[sacw] sacw dispatch #2 (22 April 00)

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Sat, 22 Apr 2000 21:31:51 +0200


South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch #2
22 April 2000

[ The SACW Dispatches will now be discontinued till mid May 2000; Some
exceptional posting might be sent during this period.....!]

_____________________
#1. Assault on Women's Health activists in UP, INDIA
#2. A Spring in Kashmir
_____________________

22 April 2000

Dear Friends,
I have received the following message with a request that it be circulated
to all. In case you have already received it, please ignore. I know Drs.
Jashdhara and Abhijit as they participated in a meeting of Medico Friend
Circle a few years back, and I also know about the work they have been
doing with devotion in a very difficult terrain. What has happened to them
is given in the press note below, and is self explanatory. Please give it
publicity and do anything that is possible to protest.
Regards. Amar
(Amar Jesani) Mumbai
jesani@v...
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

Press note BRUTAL ATTACK ON SOCIAL ACTIVISTS

ALMORA, Uttar Pradesh, 17 April, 2000

At 3 PM on 20th April 2000, there were brutal attacks on activists and
associates of the voluntary organisation SAHAYOG which has been working on
women's health and empowerment since 1992. A mob of local youth attacked
the head office at Pokhar Khali, Almora town and stormed into the room of
the secretary MS. Jasodhara Dasgupta. They shouted obscene accusations and
threats at her and were removed by the police force that was present. The
mob also physically attacked one of the staff members, Surendra Dhapola,
and then smashed the glass windows with stones and flowerpots. The police
prevented further damage and the mob surrounded the office and demanded the
arrest of the workers of SAHAYOG. At around 4.30 the local SP Mr. Jugal
arrives and assured the workers of printing obscene and unsubstantiated
information in the study report called 'AIDS AUR HUM' which attempted to
research the possibilities of the spread of AIDS in the Uttarakhand region.
The SP then confiscated the remaining copies of the report and arrested
four staff members of SAHAYOG on the spot. The SAHAYOG office was closed
down by police.

On the same day, a mob attacked the field office of SAHAYOG at Jageswar, 35
km from Almora. There was a group of women participants of a training
programme organised by SHAYOG who were surrounded and taunted with obscene
threats and accusations for seven hours in the open air, despite a
hailstorm and rain. The mob looted the SAHAYOG field office and also
deflated tyres of all SAHAYOG vehicles an prevented staff and participants
from moving from the spot. After seven hours the police and SDM arrived
from the district head quarters and accused the SAHAYOG staff of printing
obscene books. The SDM also beat up three male staff with a lathi, causing
one person's spectacles to break into his eyes. The police then arrested
several staff and two male participants of the training programme and took
them back to Almora.

Over the last few days strong objections have been raised by various
political and religious groups in Uttarakhand regarding the study report
AIDS AUR HUM about the possibility of the spread of HIV/AIDS in Uttarakhand
region. The report published in September 1999 has been distributed
privately to NGOs working on health, women's issues on HIV/AIDS I Hindi
speaking regions of the country. The report gave background information
about AIDS, the present situation in India, the methodology and the
findings from five villages, drawing from interviews with women, men,
adolescents and focus group discussions. The report concluded that there
was male out migration with unsafe sex practices in the region, and
sterility was not strictly maintained while giving injections. Apart from
this there is no blood bank or HIV/Aids testing facilities in the district.
The level of information is also very low, especially among women. There is
urgent need to spread awareness and information on HIV/AIDS, and SAHAYOG is
presently piloting such an effort in 5 villages.

Jashodhara Dasgupta Secretary, SAHAYOG
__________

#2.

A SPRING IN KASHMIR

By Sonia Jabbar

(to appear in Man's World, May 2000).

The road from Anantnag took us past burnt houses once belonging to Kashmiri
Pandits, past hamlets where men in pherans huddled on street corners,
bewildered, past groves of almond trees, laden with soft pink blossoms on
this early spring morning. Arshad's new Enfield cut a narrow path through
the cold air which closed quickly around me, numbing my fingers and ears,
chilling my body despite my thick pheran. On either side of the road lay
impossibly green fields stretching to meet the white majesty of the Pir
Panjal range. In my stomach, cold dread; my heart already weighed down with
anticipation. I know I am not cut out for what I will be witnessing
shortly.

We pass the road to Martand, where we had planned to go that morning. I was
to photograph the 8th century Sun Temple built by Lalitaditya. It rises
majestically on a karewa, Kashmir's Parthenon, silhouetted black against
the snow peaks. The Pandit girl in Mattan had called it the temple of the
Pandavs and I had looked forward to the simple pleasures of clambering among
the ruins at dawn. Arshad had ridden early that morning from his home some
miles away to pick me up from Anantnag when he was stopped by a policeman
who asked whether he knew anything about the rumour, you know, of the
massacre of the Sikhs. If I had been in Srinagar, safe, some fifty
kilometers away, I know I wouldn=EDt have made the journey. I'll admit it: I
am a coward. I have no stomach for these things. Here, in Anantnag, so
close to the massacre, it seemed I had no choice. Some crazy sense of duty
or guilt made me say, "Arshad, drop me there and leave. I=EDll make my way
back."

Half a kilometer from Chittisinghpora I could hear the wails and shrieks of
women. The deserted track soon grew thick with turbaned men running in the
same direction as us, their faces wild with grief and disbelief. I am one
of the first journalists to arrive. We are made to stand near the police
jeeps while the Sardars gather around the policemen shouting, raging. They
abuse the police, the army, the journalists, the politicians. From time to
time young men rush at us, screaming, waving their fists threateningly. A
few men from the village gather around me, and I get the first layer of the
story, which would later grow and thicken as the days passed. It was the
first time in the twelve years of militancy that the Sikh community in
Kashmir was the target of an attack=F3an attack which left 36 dead.

In this hamlet of 300 Sikh families nearly every house has lost a relative,
neighbour or friend. I see in the distance women squatting together,
wailing, beating their chests. One of them has lost her husband, father-in
law, brother-in law and two young sons, a young man tells me. Suddenly, the
cops wave us on. A few TV crews arrive and elbow their way to the front. I
let them go and approach with leaden feet, camera gripped tightly between me
and the scene in front of me.

The gurudwara walls are riddled with bullets, stained with blood. Slippers
and shoes lie scattered in pools of blood where they fell the night before.
I pick up my camera and start shooting mechanically. My heart is beating
wildly, my hands start to shake. Inside the courtyard of the gurudwara, the
bodies are assembled, uncovered, blood-spattered, mourned by their grieving
relatives and friends. The shrieks and shouts grow each time a new bier
arrives. And my God, they don=EDt stop coming. I don=EDt know why I am
photographing all of this. What am I recording=F3 my own grief or theirs?

The killings had taken place in two spots simultaneously. One, outside the
gurudwara as you approach the village, and the other, in front of another
gurudwara a few hundred meters away where the land dips into trough. I walk
towards the second spot, passing men coming up the slope with dead bodies
covered in blankets, the women following behind, their cries sharpened by
rage and grief. I pass a pretty little girl of around twelve or thirteen, a
thick brown plait reaches below her waist. She leans on an old uncle,
perhaps, "Daddy, Daddy kithey? Where are you?" she keeps repeating. I hear
a strange sound above all of this dreadful clamour and it is a while before
I realise it=EDs my own breath which is faltering into loud, ragged sobs.

Just the night before in Anantnag, I had sat warming my hands on a kangri,
listening to Basheer tell me about the brutal murder of his father and
brother in the early =EB90s. Both were National Conference politicians who
were gun downed by the Hizb-ul- Mujahideen. Basheer, himself was not
involved in politics, but a couple of years later when elections were
announced they were afraid of his contesting as an NC candidate and put him
down on their hit list. "Every night between 7 and 10, we would wait for
them to come and get me. Twice they came for me, but I escaped unharmed. I
was lucky" he said. "No one comes to kill during the day, it=EDs always arou=
nd
this time, between 7 and 10," he added prophetically. At Chittisinghpora
the next day I realised that the massacre had taken place even as we were
speaking, in exactly the manner that Basheer had described.

Someone takes me to a man who narrowly escaped being killed. I ask for
Karamjit Singh from the group of people huddled together. "Why? who=EDre you=
?"
someone asks sullenly. It takes a while for the man to ease up and recount
his tale: "I=EDd stepped out to get some milk around seven in the evening an=
d
met some friends on the path on my way home. Right near the gurudwara,
right here, outside, we saw we saw a group of men from our village talking
to some army men. I asked what was wrong, and the tall uniformed man who
claimed to be a C.O. of the army said that they suspected three militants
were hiding in our village and needed to search the houses. This guy even
had a Colonel=EDs pips on his uniform, the bastard. Then they asked the wome=
n
and children to stay inside while they pulled the men out. I was worried
about my wife who gets very tense in such situations so I asked him whether
he could excuse me, but he very politely and laughingly said, "relax, sit
down, this won=EDt take more than 5 minutes." He said relax, that it was Hol=
i
and we could join them for a drink later if we wished. Just then in the
distance someone shone a flashlight which distracted these guys and I
slipped away because I really didn=EDt feel like hanging around, and the nex=
t
thing I hear are automatic rifles shattering the peace of our village
forever."
" Were they army," I asked, "how can you be so sure that they weren=EDt real=
ly
army?"
"We=EDre sure because we live here and we know who is who. He said relax, th=
e
bastard said relax..."

A former school master sits by me. He has kindly eyes. He wants to talk to
me but is afraid. Only when I assure him of anonymity does he speak. He had
just asked his young son to close his shop and come in when he heard his
neighbour=EDs son being asked to come out of his house. "Since his father wa=
s
already outside with the other men he readily obeyed. Then they were made
to squat in front of the Gurudwara wall and eat bullets. The men then ran
off shouting Jai Hind! The young boy, Gurpreet Singh, a student, was only
19. His father who actually survived in spite of his bullet wounds probably
wishes he hadn=EDt."

I find myself getting up from the side of the gurudwara where the men have
gathered and from where I am gleaning my information and moving back to the
side where the bodies, the women, the children and the grieving relatives
sit. I find myself squatting in front of two young men weeping quietly in
the corner. I put my hand out on a shoulder, a face looks up, wet,
red-eyed, registering surprise for only a moment before he leans into my arm
and weeps. I notice the snow piled up in the shadow of the gurudwara is
getting dirtier from being trampled upon by truckloads of Sikhs arriving
>from all over the Valley. One family arrives screaming, their women claw
their own clothes, a man rips off his turban, tears open his shirt at the
chest and falls at the feet of a corpse. The young boy of about fifteen who
had been weeping quietly until then, grabs him, tries to calm him, sobbing,
beseeching. In the scuffle his own turban is knocked off, and his hair,
thick, long, almost sinuous, unfurls like a flag around him. I am struck by
an incongruous thought: how fragile, how beautiful he looks.

The stories about last night differ in their telling. A wizened old Sardar
stops my questions with a question: "Are you Hindu or Muslim?"
I am speechless, I cannot reply. "Hindu or Muslim?" he asks a little more
aggressively.
"Neither," I answer, "I=EDm neither..." Satisfied, he then sits down on his
haunches and tells me his version. Later, after trust has been established,
I ask him why he had asked me that question, "It saddened me, Baba, to hear
that from an old man like you."
His eyes misted immediately, "I=EDm sorry, puttar, I=EDm so sorry. Forgive m=
e,"
his voice cracked, "it=EDs just that these ten years have made monsters out =
of
all of us and we have to be careful. We have one answer for a Hindu and one
for a Muslim."

Sometimes the number of assailants is estimated to be fifteen, sometimes
fifty, but every Sikh is in agreement about the identity of the gunmen. In
spite of the army uniforms, the colonel=EDs pips on the tall man=EDs epaulet=
s,
the offer of alcohol and the battle cry of the Indian Jawaan as they
disappeared into the night, these men, they are convinced, were not from the
army. "They were militants," they concurred, "not Kashmiri militants but
foreign militants." They are convinced this is so for a number of reasons.

Chittisinghpora, lying in a remote part of Anantnag district, was frequented
by foreign militants during the last few years. One resident spoke of how
they would arrive quite openly and demand food and shelter. Once, they even
played cricket in the village. Another man described how they would boast
about walking across the border unchallenged. A third said that some had
visited the village just five days ago, had eaten dinner with the village
headman who was then the first person to be called out of his home and
killed. The men who came in uniform the night of the killings were
reportedly speaking in Urdu and Punjabi.
But the Sikhs had been expecting trouble in Kashmir. Only last month a
leading Sikh journal, describing the oppression of Sikhs in Talibanised
Afghanistan even after having lived there for centuries, questioned the fate
of the Kashmiri Sikhs. Just a few weeks ago some Pandits were killed in
Telwani, just a couple of kilometers away from Chittisinghpora. The Hindu
Welfare Forum, a group representing the interests of Kashmiri Pandit
families in the Valley had then met with Sikh leaders to see whether they
could come together to protect each other after. As for the men in army
uniforms, this ruse has been used in other militant operations earlier,
namely, the suicide attack on the Badami Bagh Cantonment where six soldiers
were killed, and the murder of Pandits in Ganderbal. Besides, they tried
almost too hard to pass off as Indian soldiers.

A little later I can no longer photograph or ask questions. My body gives
way. It crumples in the middle of the courtyard. I bury my face into my lap
and weep uncontrollably for a long, long time. Hands reach out. I feel the
hands of strangers on my head, patting my back, comforting me, "Bas puttar,
come, child." I feel ashamed to cry like this when it is I who should be
comforting the others. Three years ago when I was in Bandipora, North
Kashmir, I had visited a man who had lost 11 of his family: father,
brothers, children, nephews and nieces, aunts and uncles, in an army mortar
attack that had gone wrong, missing the militants and wiping out his family
instead. He had shown me photographs of the dead, the recently dead, blood
spattered, blackened, some with their guts spilling out, some with their
brains blown out. "I find myself wondering," I had written then, "about the
man photographing, how he continued to take pictures without throwing up=F3 =
or
perhaps he did..." Now, I find waves of nausea sweep over me. I am forced
to rush out of the gurudwara, lean against a tree and feel my empty gut
heave against my throat, taste the bitterness of bile and the futility of
these ghastly deaths.

Someone brings me water and after a while the tremors recede, leaving me
numbed and exhausted.
"Hi, I'm _____" .
I turn around. Somewhere I register the familiar face of a TV anchor woman.
I am relieved to see her here, this woman from Delhi, this woman somehow
connected to my universe so far from Chittisinghpora. Her cameraman hovers
close behind her.
I manage a smile, "Hi, I'm Sonia."
"Have you been down there," she gestures towards the gully, the second spot.
I nod.
"Is there blood?"
I stare at her speechless. I have to try really hard not to react badly
before turning on my heel and walking away.

=46rom time to time the crowd in the gurudwara stirs and buzzes like a mass
of angry bees. I know by now that it marks the arrival of some senior
bureaucrat, senior police or army officer. In spite of clearing the security
forces of direct responsibility for the killings the mood of Chittisinghpora
is hostile towards them. Rajender Singh, the Giani of the local Gurudwara
is very young, but he has a messianic quality which holds the attention of
the hundreds of men who form a circle around him. "We had been telling them
about foreign militants in the area," he shouts, "even two weeks ago we sent
a representation but no one came. They knew everything and yet they ignored
us, and now they come in droves after fourty Sikhs have been martyred. India
should either withdraw from Kashmir or protect its minorities". He demands
angrily that the Government of India send a representation to the area
immediately and that if the government cannot guarantee the safety of Sikhs
then they would have no choice but to leave the valley. The sentiment is
echoed by another resident, "It=EDs India at daytime, but once night falls i=
t
becomes Pakistan, and we have no place in Pakistan."

The Sikhs of this village had lived peacefully with the Muslims during the
twelve years of militancy. Ironically, even as the Sikhs express this, the
Muslim residents coming to mourn are sent away from the gurudwara gates by
the village elders who fear reprisals against them. They scuttle away
towards their own basti, weeping, frightened and unsure. I run after them,
"Please stop," I plead. A woman does a half-turn, her face is wet with
tears. "Did you hear anything last night?" I ask.
"Yes we...NO! No we heard nothing, nothing..." she turns and flees down the
track. I let her go.

It is afternoon and I have by then met up with two foreign correspondents,
Bob Nicholsberg and Tony Davis. Bob, I knew from Delhi and so I ask for a
ride back to Srinagar. The skies have darkened and a light drizzle starts
up. It is freezing cold and there is nothing more to be done here. My heart
is wrung dry. We stop in Anantnag for tea. I am ravenous and although the
shops are shuttered one man opens his tea shop especially for us. We tuck
into hot seekhs and bakarkhanis, washing it all down with cups of sweet tea.
Javed joins us, eager to talk. He is agitated and speaks for the other
traders when he says, "We=EDre fed up of strikes. In 365 days we get to work
only 5 days because of these strikes but today we have willingly closed shop
because we are shocked by what has happened to our Sikh brothers." They are
convinced the killings were the work of the security forces. "Why should
Muslims kill Sikhs. It is India trying to get mileage out of this while
Clinton is here."

When I return to Srinagar I find the shops closed and the streets deserted
but for boys playing cricket. I find an unreasonable irritation rise inside
which gets exacerbated when I get home and find the TV blaring Hindi movie
songs. Behenji brings me tea and reads my mood. "What are the children to
do," she says gently, "we see this everyday. The killings never stop and
our tears have long dried. Life must go on, and so must cricket and so must
TV..."
"Yes!" I reach out and hug her, overwhelmed by a mixture of great admiration
and sorrow for her and all the people of Kashmir=F3 and for all of us, too,
forced into the straightjackets of religious identity, of Hindu, Muslim,
Sikh, against our will. But I take solace in my memories of another
Kashmir: of waking up at dawn, half-asleep, to what I thought were Vedic
hymns only to be told it was the Dua-e-Seher, the morning prayers, sung so
sweetly only in Kashmir; of Rahman Sahab, the blind Pir of Ganderbal with
his Pandit following; of my visit to Sharika on Hari Parbat, my friend, an
artist, a Shia, filling me in on the myths and legends of the Hindu sacred
spot; of Shafi dipping his fingers into the blue waters of Mattan Nag,
running them over his closed eyes and saying, "This is what I worship;" of
Inder Tickoo who has always called himself Inder Saleem=D6.

Later, I call the Mirwaiz, Umar Farooq, acting-chairperson of the Hurriyat
Conference.
I'd just met him a few days ago at his home, where we=EDd spent a couple of
relaxed hours chatting. He is a personable young man burdened with great
responsibility since the Indian Government locked up his colleagues in
Jodhpur Jail without a trial. He was only sixteen when his father the
Mirwaiz, Maulvi Farooq was shot dead by unidentified gunmen. "I thought I'd
study computers," he had confessed, "but suddenly I found myself plunged
into the middle of Kashmiri politics, made the Mirwaiz when I really knew
very little..." Now, speaking to him on the phone I learnt that the
Government had put him under house arrest to prevent him from going to Delhi
and attempting to meet Clinton. He was shocked by the incident at
Chittisinghpora and made me relate all that I had seen. But he refused to
believe that the militants were responsible.
"No! This is a deep rooted conspiracy against the people of Kashmir,
designed to create a diversion from the real issue during President
Clinton=EDs visit. In all these long years of militancy the two communities
have lived in harmony. There must be an investigation through an
independent agency like Amnesty International or the Bar Association."
"They're talking about leaving, Umar Sahab..."
"No! No, they must not. We belong together, whether we are Hindus, Muslims
or Sikhs."

There is pandemonium at the press conference called by the Sikhs the next
day. I am relieved that they have rejected the Government's offer of arms
and training to form Village Defence Committees. "Who do they want us to
kill?" they ask. They appeal to the Sikhs in the Valley and in the rest of
India to remain calm and not seek vengeance. But all hell breaks loose when
the Sikhs make their appeal to the "majority community" to ensure their
safety.
"Are you saying that the majority community is responsible?" "How can the
majority community ensure your safety when they can't even ensure their
own." The 'they' turns into 'we' as the journalists forget that they are
journalists and become Muslims. The remorse and guilt that they feel simply
because the gunmen could have been Muslim is revealed by the tension in the
air, by the emotional questions being put to the Sikhs, "Are you saying that
we don=EDt feel devastated by what has happened?"

Later, a Sikh businessman talks to me in his home. "Remember the early
eighties? When Hindus were being killed off like flies in Punjab?" he asks
smiling ruefully, "Well, we all said it was the security forces. We told
each other it was the security forces, we told ourselves it was not our
people, that it couldn=EDt be the Sardars. We could never admit that we were
capable of killing in cold blood. We could not bear the thought that we
were capable of such terrible acts."

A few days after returning to Delhi I attended a talk by the Dalai Lama,
where someone asked him whether violence was justified in struggles for
justice, as in the struggle for Tibetan independence. He thought for a brief
moment before replying, "Sometimes there may be short-term benefits, but in
the long run, I don=EDt think so. You see, the very nature of violence is th=
at
it is unpredictable. Once it starts, you never know which way it=EDs going
to go..." I think of Kashmir and the violence, how it constantly changes
its nature like some pernicious virus, baffling those it infects by its
mutations. How does one make sense of the massacre at Chittisinghpora?
Where is its genesis? Why and when was the seed laid to mature on the night
of March 20? What will be the effects of this action? Rippling out radially
like waves after a stone has been dropped in a pool, how long before the
waters are still again, and then again, how long before the next stone is
cast?

On the way back from Chittisinghpora we had passed Bijbehara. "I was here
right when the Bijbehara massacre took place, I think it was '93' " said Bob=
,
pointing to where the road rose up the hill to the middle of the town. "The
security forces gunned down a hundred and fifty unarmed protestors that day
=F3 right here. I was photographing... there was blood everywhere, and my Go=
d,
the shoes and slippers, all over the road, ..."
Then Davis spoke of the massacre at Lanjot in February.
"What massacre?" I had asked, scanning my memory furiously, and feeling
stupid after coming up with nothing.
"Oh, on the other side of the LOC. The Pakistanis had made a big fuss about
it, flying foreign correspondents out in choppers to see for themselves."

In the early hours of February 25, soldiers of the 9th Sikh Light Infantry
allegedly crossed the LOC under cover of artillery and massacred fourteen
people, including women and children, beheading three. Davis speculated
whether the Chittisinghpora carnage wasn=EDt an act of revenge. When I
returned to Delhi I logged onto the Net and surfed through the Pakistani
papers of February 26, 27 and 28. They were full of detailed accounts of
the Lanjot massacre, full of the kind of outrage that was present in the
Indian coverage of Chittisinghpora. Next I checked the BBC.org and CNN.com.
Both had accounts of the killings. I then came across a Newsweek report
dated March 27 which said:

"No one is sure what happened on the night of Feb.25. The Pakistani army
says Indian soldiers crossed into Pakistani Kashmir and fired automatic
weapons on the 14 civilians. India denies its troops ever cross the line.
New Delhi, meanwhile, has accused Pakistan-backed terrorists of entering
Indian Kashmir, killing an Indian officer and six soldiers. A militant
group broadcast in mosques that they avenged the civilians deaths by slaying
35 Indian soldiers and taking the heads of three. India confirms that only
one soldier=EDs body was headless."

But the Indian newspapers are strangely silent around that time. I go
through them several times, trying to hunt down a reference to Lanjot but
come up with nothing. The Home Ministry is doing an amazing PR job, and our
journalists, if I am to be kind, are dozing=F3 sometimes. Otherwise, they
respond with alacrity. Soon after Chittisinghpora and my return to the
Capital I read triumphant reports of the killers being tracked down and
killed by the armed forces. Ghastly photographs of their charred remains
graced the pages of the Indian dailies. There is no way in hell that the
killers would have been hanging around just 20 km away from the massacre
waiting to be nabbed, I thought. They had either crossed over the LOC by
the time I was at the village the next morning or, they had made their way
to the thick forests of Doda to lie low before striking again in South
Kashmir. If they were involved why couldn=EDt the army capture them alive.
Surely they could have waited out a long siege and then paraded them in
front of the world, proving once and for all the identity of the killers.

The night before I had left Kashmir I was invited to dinner by a senior
police officer. It was a quiet affair with only two other guests, one of
whom was a senior CRPF officer. Inevitably the conversation turned to
Kashmir. The officers admitted that it wasn=EDt simply a question of tackli=
ng
insurgency and that the Government of India could put in a lot more effort
into solving the political and administrative problems. I told them how a
Sardar gent had said, "If India can tolerate the likes of Laloo and
Jayalalitha, why are they so insecure when it comes to Kashmir? Why have
they been thrusting Farooq down our throats? If Laloo is possible, why not
Geelani ?(Syed Ahmed Shah Geelani, Chairperson of the Hurriyat Conference.)"
And then the conversation turned to anti-insurgency operations.
"Why can=EDt you simply tackle the militants?" I had asked, "Your men have
really damaged Kashmir, alienated its people by the excesses, the rapes, the
killings, the custodial deaths of innocent people. Why?"

My host suddenly looked very tired, "Who do you think signs up to join the
security forces, people like you? Do you think you=EDll be able to pick up a
gun and kill? Could you stay away for months from your family earning just a
few thousand rupees, risking your life everyday in some God-forsaken place
far from home? No you wouldn=EDt. Only a brute would or someone desperate.
We get the worst, the rogues, the thugs, and then we have to play with
them," he pulled at an imaginary rope, "giving them lead and then reigning
them in. It=EDs not easy."

A few days later, back in Delhi, I read about the protests in a village near
Anantnag. The villagers claimed that the 5 of their men had disappeared and
accused the army of killing them and claiming that they were the ones
involved in Chittisinghpora. They demanded the bodies be exhumed and the
DNA tested to prove their identity. The next day I receive a phone call
>from a journalist friend, a Kashmiri. The CRPF and SOG had panicked and
opened fire on the demonstrators who were going to see the District
Collector with their memorandum. Seven people were killed on the spot and 25
injured. "I=EDm glad you weren=EDt there. It was really terrible" he said
angrily, "we got there as they were hosing the blood off the streets."

It doesn=EDt really end, does it? What does one do, give thanks that it
wasn=EDt as bad as Bijbehara? I guess the rope slipped out from the hands of
my cop friend for a bit which ended in seven more to be added to the list of
the tens of thousands killed in this war. Never mind the noises from the
State, not one man will be taken to task for the killings. There will be
some routine transfers and that=EDs all. Then someone will take revenge for
these seven deaths and the cycle will start again. The virus mutates and
stays alive and well.
__________________________________________
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