[Reader-list] Selective condemnation of rape and murder has become bane of J&K politics

[S. Jabbar]

More twists in Shopian: ‘hymen intact,’ doctor ‘admits’ cover-up
RIYAZ WANI Posted online: Wednesday, Sep 30, 2009 at 0358 hrs

Srinagar : More questions have come to haunt the Shopian murder and rape
case in the wake of the CBI’s exhumation of the two bodies.
While a forensic examination is said to have found that 17-year-old Aasiya
Jan, the younger of the two victims, had her hymen intact, a doctor who
conducted the first set of tests is said to have admitted to an alleged
cover-up.

“The CBI team showed us (Aasiya’s) hymen. But I told them it still doesn’t
rule out sexual assault or an attempt to rape,” said Ghulam Qadir Khan of
the Mushawarat Majlis-e-Committee, the ad hoc body of village elders which
led the 47-day agitation demanding justice for the victims. “We will wait
for the result (of the forensic examination) to come. And then we will
respond,” Khan said.

Several representatives of the Mushawarat were present when a team of senior
forensic experts from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences exhumed
the bodies and carried out a series of tests. Significantly, the Mushawarat
has acknowledged that it has “trust” in the CBI and that procedures were
carried out in a “transparent manner”.

Aasiya, 17, was found dead in a stream along with her sister-in-law
Neelofar, 22, on May 30. It was alleged they had been raped and killed by
security forces.

Khan said there was “no doubt” about the fact that the women had been
murdered. “There is a grievous injury on the skull of Aasiya which may turn
out to be the likely cause of her death,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nighat Chillo, a gynaecologist who was part of the team sent from
the Pulwama district hospital to Shopian to examine the bodies of the two
victims, is said to have told the CBI that she “forgot” to take vaginal
swabs and, as a cover-up, her superiors told her to pass off two “fake
slides” as the victims’.

The gynecologist was called to the camp office of the CBI team at Humhama
for questioning where she is said to have broken down. Chillo had gone to
examine the bodies along with Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Pulwama, Ghulam
Qadir Sofi and Health Officer Mohammad Maqbool.


Sources said that Chillo has claimed that when she told the doctors that she
didn’t have the swabs, she was asked to “check if she could collect it from
the gloves” she had used in the examination. When that didn’t yield
anything, she was told to collect “any two slides of the many in the
hospital” and pass them off as the victims.’

When contacted, Sofi, the then deputy CMO (now CMO Pulwama), said: “It is
true that we did not get samples (vaginal swabs for the slides) but we
thought that we will get them from the gloves that she (Nighat) was wearing
at the time of the examination”.

Ghulam Mohammad Paul, who was the CMO then, said: “When they (the team of
doctors) came to my office, they were carrying slides which I sealed and
forwarded to FSL...They didn’t tell me that the samples were not taken at
all.” Maqbool was not available for comment.


> From: Sanjay Kak <kaksanjay at gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:32:58 +0530
> To: Sarai <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Selective condemnation of rape and murder has
> become bane of J&K politics
> 
> Sonia,
Where is this piece from? It usually helps to source such
> incendiary
writing, since the net is a place awash with propaganda and
> psy-ops.
(Sly ops?) Of course Mr Ahmed Ali Fayyaz is a senior
> Kashmiri
journalist-in fact he is widely regarded as the Praveen Swami
> of
Kashmiri journalism, and that is no small compliment to both.
About the
> piece: he has devoted considerable space to last years
events around the
> Shopian rape and murder, but the rhetorical use to
which he puts it overwhelms
> the details of this more recent event. One
misses a straight forward rendering
> of what has actually happened in
Pulwama. This is important because the
> mainstream media (including the
vast Indian Express bureau) seem to have
> missed the importance of this
incident.
For me A A Fayyaz's sentence "Second
> one has been purportedly shot on
camera and the actor stands not only
> identified but also placed under
suspension, arrested and jailed" is quite
> loaded. I would imagine that
most serious journalists would want to tarry for
> a moment on the
"purportedly shot on camera", and ask the who/how of this
> piece of
evidence. A rape shot on camera? By whom? The fact that he has
> been
placed under suspension, arrested and jailed is not evidentiary. This
is
> Kashmir we are talking about, after all.
Whatever its journalistic failings
> the piece inadvertantly still draws
attention to some important questions: why
> is there such a huge trust
deficit between the men in Olive Green/Khakhi and
> the people of
Kashmir? Why did the people of Shopian go on a 42 day hartal
> last
year? To suggest that it was only because they were misled
> by
self-serving politicians of the PDP and NC is to display an
astonishing
> lack of regard for facts: the Majlis-e-Mashawarat, which
led the hartal and
> the ongoing struggle, had made it clear that no
political parties were welcome
> in town, and they managed to keep the
issue quite distinct  from "Separatist"
> politics as well.
I think think a journalist of A A Fayyaz's stature would
> have done
well to find out what were the pressures that made Dr Nighat
> change
her statement (whether or not she swore on the Qur'an). Then perhaps
he
> would be led to the circumstances that led to the other Dr Un-named
being
> "purportedly shot on camera".
Lastly, am I the only one who reads some
> condescension in your comment
that "this group of well-meaning women are not
> the first to get misled
with half-facts and half-truths in Kashmir". Perhaps
> it would be
better if there was a concrete critique of the report of
> the
Independent Initiative, or their findings and conclusions. When you
say
> "the Shopian case was an extremely complicated case, which was
manipulated and
> presented to the world as fact", is there an
alternative reading that you
> would share with us, or guide us to?

Best

Sanjay Kak

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010
> at 7:47 PM, S. Jabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kshmendra, it is
> unfair to condemn them as such.  The Shopian case was an
> extremely
> complicated case, which was manipulated and presented to the world
> as fact.
> Sadly, this group of well-meaning women are not the first to get
> misled with
> half-facts and half-truths in Kashmir.  I think the admission by
> Dr.Nighat
> last year of forging the vaginal samples genuinely shocked many
> people in
> Kashmir-- after all she had sworn upon the Qur'an.  That coupled
> with the 2
> cases of murder in Maisuma (where near riots had broken out as
> people had
> initially suspected the security forces) will, hopefully cause
> some
> introspection.  Ahmed Ali Fayyaz's article is a move in that direction.
>
> --sj
>
>
> From: Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
> Date: Wed, 31 Mar
> 2010 06:37:29 -0700 (PDT)
> To: "S. Jabbar" <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com>
> Cc:
> sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Selective
> condemnation of rape and murder has
> become bane of J&K politics
>
>
> Continuing the question (it is a continual one where incidents and
>
> characters change):
>
> Where today are the Miss Marples, the whodunit
> experts, the Umas
> (Chakravarty), Ushas (Ramanathan), Seemas (Misra), Vrindas
> (Grover), Dr.
> Ajitas, Anuradhas (Bhasin Jamwal), those members of
> "Independent Women's
> Initiative for Justice" and authors of "Shopian:
> Manufacturing a Suitable
> Story"
>
> Kshmendra
>
>
> --- On Wed, 3/31/10, S.
> Jabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> From: S. Jabbar
> <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com>
>> Subject: [Reader-list] Selective condemnation of
> rape and murder has become
>> bane of J&K politics
>> To: "Sarai"
> <reader-list at sarai.net>
>> Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2010, 5:22 PM
>>
>> RAPE
> OF POLITICS
>>
>> ....and where are those Mehboobas, Shameemas, Asiyas
> today?
>>
>> Selective condemnation of rape and murder has become bane of J&K
> politics
>>
>> Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
>>
>> JAMMU, Mar 30: Hullabaloo over then
> widely perceived rape-cum-murder of two
>> young woman, married Neelofar Jan
> and unmarried Asiya Jan, of Shopian in May
>> last year was understandable as
> well as justifiable. Jostling for the
>> limelight, female politicians of all
> hues had done whatever possible to
>> undercut one another in the race of
> smudging the men in uniform. There were
>> initially efforts to involve the
> Balpora-based formation of Rashtriya
>> Rifles. Soon the campaign was
> downgraded to a unit of Central Reserve Police
>> Force (CRPF). But once both
> proved to be the hard nuts, convenience zeroed
>> in on Police. Even as two of
> the Police personnel, detained for their
>> alleged involvement in destroying
> the evidences, were just a vegetarian
>> target, counter-insurgency profile of
> then SP and Dy SP of Shopian made it a
>> perfect case for a mass
> movement.
>>
>> For weeks together, Kashmir was yet again in flames. Eight
> people got
>> killed, and around 1,000 sustained injuries in clashes with
> Police and armed
>> forces. Over a thousand vehicles, including 50 ambulances
> of different
>> hospitals in the Valley, were damaged in stone pelting. There
> was shutdown
>> after shutdown for four months. Damage caused to the Kashmir
> economy is
>> estimated to be in hundreds of Crores of Rupees. Loss suffered
> by the
>> student community remained incalculable. Why all that? Obviously
> because
>> government officials, supposed to protect the honour and life of
> women, were
>> perceived to be involved in the sinister act of outraging the
> modesty of the
>> victims and doing away with them.
>>
>> Within months, yet
> another government official---this time a doctor on whose
>> evidence stood
> the ³rape-cum-murder² of the Shopian duo---has been found to
>> have outraged
> the chastity of a hapless woman at his clinic at the nearby
>> district
> headquarters of Pulwama. There are few differences between the two.
>> First
> one was fully based on surmise, speculation and perception. Post
>> mortem
> reports of two teams of doctors made it an explosive case of gang
>> rape and
> murder. Actors need not to be searched in such kind of incidents in
>> the
> strife torn Valley. Second one has been purportedly shot on camera and
>> the
> actor stands not only identified but also placed under suspension,
>> arrested
> and jailed.
>>
>> In case of Shopian, the victims were found to have died
> once. In case of
>> Pulwama, the victim has been left to die a hundred times
> every day as long
>> as she lives. The latest revelation is that she happens
> to be the mother of
>> a girl doing first year of her MBBS and a 17-year-old
> son who is in class
>> 11th. Shopian happened by night in a nullah and Pulwama
> in broad daylight
>> during the holy month of Ramazan, at a property owned by
> a religious trust.
>> Then, why an uproar on Shopian and a silence of
> convenience on Pulwama? The
>> biggest poser of the cruel times in Kashmir: Is
> it the outfits of an actor
>> that categorizes rapes in the Valley? Had the
> Pulwama actor been in Khaki,
>> would the Kashmiri politicians have maintained
> this silence. The questions
>> ahead: Are the Kashmiri female politicians
> concerned over the outrage of the
>> modesty of hapless women by government
> officials or are they exploiting such
>> incidents selectively to create space
> for themselves in the politics of
>> deceit and camouflage that has had a
> bullish market from New Delhi to
>> Islamabad?
>>
>> PDP President, Mehbooba
> Mufti, and the pro-Pakistan Dukhataraan-e-Millat
>> supremo, Asiya Andrabi,
> stole the show in Shopian as they left no stone
>> unturned in berating the
> men in uniform. That was understandable for one was
>> the queen of the
> mainstream opposition and another indisputably the highest
>> profile female
> political activist in the separatist camp. But the ruling
>> National
> Conference¹s MLA, Shameema Firdaus, appeared to outsmart all and
>> sundry in
> the agitation when she led a procession of workers on Residency
>> Road in
> Srinagar, chanting slogans against the Shopian rapists and killers
>> and
> demanding exemplary punishment for them all.
>>
>> Of late, Shameema Firdaus,
> has been appointed by Omar Abdullah government as
>> the Chairperson of the
> State Women¹s Commission. While Asiya and her ilk in
>> the separatist camp
> must have now realized the dangers of walking into the
>> trap of pro-India
> politicians, PDP chief has never been sighted in Assembly
>> since the day
> Pulwama surfaced on March 21. Ms Firdaus remained in
>> attendance but did not
> utter a word of condemnation even when the
>> independent MLA from Langet,
> Engineer Sheikh Abdul Rashid, raised his lonely
>> voice on the floor of the
> House and demanded termination of the doctor¹s
>> services.
>>
>> Until
> yesterday, the big question was: How could the two women have drowned
>> to
> death in ³ankle deep waters² of Rambiara ? After CBI exonerated all the>>
> four Policemen and filed a chargesheet against 13 persons, including six
>>
> doctors---notably then deputy Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Ghulam Qadir>>
> Sofi, now booked for raping a woman at his clinic---a bigger question
>>
> surfaced: How do the gang rapes in Valley take place while leaving hymen of
>>
> an unmarried woman intact? Now a far bigger question: Is it all politics on
>>
> rape or rape of politics---to spare the rapists in civvies and target only
>>
> the rapists in uniform?
>> _________________________________________
>>
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>> Critiques &
> Collaborations
>> To subscribe: send an email to
> reader-list-request at sarai.net
>>
> <http://us.mc572.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=reader-list-request@sarai.net>
>
> > with subscribe in the subject header.
>> To unsubscribe:
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
>> List archive:
> &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion
> list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send
> an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject
> header.
> To unsubscribe:
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive:
> &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
___________________________
> ______________
reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the
> city.
Critiques & Collaborations
To subscribe: send an email to
> reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
To
> unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list 
List
> archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>