[Reader-list] The Pandit's open wound by Iftikhar Gilani

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

  *Iftikhar Gilani* is a well-known senior Kashmiri journalist based in New
Delhi. He is the Bureau Chief in New Delhi of Kashmir Times and also writes
columns for various newspapers of national and international repute.

The Pandit's open wound

*Iftikhar Gilani*

Bitta Karate, who murdered dozens of Kashmiri Pandits, walked out of court
laughing this month when another attempt to convict him failed. It wasn't
his victory, but the failure of the Indian state

One winter evening, late in 1989, a zooming Ambassador slowed down in the
Chanakhan locality of Sopore town. A person wearing a Kashmiri gown (phern),
apparently a Pandit, was thrown out and gun shots rent the air. The bleeding
person had not lost his senses. Holding his bullet wounds he crawled to take
shelter under a closed shop.      Lawlessness had taken over the Kashmir
Valley. Nobody would listen to anything but Azadi, to achieve which it was
necessary to clear the Valley of "informers" and leaders having the
potential to "sell-out". The man who lay dying slowly of bullet wounds was
crying for water in his feeble voice. But the people of the neighbourhood,
who were used to being hauled off by the security forces for harbouring
anybody deemed a "militant" were in no mood to help. Instead of rushing to
his rescue, they carried him by his arms and legs and tossed him into the
Jhelum river which flowed nearby. That ended his misery.

 Till date, nobody has any answers for this strange behaviour -- a summary
execution of sorts. The only explanation given was that the dead man used to
live in a nearby village. He was a Kashmiri Pandit who had been kidnapped
for providing information about militants to the security agencies.

 A contrast came a few months after this incident in a nearby Sofi Hamam
locality, when militants raided the homes of Pandits in broad daylight.
Almost all Pandit families had left for Jammu by then, barring a young boy.
Ashok, who had stayed back for some unknown reasons. Militants believed he
was helping the security forces by pinpointing targets. People literally
gheraoed the whole locality and shoed the militants away. But, in the dead
of night, they returned. This time, they cut off the roof of the house to
drag out Ashok. After few days his dead body was found on the banks of river
Jhelum.

 The neighbours of the Pandits for centuries, the Muslims of Kashmir Valley
were not particularly happy about the killings of Pandits. On occasions they
remonstrated the militants. Even today, the full separatist spectrum
consisting of hardliner Syed Ali Geelani to moderate Yasin Malik recognise
the Pandits as part of Kashmiri society. Their migration out of the Valley
has disturbed Kashmiri society, they admit.

 At the start of armed movement in 1989, strategists in both India and
Pakistan disallowed any Kashmiri leader to take the centre-stage, which
could have at least controlled the events. While India detained leaders,
militant groups at the behest of Pakistani agencies launched a venomous
campaign against them. They even resisted staunch pro-Pakistan Kashmiri
leaders to ensure that the levers of control were with Islamabad and to
avoid the re-emergence of a Sheikh Abdullah.

 Baring some honourable exceptions, this vacuum got to be filled by ruffians
and street stalkers who had procured guns. They began to regard themselves
as leaders and *mujahid*s. They killed more civilians than they confronted
the security forces.

 Among such characters, Farooq Ahmed Dar, alias Bitta Karate, emerged as one
of top leaders of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). The then
Governor, Mr Jagmohan, later wrote in justification of the detention of
traditional leaders and providing ascendancy to the elements in the JKLF: "I
wanted to weaken the hold of the fanatics and fundamentalists, and also the
pro-Pakistani groups by facilitating the ascendancy of those elements in the
J&K Liberation Front who had the latent disposition to be moderate and whom
I could subsequently tackle to accept my idea of security real freedom for
the Kashmiri masses, within the larger framework of the Indian
Constitution."

 But, on Bitta Karate's emergence, Mr Jagmohan's policy went all wrong.
Blamed by the Pandit community for a string of killings of its members,
Bitta Karate walked free on October 27, 2006, after 16 years of
incarceration. An anti-terror court while granted him bail, argued that
there was "no justification in continuation of his incarceration when other
co-accused facing the same allegations are enjoying fruits of liberty".
Earlier, in 2001, Justice GD Sharma of the State High Court had ordered the
transfer the cases against this notorious killer of the Pandits to Jammu.

 Farooq Ahmed Dar, against whom 23 FIRs -- mostly related to murder -- had
been lodged, was a martial arts practitioner. That gained him fame as "Bitta
Karate". What earned him the wrath of Pandits was the "confessional
statement" run by the official media soon after his arrest, in which he
accepted his role in the killings. Even the separatists and the dominant
JKLF faction-led Mohammad Yasin Malik never espoused his cause, or even
asked for his release for several years because of the negative image he had
earned.

 Since then, there has been stiff opposition to his release, prompting the
Government to repeatedly slap the Public Safety Act (PSA) -- a preventive
detention law that provides for detention without trial for a maximum of two
years -- on him. Each time the term expired, it was renewed.

 Despite filing various cases against Karate for the killing of 30 Pandits
in 1990 and creating a fear psychosis, the State Government failed to file a
chargesheet against him. His release may be treated as a failure of our
criminal justice system. The Pandit community, which is now thronging the
streets seeking his re-arrest, failed to provide a single witness against
Karate in the court of law. There can be no excuse of lack of security,
because the trial was going on in a special court in Jammu, where witnesses
could have felt much safer.

 The State Government, too, totally relied on the invocation of the Public
Safety Act (PSA) rather than resorting to investigations and procuring
witnesses for convictions. For over two decades the rampant use of the PSA
with ease quite dampened the investigation capabilities of the Jammu &
Kashmir Police. It is used on all and sundry, from timber smugglers to
terrorists, because the PSA is such a short-cut to the end of the troubles
of the police force.

 The policemen have become lazy, for no longer are demands of securing
prosecution placed on them. It has not only completely shattered the
investigating machinery of the State police, but the law also falls short of
the fundamental requirements of justice. There is no such concept as
equality before Law. The police could rest assured that there was no need to
present an accused person before a magistrate, what to talk of looking for
witnesses to examine.

 Bitta Karate eluded justice because the criminal justice system in Jammu &
Kashmir is quite dead. The State's failure to bring to justice a mass
murderer and ethnic cleanser like him should not be viewed in narrow terms.
It is high time the security agencies are reminded of the fundamental duty
of their craft - to secure convictions.

 --* The writer is a noted expert on Kashmir issues*


Thanks

*--
Aditya Raj Kaul
Blog: www.kauladityaraj.blogspot.com
Campaign Blog: www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
RIK Website: www.rootsinkashmir.org
US Website: www.unitedstudents.in*