Nuptial Knot Of Sisters Awaits Brother’s Release

Combining the strength to collectively hold the position of their brother in the family, the sisters of a Kashmiri youth still wait for their brother to return and get them married. The dreams seem to be shattered due to their brother’s detention.

Last year on December 31, Mehraj-ud-din Shergujree of Hajin Bandipora was arrested in Bhopal. “He was falsely implicated there. He had gone to Bhopal for an orientation as he had a lot of interest in learning religion. Unfortunately he became the victim of cruelty there and was made a prisoner”, says his sister, Shaista Qadir.

Mehraj has nine sisters and seven of them are unmarried. The sisters say they are waiting for their Zuu to come. “We have never thought of happiness without Baijan. In fact, happiness went away the day he was taken away from our eyes”, says Shaista.

Writing his final year examinations, Mehraj is presently detained at Srinagar’s Central Jail. Away from home, his sister says, Mehraj is living life of a caged bird. “He would walk freely in his home; would go to college and handle our father’s shop very well”, says Shaista.

The family says Mehraj was once brought to local police station Hajin but detained again, later. “They once brought him here and told us he will soon be released. We were anticipating his homecoming but our dreams shattered when they detained him again,” says his father, Ghulam Qadir.

Even a local court, according to Ghulam Qadir, had granted bail to Mehraj but never to be released. “They played with our sentiments. At the time when I need my son very much, he is languishing in jail”, he says.

Mehraj-ud-din is the only son of Ghulam Qadir Sheergujree. He used to run the shop besides going to college. “He worked very hard. On one hand he was studying and on the other hand, like an awlaad-e-saleha (faithful son) helped our father in maintaining the shop”, says Shaista.

After passing 2nd year exams Mehraj had started his own shop selling Kiryana items. “He worked hard in his shop after he would come from college. Besides he helped me in early hours of morning in collecting milk”, his father says.

The family is waiting for their son to come home and bring them happiness. His shop is running in loss. They wait for him to come, shoulder the burden of the family, and get his sisters married. Two of his engaged sisters will not marry until he comes.

Mehraj’s 10-year-old niece says her Mamu will bring her lots of toys. “Mamu gaya hai hajas, woh bohat saare khiloonay layenge wahan se (Mamu has gone to Hajj, he will bring me lots of toys),” she says.

20 years on, Father waits for his son to return from the cricket fields

By:Majid Maqbool

"Twice selected to represent J&K in Ranji Trophy, Fayaz was 19 when he disappeared in custody. His family has kept his memory alive through an annual cricket tournament in his name in Baramulla"

As a young boy Fayaz Ahmad Gashoo was passionate about sports, particularly cricket. An all-round cricketer all through his high school and college years, he could bowl as fast as the West Indian fast bowler Malcolm Marshal earning him a nickname "Fayaz Marshal" in Baramulla and "Fayaz Fire" in Srinagar. Fayaz was selected twice to play in Ranji trophy. On a Saturday afternoon of May 19, 1990 he was waiting near a court complex in Sopore to board a bus to reach his home in Baramulla. A CRPF convoy that was passing by swooped on him and picked him up. Fayaz has never been seen since.

His family is unable to reconcile with the loss. Fayaz has disappeared but his family believes he has been killed. At their residence in KhawajaBagh, Baramulla, Fayaz's elder brother opens a grey briefcase - a briefcase full of memories, containing certificates, photographs and documents related to his disappearance. In one envelope - "yadien" written on its cover - pictures of Fayaz holding trophies he won in different cricket tournaments before he disappeared in CRPF custody in 1990.

In some pictures, he is smiling in the company of his college friends and teammates. Other pictures show Fayaz in a skiing gear on a snowy slope with his friends in Gulmarg. In other pictures he is receiving the man of the match trophy and shaking hands with dignitaries. Surrounded by his teammates, he is seen jubilantly holding up the trophy. One envelope from the briefcase reveals a newspaper cutting of Fayaz, mentioning his achievement in the caption:

"Fayaz Ahmad, B.A part 1 - All round best player of the year, 1987." Fayaz's mother has been in a state of shock since the day he disappeared. She cannot stand the sight of cricket matches shown on television. She cannot bring herself to talk about her son, her elder sons say. Fayaz's elder brothers have to conceal all his photos, clothes and other belongings from her. They can not talk of Fayaz in front of her. She never passes from the college cricket ground where Fayaz used to practice. She avoids places Fayaz would frequent.

On a cold day in December, 1989, Fayaz Ahmad left home. He told his brothers that he was going for skiing in Gulmarg. He was 19 then, a teenager. That year armed rebellion had broken out in Kashmir against Indian rule, and many of Fayaz's friends had crossed the LoC.Fayaz, too, crossed the border without informing his family. He returned after 3 months. "We didn't know that he had crossed the border as he never told us," says his elder brother. "Those who had gone with him sent some of his belongings home and that is how we came to know about it."

After he returned in March 1990, his brother says, Fayaz came home only three times. "He would stay at home for a brief time and wouldn't talk about what he did during those three months." A second year commerce student in Baramulla Degree College, Fayaz resumed studies in college after his return.

On May 19, 1990, Fayaz was waiting for a vehicle near a college in Sopore. Notebook in hand, he was headed home. Eyewitnesses later told the family that a CRPF convoy that was passing by made a brief halt, some troopers came down, and he was taken away. His notebook dropped on the street.

Fayaz's family came to know about his arrest four days after his disappearance. Another young man, who was detained along with Fayaz in a CRPF camp, had somehow escaped. He later sent a message to the family that Fayaz was held by the 50 battalion of CRPF in their camp in Sopore.

"The officer in charge of that camp Kripal Singh denied having arrested Fayaz," says his brother. Months later, another friend of Fayaz, who was also held in the same camp had more bad news for the family. He was later sent to Tihar and after his release from there a few months later, he told the family that Fayaz was tortured inside the CRPF camp in Sopore.

"He had heard cries of Fayaz in the camp," Fayaz's brothers recalled. "He told us later that Fayaz was abused by a CRPF officer who was interrogating Fayaz inside the camp." After an altercation, he heard a few gunshots. And then there was silence, the friend had told Fayaz's family.

If they have killed our brother, we don't know where they kept his dead body," said his brother, eyes brimming with tears. "If he is dead, they should at least have handed over his dead body to us." After the custodial disappearance of Fayaz, his brothers approached CRPF and army camps all across the valley. They searched in every jail in the valley. They also went searching to jails in Rajasthan. But no trace.

"If someone spoke of having seen him in some jail, we would immediately rush there," says his elder brother. For three months in 1990, the brother hired a taxi and went to every CRPF camp and approached every CRPF officer stationed in the valley.

Fayaz's family says the CRPF and Army kept harassing the family in the years after his disappearance. They would ask for the gun of Fayaz. Every time the family told them that they don't know anything about the gun. They had never seen Fayaz carrying any weapon.

One evening in 1994, a group of soldiers raided their house. "They asked all the men to come out. But we told them that the women will also come out and then they can search the house," says Gul Mohammad, the elder brother of Fayaz. The army men got angry on this. "They beat all of us, including children, old men and women," the brothers recall.

On the same day one of their younger brother, Bashir Ahmad Gashoo, was taken away by the army. "He was released after 10 days in half-dead condition," says his elder brother Gul Mohammad Gashoo. "He was severely tortured in the nearby army camp. He could not even stand after his release and he was unable to talk for months."

Gul Mohammad has kept pictures showing torture marks on his brother's body. "He had to be hospitalized and was brought home after 3 months of treatment in SKIMS."

As a teenager Fayaz was fearless. He wouldn't tolerate any curbs on his freedom. During his high school student days, he was walking on a curfewed road in Baramulla. His brothers say a police officer, who was driving by in a police gypsy, stopped Fayaz in his tracks and rebuked him. He asked Fayaz to get lost and stay at home. "Fayaz got so angry on this that he slapped the police officer," recalls his elder brother. "He told the police officer that he cannot stop him from walking on the road." Fayaz had to be kept in hiding for a month to prevent his arrest.

Fayaz's brothers remember him as a brave young boy who loved playing cricket. Endowed with the physique of an athlete, he was the tallest among all his three brothers. At 17, Fayaz was selected twice to represent J&K state in Ranji trophy in 1987 and 1989.

One day Fayaz had gone to Srinagar to play in a tournament. "He had no money to return home," recalls his elder brother. "He slept beneath a Chinar tree in the same ground where he played during the day. Next morning, he got up and played in another match in the same ground," his brother recalls his enthusiasm for cricket with a poignant smile.

Most of the matches he played Fayaz would win the man of the match award. "He is the only player in Baramulla who once hit a ball so hard that it landed on the street outside the Baramulla degree college," recalls his brother. He says when people would come to know that Fayaz is batting or bowling, they would assemble in huge numbers inside the college ground just to watch him play. "People would even come from far off villages in buses to cheer him on."

After Fayaz's custodial disappearance, his brothers kept his memory alive. They started an annual cricket tournament "Fayaz Memorial" cricket cup in 1997. It was a tribute to a promising young cricketer. Every year some of the best cricket teams in Baramula compete in the memorial tournament. Fayaz's elder brothers give out trophies to the best teams and the most promising players. Had he been allowed to live, his brothers say, he would have brought more laurels and made his homeland proud.

"Whenever I see a dream, I see Fayaz playing cricket in his college ground," says Gul Muhammad. His room is adorned with all the trophies of Fayaz. He has even preserved one of the worn out cricket balls Fayaz played with.

"Whatever respect we have earned among people here, it is because of Fayaz," his brothers say in unison. "We're known more as Fayaz's brothers." "And we will never forget what was done to our brother."

A Victims Open Letter (To The Then) C M Of J&K : Breathtaking Story

In an open letter (to the then) Chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, Asima Mohiudin, a resident of Fatehgarh Baramulla, pens down the bundle of tregedies that sum the and her sisters have encountered so far.

Starting her letter with a quote, she writes; “Kehtay hai jis ghum ka elaaj nahe hota ussay sehna he padhta hai” (The sorrow that cannot be cured has to be endured) “ Ye dard bahri kahaane aik khushaal ghar ke hai jo pehlay buhat acha aur khush tha, aura bb jaisay issay kisi ke nanzar lag gaye ho” ( This is the story of a family that used to be happy, later evil spirit struck it) Asima Outlined her tale of woes in the letter, a copy of which was handed over to the author, while narrating her woes and trauma.

At the top off letter she mentions ”A TRUE STORY” On “22 JUNE 1993” At “11:30 PM” at night everyone was sleeping and there was complete darkness due to load shedding. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, a sense of fear prevailed. Somehow our grandmother with a torch in her hand stood up, went downstairs to open the gate. As she was moving towards the gate the frequency of knocks increased and as she was about to open the door broken open with some persons barging in.

Immediately her grandmother lit the torch and asked “who they were”. One of them in turn broke her torch with gun he was carrying. Then they went upstairs and broke all the window panes.

Asima’s Uncle Abdul Rasheed was married just six months back. First, he was taken into custody, then one of them fired upon her grandmother. The bullet pierced her body and hit the wall. She began profusely bleeding and fell unconscious.

After sometime they caught hold of Asima’s father Ghulam Mohiuddin and took him along. Asima’s mother tried to console her daughters as they were too young. “Though I was very young, but I exactly remember that day which changed our lives forever,” Points Asima.

Since that day her father and uncle are missing and nothing is known about them. “However, hope is there,” she says adding “we hope that both father and uncle will return someday as their daughters are waiting for them and they have to return”

Her mother, Haleema Begum tried hard to trace the whereabouts of her husband and brother-In-law from whatever corner she got the clue. Dejected with the situation she was in, and getting tossed from pillar to post, Haleema developed heart ailment.

“I remember whenever she left in the morning she used to say that she might get some information, but in the evening sadness was visible on her face reflecting the situation which she was facing,” writes Asima in her letter.

It was during this time that her other uncle was killed. “Think of the mother who lost her three sons this way. Consider about that mother who had to look after her four daughters and had to trace the whereabouts of her husband and brother in-law,” Says Asima

After sometime, Asima grandfather Wali Muhammad Lone Expired. He was waiting for news of his son’s return, but fate had something tragic in store for him and death laid its icy hands on him, Writes Asima.

Asima has three more sisters. “To Whom shall I narrate my woes and how many times shall I repeat the same tragedy? Enough is enough now. Many times I think that I should take the poison as I cannot tolerate anymore now,” she says.

Asima’s mother died on July 10, 2006. “She was our lone support but that too was taken away by the Almighty. Had She for some years things would have been different for us,” she said, “our father had left us to the support of our mother but he never knew that she would leave us halfway, stranded.”

She would have survived had we been able to provide her timely medical treatment, Asima Said. She expressed regret that she could not provide proper treatment to her mother due to economic compulsions at home.

The sisters lost their parents. They yearn to have a brother as they live in rural setup where conservative norms prevail. According to Asima, girls working out in their area are not treated with repect.

Her Sisters Rukaya, Fatima and Tahira were forced to discontinue their studies due to financial difficulties. “ We know it is extremely important to receive education the present circumstances. But wherever we went for admission they first asked if we could afford tuition fee. After that we dropped the idea,” she said.

Asima and her sisters want justice to be done to them. “no one knows the way we sisters live,” she said. Expressing her pains she said, “ zaane soie jaey yath jaeye naar lagge” (only the sufferer knows how painful it is…

An encounter with a Facebook friend in Kashmir | Write2kill

By : Subir Ghosh

I was a tad surprised when he told me that he wouldn’t be able to meet me late evening since it was late, and he would have to return home. You don’t always expect guys to rush homewards just because it is a trifle late. We had initially planned to meet early evening, but another appointment had held me up. So we caught up on phone, and fixed 8:30 the morrow morn for a tête-à-tête.

Since you don’t expect things to move at the same pace in Kashmir as it does in Delhi, I took it easy. I was late from word go; he wasn’t. The young man was there in the hotel lobby on time. The pleasantries done, we exchanged notes. Real ones this time, and not the Facebook kinds as we had often shared earlier. For this was a guy I had come to know from the world’s largest social networking site.

I had known him for a year or so, and had often fallen back on him for information. He had ungrudgingly come to my aid whenever I needed help with research. The info he provided was always based on sources whose veracity I could not question. One could not find a bias anywhere. There were times when I was moved by the amount that he would type only to help me in my work.

And then there was this evening when I found him doing weird stuff– the kind of silly things you do on Facebook when you are sitting idle. “Don’t have anything better to do?” I inboxed him. Pat came his reply, “What to do? There’s curfew outside. Can’t do anything else.” I chuckled. Cute young fella, I thought.

I had expected him to be affable, and this he was. He was also open-minded, candid. He said he had a Pakistan bent of mind. He also said the younger lot wanted neither India nor Pakistan; but complete independence. He did not seem to have issues there. I did not have any with him either. But funny that he talked of a "younger" lot; this fella himself is still in his twenties, I grinned to myself.

Yet his appearance, the way he presented himself was a bit misleading. I realised this in the course of our hurried conversation – when he dropped a bombshell. His brother, younger to him, had gone missing last year, shortly before the street protests had begun. A few days later, his body was recovered. It took close to a year for the family to get the relevant papers. And this had just happened.

It hit me hard. Disappearances and killings were what had dominated our exchanges on Facebook, but never for once had he told me of his own loss. I could see him putting up a brave face, his grief hidden behind his charming smile. I thought I saw his eyes glisten a bit when he said that his brother had been his backbone. Not the backbone bit, but I could relate to what it might mean for a man to lose his younger brother. I remember throwing up my own younger brother in the air when he was a toddler. Just for kicks.

My Facebook friend needed to rush to work, and our meeting had to be brought to a — to borrow a cliche — grinding halt. I hung around Srinagar for quite a few days more, but couldn’t find the time to meet him again.

As I kept interacting with people, from all walks of life, it slowly began to sink in. Most parents in Kashmir frantically wait for their sons to return to their hearth. And so would have been his parents. That was the reason why he had to ditch me that evening, and head for home.

I don’t know when I might visit Kashmir a second time. Or whether I will ever meet him again. But I do hope that he returns to his parents every evening.

PS: This piece could have well been titled Where parents wait for their sons to return home.

Source : Write2kill.in

The impunity of the armed forces in Kashmir

Activists argue that the AFSPA protects Indian forces from being prosecuted for
crimes in Indian-administered Kashmir [Showkat Shafi]

The reported 8,000 to 10,000 enforced disappearances in Indian-administered Kashmir are just one part of a series of human rights violations attributed to the Indian government, including extra-judicial killings, torture and illegal detentions. But the Indian state has been able to side-step international human rights conventions through a series of laws that grant special rights to the armed forces in Kashmir.

Al Jazeera's Azad Essa speaks to Aaliya Anjum, lecturer in law at Vitasta Law School, University of Kashmir, about the legal framework that enables the armed forces to act with impunity in the valley.

What allows the Indian government to legally get away with using enforced disappearances as a tactic?

I suppose it is primarily because of its overwhelming military presence in Kashmir. The Indian government empowers its military through special security legislations like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the Public Safety Act (PSA), granting them sweeping impunity for acts carried out under these laws, which in turn facilitate the bringing about of enforced disappearances and other human rights abuse.

AFSPA for instance grants the 'powers' to members of the armed forces in 'disturbed areas' like Kashmir to shoot to kill or arrest persons on the ground of ‘mere’ suspicion. That is not only in contravention to core human rights standards, which guarantee a fair trial, but also goes against the basic principle of Indian criminal law itself : ’One is presumed innocent unless proven otherwise’. Likewise, the PSA provides for holding the arrested person in custody without trial for up to two years, dumping fair and speedy trial guarantees.

Also, for an act done under the AFSPA, the army is immune from prosecution, in other words, trial before a court (as provided under the provisions of the AFSPA itself).Otherwise than that also, for initiating an action against a member of the armed forces, permission is needed from the central government, under Sec 45 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which is of course never granted.
In Kashmir, many of those arrested under AFSPA or PSA never make it out of detention centers .They are held under ‘incommunicado’ detention( unacknowledged and secret detention) leading to enforced disappearance, tortured or subject to extra-judicial killings. Besides, slapping of PSA on even juveniles (children below the age of 18) continues to take place. There are reportedly 8,000 to 10,000 cases of disappearances so far.

What legal avenues can victims' families take to fight this scourge?

The remedy available to an aggrieved relative in such a case would be to file a Writ of habeas corpus (you have the body/ produce the body) in the state high court. But the judicial process is long-drawn, expensive and unproductive largely, with hundreds of these writs lying pending in the court.

In addition, there are many more contempt petitions waiting to be heard by the court, which seek to challenge disregard of favorable orders in such cases i-e even if the state high court quashes detentions in some cases, it is often followed by slapping of fresh PSA charges on the detainee.

What sort of opposition has there been to the AFSPA and the PSA from civil society and human rights advocacy groups?

Civil society in India as well as in Kashmir has been vehemently demanding the repeal of the AFSPA, mainly through out of court advocacy.

The opposition to AFSPA first began in context of the north-east of India, where the law was first introduced in 1958.

It was extended to Kashmir in 1990, where the opposition towards the legislation became louder in street protest, media, and civil society campaigns(domestically and internationally), particularly after the discovery of the mass-graves, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports on disappearances and impunity, and the killing and arrest of protestors in 2008 and 2010.

But Kashmir is a 'disturbed area', so surely India has a right to defend its borders against threats to its security?

For arguments sake, even if such a contention is to be considered, from a human rights perspective it lacks any substance. For so called maintenance of ‘law and order’ in a ‘disturbed’ area, common minimum human rights standards, as prescribed by core human rights treaties like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and also under the UN Convention Against Enforced Disappearances (UNAED) cannot be contravened.

Not under any circumstances. India is a party to all core human rights treaties, together with UNAED and the four Geneva Conventions prescribing code of conduct in times of armed conflict.

It needs to respect the right to life, personal liberty and provide a fair and speedy trial guaranteed to all individuals it claims to govern and also ‘protect’ them from 'enforced disappearance'.

Do these laws fuel self-determination sentiment in Kashmir or are the laws a response to self-determination sentiment?

Human rights abuse and the denial of justice by way of these laws are seen as tools for curbing dissent and therefore suppressing the popular sentiment for freedom in Kashmir.

In that sense, they are not responsible for fuelling the sentiment for freedom to sustain it, nor has the sentiment been born out of acts resulting from these laws. As a matter of fact, these laws and the resultant abuse exist because of the sentiment for freedom.

Source : AlJazeera

A Tribute to the Woman of Kashmir

By : Muhammad Faisal

It was a raw urge and an emotional outburst, i wanted to write about to get some closure over the pain i had seen recently. I saw the mother of Sameer Jan, the 8 year old boy beaten to death and trampled with jackboots in the 2010 Uprising.

                                    Sameer Jan 8 jackbooted to death


I came home feeling enraged and saddened, came to my room, closed my eyes and my world wandered,
Wandered around the bloodied paradise that Kashmir had become.It was painful, felt like a dagger cutting your body in half,slowly like the merciless butcher. I couldn’t bear the pain of seeing Sameer’s Mother, of her eyes haunted by the blackened body of her son.
I needed something to vent, so i wrote this:-
Kashmir, the world’s most militarized zone, suffocating with over 500,000 thousand strangers thumping on its soil, once called the Paradise on earth is now in shards, reminiscent of the conflict that has been going on for six decades. The six decades which have been full of pain, tears, passion and suffering for the people that live in its misery.

Over 400,000 souls departed since 1947, while others survived the pain of massacres, mass-rapes, torture, disappearances and sufferings that sounds like wrath of the evil over the good. Justice is hardly delivered and the procedures to seek it are never ending,

A Mother who lost her son, killed while she was dreaming about the henna on his little finger the day he would have been married, was returned with a coffin. The pain of losing her son kills her every moment his flash passes by, silently.

Her daughter awaits the return of her groom who was taken into the darkness, never to be seen again. The boy, who she was in love with, whom she wanted to tease and play games with, is nowhere. She wonders if he ever will comeback, is he alive or is he dead somewhere in the mountains. She is an empty soul wandering and staring at the knob every night.

Her sister haunted by the nightmares of the time when her soul was torn apart by the beasts in the dark of the night. Her screams and cries for a saviour gagged by their hands. She sought justice and the door was shut on her, Her family and the hypocritical society banished her. She survived the pain but the Pain took everything of her, took her dreams of being married, of having a family, of being humane. She now lies in the dark corner of the room, a life less soul.

She looks with a sigh to her neighbours’ abandoned house whom she used to gossip about her never-ending chores, of her annoying Hash (Mother in Law), left her amidst the chaos and fear. She wishes for her to return to the house occupied by the gun-toting troops of the country down south.

This mother has been the rock of resilience, survival, strength and hope. This mother is KASHMIR.

The hope has never faded in the hearts of the people living in Kashmir, Hope of a glorious future, of a new beginning, of a new dawn, of Freedom

"Muhammad Faysal is a Human Sciences student, He writes at www.muhammadfaysal.wordpress.com"