exploded". (Sunday 20-27 November 1993, Page 13 1) .

Excerpts from report on Kashmir 1994 by Human rights watch/Asia formerly Asia Watch) a U.S. based organization, are here under:

"As the conflict in Kashmir continues in its fifth year, the Govt. of India appears to have stepped up its catch and kill campaign against Muslim insurgents. As a result, human rights abuses, particularly death in custody have escalated since early 1994.

The summary execution of detainees by the Indian army, the Border Security Force (BSF) and other security personnel has been a hallmark of counter insurgency operations in Kashmir. There is no precise figure for the number of persons killed in custody since the conflict began in 1990, but records kept by human rights groups suggest that the numbers are at least in the hundreds, and perhaps higher. In the first half of 94, human rights groups in Kashmir recorded 200 such deaths in custody. The Jammu and Kashmir Bar Association reported fifty summary executions between mid-May and mid-June alone."

"Indian Security Forces have continued to kill unarmed civilians in retaliation for militant attacks. In most cases these incidents follow militant ambushes in which security forces are injured or killed. Civilians living in the areas where - the ambush took place targeted for reprisal."

"Disappearances have been on the rise in Kashmir. Disappearances are facilitated by the fact that the security forces routinely disregard laws requiring detainees to be produced in court. According to the Jammu and Kashmir Bar Association, of the one hundred or more persons arrested every day in Kashmir, none is produced before a magistrate within twenty four hours, as required by law-despite the fact that, in late 1993, Minister for Internal Defense Mr. Rajesh Pilot issued a directive to all security forces in Kashmir, calling on them to obey the law. Disappearances are further facilitated by the fact that the detainees are held in secret detention centers, without access to lawyers or family. According to the Bar Association, of the several thousand habeas corpus petitions pending in the High Court as of June 94 the courts have responded to fewer than one".

International human rights law prohibits torture and other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment of punishment. "Torture is widely practised in Kashmir as a means of extracting information from detainees, coercing confessions, punishing persons believed sympathetic to the militants and creating a climate of political repression. It is common in interrogation centres run by the army, BSF and CRPF throughout Kashmir." Virtually everyone taken in the custody is tortured. Methods include electric shocks burning with irons and other heated objects, crushing leg muscles with a heavy roller, severe beatings, suspension by the arms or by the legs, with the victim hanging upside down. Detainees have also been subjected to psychological torture including isolation and threats that they or their families would be killed.

"Every security force has its own interrogation centres in Kashmir, which include temporary detention centres at BSF and army camps, hotels and other buildings that have been taken over by security forces. Detainees are first interrogated by the detaining security force for periods of time which may range from several hours to several weeks. During this time the detainee "is not produced before a court or given access to anyone outside the interrogation center. Those suspected of being militants are then usually handed over to counter intelligence Kashmir (CIK), and interrogated at Joint Interrogation Center (JIC) at which each security force is represented. Detention at the JIC may last for months. Human Rights Groups in India and Kashmir have identified more than fifty interrogation centers where torture is practised".

"Another sordid tale relates to a 19 year old girl of Srinagar, dragged out of her home by the soldiers of BSF, during a campaign of crackdown. Newspaper reports said that a Muslim girl was forcibly locked in a BSF camp to satisfy Indian soldiers animal lust and break nation's will, pride and respect for the virginity and sanctity of Muslim girls. The innocent teenager was kept under mental/physical torture by BSF in their camp for 100 long days and nights. Finally, after her health collapsed, she was thrown out before a local police station. Newspaper reports further said that the divisional commissioner of Kashmir Mr. S. Kapoor had confirmed the tragic episode and assured the angry public that )he allegation would be thoroughly investigated. Agency reports added that there were so many other innocent girls, facing the same plight/gruesome tale in the BSF camps of District Badgam". "Insaf" Pind.

Newspaper reports reveal that there were at present 96 criminal cases registered against Indian troops in the Sopore police station. All such cases relate to murder, criminal assault on women and their molestation, and gang rape. But, now the S.P. of the area has forbidden all police stations from registering any F.I.R. against occupation soldiers, because such cases bring a bad name on paramilitary forces. "Insaf" Weekly.

Shaheed Ghulam Mohammad alias Rashid, Divisional Commander Baramulla and Kupwara Al-Fatah Force before his martyrdom on 16.3.95.