[Reader-list] Clueless in Kashmir by Muzamil Jaleel

[Harsh Kapoor]

The Indian Express
Sunday, March 30, 2003

The Sunday Story
Clueless in Kashmir

Last Sunday, the semblance of normalcy in Kashmir was shattered when 
unidentified militants killed 24 Kashmiri Pandits in Nadimarg. 
Muzamil Jaleel explains why this was like no massacre the Valley has 
ever seen before

The what, where, when and the how of the Nadimarg massacre is by now 
well known. But a week later, the who and the why have begun to haunt 
the traumatised victims. The answers, they believe, hold the key to 
the future of both Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims in the Valley.

''These are uncomfortable questions'', says human rights lawyer 
Parvez Imroz. ''There has never been an in-depth probe (into these 
massacres). The issue dies down after a few weeks and there is no 
follow-up to the FIRs. In fact, such massacres suit every actor of 
this conflict, especially when they remain engulfed in mystery.''

Nadimarg is one of the most gruesome carnages in the 13-year-long 
history of violence in Kashmir. The midnight assassins crossed all 
lines by dragging out people, showering them with bullets, killing 
infants, women, old people and even the physically challenged. In 
acts of extreme brutality, they even disfigured the faces of the 
victims. And they looted as well, taking away valuables from the 
houses and gold rings from the ears of dead women.

Who were these killers? Why did they commit such a gruesome carnage? 
Even as a week has passed and 24 bullet-riddled bodies have already 
been consigned to flames, security agencies and the police confess 
they have no clue about the perpetrators are, though the government 
blames the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e- Mohammad. ''There is 
absolutely no concrete proof and it is difficult to pinpoint the 
culprits,'' admits a senior army officer. ''We generally get clues 
from the intercepts of the militants; this time around, there were 
none. In fact, they blame us (the army). The only clue may lie in the 
stolen goods - the valuables may eventually lead us to the culprits.''

The obvious indicators - eyewitness accounts, relations of this Hindu 
village with its Muslim neighbourhood, the attire of the killers and 
even the way this carnage was executed - have all served to add to 
the confusion regarding the identity of the killers.

Locals testify to the warmth of the relations between Nadimarg and 
its Muslim neighbours. ''People from more than 30 villages arrived 
here the morning after. We have been living here for generations. It 
is our home and we have never felt that we are different,'' says 
Sheela, who lost five members of her family including two infant 
grandsons.

--- BOX---
Minority massacres
in the valley

1998
Jan 25-26: 25 Kashmiri Pandits killed at Wandhama-Ganderbal, Srinagar
Mar 20: Seven Kashmiri Pandits killed in Sangrampura, Beerwah in 
Budgam district
April 18: 27 killed in Prankote in Udhampur district, Jammu
June 19: 25 killed in Chapnari area of Doda district, Jammu
July 28: 16 killed in two villages of Doda District, Jammu
August 8: 35 labourers killed in Kalaban on Jammu-Himachal Pradesh border.

1999
Feb 20: Four killed at Muraputta-Rajouri, seven at Billala-Rajouri 
and nine at Barlyara-Udhampur, Jammu.
June 30: Fifteen labourers killed in Anantnag district of south Kashmir.
July 19: 15 killed at Layata in Doda district, Jammu.

2000
February 28: Five drivers killed near Qazigund in Anantnag district, Kashmir.
Mar 20: 35 Sikhs massacred at Chittisinghpora in Anantnag.
August 1: 31 people, including Amarnath yatris, killed at Pahalgam in Anantnag.
August 1: 27 labourers gunned down in Qazigund and Achabal in Anantnag.
August 2: Seven family members killed in frontier district of Kupwara 
in North Kashmir.
August 2: 11 killed in Doda district of Jammu.

2001
February 3: Six Sikhs gunned down in Mahjoornagar in Srinagar.
Feb 11: 15 members of nomad (Gujjar) families massacred in 
Kot-Chadwal in Rajouri district, Jammu.
Mar 2: 15 policemen and two medical assistants killed in Manjkote 
area of Rajouri.
March 17: Eight people massacred near Atholi in Doda.
July 21: 13 people, including seven Amarnath pilgrims, killed at 
Sheshnag in Anantnag.
July 22: 12 people massacred in Cheerji and Tagood in Doda district, Jammu
August 4: 15 villagers killed in Ludder-Sharotid Har area of Doda.

2002
August 6: Nine Amarnath pilgrims killed and 29 injured at Nunwan base 
camp in Pahalgam area of Anantnag district in south Kashmir.

----BOX ends -----

Neighbours from Sheikhpora, a Muslim hamlet located a stone's throw 
away, address her as Bindre and it is not difficult to gauge the 
intensity of grief among them. ''In 1990, when Hindus all over left 
the state, they stayed back on our assurances that nothing will ever 
go wrong,'' says Mohammad Ismail Mir, an old farmer who has known 
Bindre since she came to the village after her marriage four decades 
ago. ''I feel so guilty. We should have not stopped them when we knew 
we cannot do anything. Aasman peyi na chali chali - Kus insaan haki 
ye kareith (How can a human being commit such an act? Even the 
heavens will weep).''

Bindre's only daughter Jyoti, who was fortunate enough to escape the 
bullets, was a witness to the massacre. ''Sanis gamas bano-vukh 
shamshaan (They turned our village into a crematorium),'' she says. 
''They came, collected us one by one and then massacred everybody. My 
nephew was shot in his foot and he died in my lap. He was just two.''

The girl consoling her is Shahen, her friend since school. ''I just 
don't understand why will anybody kill a child in front of her 
mother''.

What hurts the survivors the most is the fact that some of the 
killers spoke in Kashmiri. ''We know we have to spend the rest of our 
lives with our tears. But we will be always be haunted by the 
knowledge that there were Kashmiris among the killers,'' says Bindre.

If they are unanimous on this count, everybody also agrees that the 
government has done little to assuage their pain. ''They (the 
government) says it was done by Pakistan. I want to ask just one 
question: If Pakistan has entered so deep as to access this remote 
village, what is India doing about it?'' says a middle-aged man, Bal 
Krishan, who had come all the way from Anantnag, to join the 
mourning. ''We don't know who is behind this massacre. But we know 
the government facilitated this massacre by their inaction. It is a 
conspiracy to deepen the wedge between Kashmiri Muslims and Hindus 
because we 9,000 Pandits, who still live here, can become the bridge 
between the two communities.''

The villagers have a point. Both Hindu and Muslim villagers say that 
they had smelled tension for three days before the massacre. ''The 
village head Avtar Krishan and his wife had seen some people moving 
around in the village two nights before the massacre,'' says Bindre's 
son Ramesh, who managed to evade the killers and ran 13-kms to seek 
help from the Zainpora police station. ''When we got suspicious, two 
villagers - Deep Kumar and Chandji - went to the deputy commissioner 
and asked for help. He was callous enough to ask for a written 
application, and then did nothing about it. We informed the police 
too - in fact, the SHO of the Zainpora police station visited us 
during the day preceding the massacre and asked his men to be alert.''

When contacted, Deputy Commissioner, Pulwama, Naseema Lankar said the 
''villagers visited the DC, Anantnag, because half the village falls 
in Anantnag''. Deputy Commissioner, Anantnag, was not available for 
comments.

Barely a hundred feet away from the room where Jyoti sits, the empty, 
sandbag-walled police picket has come to symbolise police inaction. 
Ramesh says that he reached the police station within 30 minutes of 
the intruders entering the village. ''They asked me to stay put in 
the police station, but took hours to leave themselves,'' he alleges. 
''The policemen supposed to guard us here were sleeping in their room 
when it happened. Why did they surrender without any resistence 
whatsoever? We suspect them as well.''

SSP, Pulwama, Vipul Kumar admits that the policemen guarding the 
village did not react at all. ''The first police team arrived from 
Shopian around 3.30 am. The Zainpora police station doesn't have 
enough strength to react to such a carnage so we sent our people from 
Shopian,'' he says.

The army, however, is located much closer to Nadimarg, so why did 
they fail to react immediately? ''I received the information around 
12.30-12.35 am and alerted all the forces, including the camp of 1 
Rashtriya Rifles that lies a few kms from Nadimarg,'' Kumar says.

A senior army officer says that the army does take some time to 
react. ''We had to prepare ourselves, and then walk to the village, 
that too in the middle of the night. Our troops reached the village 
at the same time when the police reached,'' he told The Sunday 
Express.

The pattern and the attire of the killers, too, adds to the 
confusion. All eyewitnesses admit that the killers were wearing army 
fatigues, bullet-proof jackets and helmets. Although militants do use 
army fatigues, never before have they been known to use bullet-proof 
vests and helmets. In fact, security agencies, too, admit that the 
presence of this paraphrenalia has come as a surprise.

Among the victims and the security agencies, there is just one 
demand: an independent probe that will asnwer all these questions. At 
stake, after all, is the future of Kashmir and its people.