[Reader-list] From Greater Kashmir

[SJabbar]

Aah ko chahiye ik OmarŠ
TRAGEDY
THE KILLING OF OMAR QAYOOM THE 64TH VICTIM OF GOVERNMENT VIOLENCE SINCE JUNE
11, HAS A FEW SPECIAL MESSAGES FOR CHIEF MINISTER OMAR ABDULLAH, WRITES
MEHBOOB IQBAL

 
EACH one of the sixty four victims of government violence since June 11 had
a message to deliver to a deaf and dumb world around them. A message written
in blood and delivered through mountains of newsprint and round the clock
news shows, computers and networks. A message straight to the conscience. An
SOS forjustice, attention and a right to a decent liberated life. But one
boy named Omar Qayoom left behind not just his devastated parents and three
sisters behind but multiple messages to his namesake chief minister Omar
Abdullah. Not the least because he was the sixty fourth. The killing of Omar
Qayoom took place in Soura a non-descript village steeped in poverty and
ignorance before it was made famous by Omar Abdullah¹s grand father who was
ultimately to bequeath the throne to his descendants. It was here in this
locality that young Sheikh Abdullah, then a simple Muhammad Abdullah had
slapped a uniformed functionary of an autocratic system. That slap caused a
thunder far and wide for it was an act of defiance that was to script the
history of Kashmir and leave indelible marks on entire South Asian region. A
slap that founded a dynasty of elected rulers and an act that also began a
new unending chapter of misery for the very people who were overawed by it
and who followed the hero of that day without a murmur. As Muhammad Abdullah
grew into Sher-e-Kashmir his unquestioning and unsuspecting believers
zaroored him from one decision to another, one blunder to another. His magic
ensured a god¹s status to him literally right up to his grave.

 Muhammad Abdullah of Soura, whatever his daring and whatever his sacrifices
however owed a great deal to the very system that he ultimately over threw.
He owed the ³Dogra Shahi² as he called it, an absolute and cruel
dictatorship as he condemned it, the right to life which Maharaja Hari Singh
mercifully granted him. Who would have ever heard of Sher e Kashmir if the
daroga of Maharaja¹s capital had meted out the same treatment to baaghi
Abdullah as Omar Abdullah¹s police did to Omar Qayoom? Omar Abdullah in the
current cacophony of statements once graciously said, not long ago to Barhka
Dutt, if the policeman shoots some one down on the street, the shoulder is
mine. Omar Qayoom did not die of a bullet, for a change. He had, according
to doctors a ³history of beating². Those who know claimed the 17 year old
had a ruptured lung which cost him his budding life. One can only shudder at
the kind of torture the boy must have gone through in police custody. Was it
trampling under the heavy boots as in case of Waseem another child killed in
Batmaloo or straight drilling of a baton inside his mouth as reported
elsewhere? One is not sure but Omar Abdullah can certainly not take refuge
under the argument that his shoulder was not used in this case. If it was
the boot it was his, if it was the cane it was his.

 It was almost natural that the irate and highly provoked mob would target
Sheikh Abdullah¹s house in the locality of his birth. That house is an
icon--of hate now but was of reverence only few decades back. It was the one
Abdullah property financed by the poor of the valley through sincere
donations of their miserable savings. A rupee or two, silver from the
thatched homes and gold from the dewankhanas. It was a monument of love and
a tribute to Sheikh Abdullah¹s daring in the early decades of twentieth
century. It also proved to be the Taj Mahal of Kashmir¹s most celebrated
love story and destroyed by the disillusioned lovers themselves. Sheikh
Abdullah started it himself with his flight to posh uptown areas and a more
lavish lifestyle and the rest through a better understanding of what had
struck them as a result of their blind love.

 As if on a cue the political opponents of the chief minister chose the same
black Wednesday to rake up another house, they called Abdullah Mahal at
Gupkar. Around the time Abdullah House in Soura was being attacked by the
grand children of Sheikh¹s devotees a lesser known legislator Nizamuddin
from Ahad Jan¹s area was fielded to do an encore of the shoe pelting of a
more serious kind. One really is wonderstruck by the strange methods of
history. How resoundingly can it deliver messages if there is an eye to
discern, in the words of Qur¹an, ³Fa¹atabiroo ya ulilabsaar². Omar Qayoom¹s
death at the hands of police of Omar Abdullah acted as the messenger. Is
someone listening at the foot of Sulaiman Teng? Would a Muhammad Yousuf Teng
muster up the courage to decode it for his god of small things?

 On August 2 when the chief minister succeeded in getting reinforcements for
his beleaguered government he made announcement to that effect at a press
conference in the national capital. In reply to a question he expressed
relief at the fact that the ³casualties were still not many², not many
really if the toll of Amarnath Ragda was a bench mark. He must have felt
comfortable with the feeling that the number 64 was too far away yet and by
the time it is crossed many would have forgotten about his comment. But his
forces had to work overtime in achieving the unfortunate statistic in the
same month as if to deny the chief minister this last comfort that he was
still to better the performance of his predecessors. And they could not have
done it in a more telling manner if one considers the ironies involved. Omar
Qayoom of Soura, the namesake of Omar Abdullah the chief minister was not
killed in random shooting. He was picked up and tortured to death as if for
the sin of his name and the crime of his belonging to Sheikh Abdullah¹s
Soura.

 A day after the attack on Abdullah House at Soura the current patriarch of
the clan made a trademark speech in the Lok Sabha. He expressed his strong
disapproval of the inability or reluctance of the government of India to get
back the part of Jammu and Kashmir that is with Pakistan. Obviously the
aging Farooq still harbours the fantasy of expanding his family empire. Only
that he doesn¹t realize the significance of losing Soura. Mirza Ghalib has
created verses for almost all occasions. The one that Farooq could recite
using his considerable singing talent is Aah ko chahiye ik umr asar honey
takŠ

 But it could be the favourite of the 64 mourning mothers as well with the
slight phonetic variation Aah ko chahiye ik OmarŠAs it is joined by millions
of sighs from the street, the farms, the mosques, prisons, police stations
and hospital beds to constitute a gale of sighs Omar Qayoom the seventeen
year old from Soura with ruptured lungs and trauma of torture might be
pleading before AllahŠHow long my Lord?