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

Thu Apr 1 13:41:51 IST 2010

Thanks, Sonia

Thanks for alerting me to the existence of Early Times which I had
somehow missed.
The link to AA Fayyaz's March 20th story is here
http://www.earlytimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=51425

However, both the Indian Express story (forwarded by you today) as
well as this Early Times report don't easily lend themselves to a
reading of rape. (Although there does seem to be considerable sleaze
in the story...)

For others on this list, I quote a paragraph from A A Fayyaz's story:

"The video clip, now in circulation in the capital city and entire
south Kashmir, shows Dr Sofi committing the sexual act on a pretty
young woman who enters a room and takes off her trousers. Entire act,
in which both the characters are clearly identifiable, takes place on
a bed, reportedly in a room of the CMO's office. However, some people
suspect it to be Dr Sofi's clinic in Pulwama. The woman, wearing an
embroidered pink colour Pheran and Shalwar, and half of burqa on her
head (which is fully lifted from the front) does not pose any
resistance but does not offer any smiles either. Legal experts insist
that sexual exploitation of females on the promise of rewarding them
with a government job was very much rape and the accused was supposed
to be booked for rape.
In three days of investigation, Police have identified the woman as an
unemployed nurse of Balpora village of Shopian district. However, she
had neither been called nor questioned in custody or otherwise till
late tonight."

>From this, it does seem a bit early to put this incident on par with
the Shopian rape and murder, don't you think?

Meanwhile I sincerely look forward to your reading of the Shopian incident.
(Then I won't need to interpret your comments, and risk getting them wrong!)

Best

Sanjay Kak

2010/4/1 S. Jabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com>:
>
> From Indian Express
> Print Story
> Seen in sex clip, Shopian case CMO suspended
>
> Bashaarat Masood
> Posted online: March 21, 2010 at 0217
>
> The Jammu and Kashmir government on Saturday suspended Pulwama Chief Medical
> Officer Dr Ghulam Qadir, already chargesheeted by the CBI for fabricating
> evidence in the Shopian case, after footage of him having sex with a woman
> in a clinic became public on Friday.
> “We watched the clip and the man in the video resembles Dr Qadir,” said SSP
> Kifayat Haider.
>
> “It seems that the clip was shot last summer and shows the doctor having sex
> with a woman in a clinic-like room. We are investigating the case,” he
> added. The CMO Qadir has since been booked. The police are also looking for
> the people who shot and distributed the video.
>
> “The matter is serious and we have placed the doctor under suspension,”
> Health Minister Sham Lal Sharma said, adding that an independent inquiry had
> been initiated.
>
> Dr Qadir was among the persons chargesheeted by CBI in the Shopian case in
> relation to the death of 22-year-old Neelofar Jan and her 17-year-old
> sister-in-law Asiya Jan that led to massive protests across the Kashmir
> valley.
>
> The CMO and 12 other persons were charged with fabricating and destroying
> evidence.
>
>
>> 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?
>>> _________________________________________
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