“Questions need to be asked why the Indian government executed Afzal Guru now. No one argues that those who engage in serious crimes should not be punished, but the death penalty is brutal and irreversible, and there is no convincing evidence to suggest it serves as a deterrent.”
Under Indian law, the death penalty is supposed to be carried out only in the “rarest of rare” cases.
Afzal Guru was convicted for providing logistical support to those involved in the attack on the Parliament building in New Delhi on December 13, 2001, in which five heavily-armed gunmen entered the complex and opened fire indiscriminately, killing nine, including six security personnel, two parliament guards, and a gardener. All five attackers, later identified as Pakistani nationals, were killed. No member of parliament was hurt.
Four people, including Afzal Guru, were charged with conspiring in the attack and waging war. In December 2002, three people,Syed Abdul Rahman Geelani, Shaukat Hussain Guru, and Afzal Guru, were sentenced to death. The fourth, Afsan Guru, was acquitted. Geelani was acquitted on appeal. In August 2005 the Supreme Court commuted Shaukat Hussain’s sentence to 10 years in prison but confirmed the death sentence of Afzal Guru. An appeal for clemency was filed for Afzal Guru but was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee on February 3.
Many Indian activists and lawyers have claimed that Azfal Guru did not receive proper legal representation. He did not have a lawyer from the time of his arrest until he confessed in police custody. Azfal Guru claimed that he had been tortured into making his confession, which he later retracted. Several Indian activists and senior lawyers have said that he did not have effective assistance of counsel.
The Indian government has defended the conviction, saying that Azfal Guru was able to appeal his conviction and that his claims were rejected by higher courts.Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment. In July 2012, 14 retired Supreme Court and High Court judges asked the president to commute the death sentences of 13 inmates they said had been erroneously upheld by the Supreme Court over the past nine years. This followed the court’s admission that some of these death sentences were rendered per incuriam (out of error or ignorance). In November 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that the “rarest of rare” standard for capital punishment had not been applied uniformly over the years and the norms on the death penalty needed “a fresh look.”
“India should end this distressing use of executions as a way to satisfy some public opinion,” said Ganguly. “It should instead join the nations that have chosen to abolish capital punishment.”
A rusted table, and behind it stood a well built man in uniform holding a spoon in his hand. Visitors, all of them looked habituated, queued up to open their plastic bags containing food, allowing it to be smelt, sometimes even tasted. The security man’s spoon paved its way through the thick grease floating curries—Malai Kofta, Shahi Paneer, Aalu Bengan, and Mixed Vegetables. As the visitors opened tiny bags of curries the spoon separated each piece of vegetable from the other, quite mechanically. 'Frisking' the food of a middle aged woman the spoon took a dip at the water in the steel bowl nearby. It then moved to the plastic bags of the next in the queue, an early teenage boy. By now water in the steel bowl has all kinds of colours. The floating oil gave it a vibgyor effect when light hit at it on the winter afternoon. Around 4.30 my turn came. The man left the spoon on the table and frisked my body top to bottom, thrice thoroughly. And when the metal detector made noise I had to remove my belt, steel watch, and keys. The man on duty bearing the badge of Tamilnadu Special Police (TSP) looked satisfied. I am allowed to enter now. This is the fourth security drill I had to go through to get into the High Risk Ward of Prison No 3 in Tihar Central Prison. I am on my way to meet Mohammad Afzal, one of the most talked about man in the contemporary times. A room with many tiny cubicles. The Visitors and inmate are separated by a thick glass, and iron grills. The two connected through a mike and a speaker fixed on the wall. Poorly audible, people at both sides of the glass strained their ears out touching the wall to listen other. Mohammad Afzal was already at the other side of the cubicle. His face gave me an impression of unfathomable dignity and calmness. A little short man in his mid thirties wearing white kurta paijama had a Reynolds pen in his pocket. Very clear voice welcomed me with the best of all mannerisms.
How are you sir?, he said. I said, I'm fine. Am I to return the same question to a man on the deathrow, was apprehensive for a second, but I did. Very fine. Thank you sir, he answered with warmth. The conversation went on for close to an hour, and continued a fortnight later with a second Mulakat. Both of us were in a hurry to answer and ask whatever one could in the time. I went on scribbling him in my tiny pocket book. He seemed to be a person who wanted to tell a lot of things to the world. But repeated his helplessness to reach people from the current stature of ‘condemned for life’.
Excerpts of the interview There are so many contradicting images of Afzal. Which Afzal am I meeting? Is it? But as far as I’m concerned there is only one Afzal. That is me. Who is that Afzal? A moments’ silence Afzal as a young, enthusiastic, intelligent, idealistic young man, Afzal a Kashmiri influenced like many thousands in the Kashmir Valley in the political climate of early 1990s, who was a JKLF member and crossed over to the other side of Kashmir, but in a matter of weeks got disillusioned and came back and tried to live a normal life, but was never allowed to do so by the security agencies who inordinate times picked me up, tortured the pulp out of me, electrified, frozen in cold water, dipped in petrol, smoked in chilies you name it, and falsely implicated in a case, with no lawyer, no fair trial, finally condemned to death. The lies the police told was propagated by you in media. And that perhaps created what the Supreme Court referred to as "collective conscience of the nation”. And to satisfy that "collective conscience” I’m condemned to death. That is the Mohammad Afzal you are meeting. After a moments’ silence, he continued. But I wonder whether the outside world knows anything about this Afzal. I ask you, did I get a chance to tell my story? Do you think justice is done? Would you like to hang a person without giving him a lawyer? Without a fair trial? Without listening to what he had to go through in life? Democracy doesn’t mean all this, does it? Can we begin with your life? Your life before the case… It was a turbulent political period in Kashmir when I was growing up. Maqbul Bhatt was hanged. The situation was volatile. The people of Kashmir decided to fight an electoral battle once again to resolve the Kashmir issue through peaceful means. Muslim United Front (MUF) was formed to represent the sentiments of Kashmiri Muslims for the final settlement of the Kashmir issue. Administration at Delhi was alarmed by the kind of support that MUF was gaining and in the consequence we saw rigging in the election on an unprecedented scale. And the leaders, who took part in the election and won with huge majority, were arrested, humiliated and put behind bars. It is only after this that the same leaders gave call for armed resistance. In response thousands of youth took to armed revolt. I dropped out from my MBBS studies in Jhelum Valley Medical College, Srinagar. I was also one of those who crossed to the other side of Kashmir as a JKLF member, but was disillusioned after seeing Pakistani Politicians acting the same as the Indian politicians in dealing with Kashmiris. I returned after few weeks. I surrendered to the security force, and you know, I was even given a BSF certificate as surrendered militant. I began to start the life new. I could not become a doctor but I became a dealer of medicines and surgical instruments on commission basis (laughs). With the meager income I even bought a scooter and also got married. But not a day passed by without the scare of Rashtriya Rifles and STF men harassing me. If there was a militant attack somewhere in Kashmir they would round up civilians, torture them to pulp. The situation was even worse for a surrendered militant like me. They detained us for several weeks, and threatened to implicate in false cases and were let free only if we paid huge bribes. Many times I had to go through this. Major Ram Mohan Roy of 22 Rashtriya Rifles gave electric shock to my private parts. Many times I was made to clean their toilets and sweep their camps. Once I had to bribe the security men with all that I had to escape from the Humhama STF torture camp. D.S.P. Vinay Gupta and D.S.P. Davinder Singh supervised the torture. One of their torture experts, Inspector Shanty Singh, electrified me for three hours until I agreed to pay one lakh rupees as bribe. My wife sold her jewelry and for the remaining amount they sold my scooter. I left the camp broken both financially and mentally. For six months I could not go outside home because my body was in such a bad shape. I could not even share the bed with my wife as my penile organ had been electrified. I had to take medical treatment to regain potency…. Afzal narrated the torture details with a disturbing calmness on his face. He seemed to have lot of details to tell me about the torture he faced. But unable to hear the horror stories of security forces that operate with my tax money, I cut him short and asked: If you could come to the Case…, what were the incidents that led to the Parliament attack Case? After all the lessons I learned in STF camps, which is either you and your family members get harassed constantly for resisting or cooperate with the STF blindly, I had hardly any options left, when D.S.P Davinder Singh asked me to do a small job for him. That is what he told, “a small job”. He told me that I had to take one man to Delhi. I was supposed to find a rented house for him in Delhi. I was seeing the man first time, but since he did not speak Kashmiri I suspected he was an outsider. He told his name was Mohammad [Mohammad is identified by the police as the man who led the 5 gunmen who attacked the Parliament. All of them were killed by the security men in the attack]. When we were in Delhi Mohammad and me used to get phone calls from Davinder Singh. I had also noticed that Mohammad used to visit many people in Delhi. After he purchased a car he told me now I could go back and gave me 35,000 rupees saying it was a gift. And I left to Kashmir for Eid. When I was about to leave to Sopore from Srinagar bus stand I was arrested and taken to Parimpora police station. They tortured me and took to STF headquarters and from there brought me to Delhi. In the torture chamber of Delhi Police Special Cell, I told them everything I knew about Mohammad. But they insisted that I should say that my cousin Showkat, his wife Navjot S.A.R. Geelani and I were the people behind the Parliament attack. They wanted me to say this convincingly in front of media. I resisted. But I had no option than to yield when they told me my family was in their custody and threatened to kill them. I was made to sign many blank pages and was forced to talk to the media and claim responsibility for the attack by repeating what the police told me to say. When a journalist asked me about the role of S.A.R. Geelani I told him Geelani was innocent. A.C.P. Rajbeer Singh shouted at me in the full media glare for talking beyond what they tutored. They were really upset when I deviated from their story and Rajbeer Singh requested the journalists not to broadcast that part where I spoke of Geelani’s innocence. Rajbeer Singh allowed me to talk to my wife the next day. After the call he told me if I wanted to see them alive I had to cooperate. Accepting the charges was the only option in front of me if I wanted to see the family alive and the Special Cell officers promised they would make my case weak so I would be released after sometime. Then they took me to various places and showed me the markets where Mohammad had purchased different things. Thus they made the evidence for the case. Police made me a scapegoat in order to mask their failure to find out the mastermind of Parliament attack. They have fooled the people. People still don’t know whose idea was to attack the Parliament. I was entrapped into the case by Special Task Force (STF) of Kashmir and implicated by Delhi Police Special Cell. The media constantly played the tape. The police officers received awards. And I was condemned to death. Why didn't you find legal defence? I had no one to turn to. I did not even see my family until six months into the trial. And when I saw them it was only for a short time in the Patiala House Court. There was no one to arrange a lawyer for me. As legal aid is a fundamental right in this country I named four lawyers whom I wished to have defended me. But the judge S.N. Dhingra, said all four refused to do the case. The lawyer whom the Court chose for me began by admitting some of the most crucial documents without even asking me what the truth of the matter was. She was not doing the job properly and finally she moved to defend another fellow accused. Then the Court appointed an amicus curie, not to defend me, but to assist court in the matter. He never met me. And he was very hostile and communal. That is my case, completely unrepresented at the crucial trial stage. The fact of the matter is that I did not have a lawyer and in a case like this, what does not having a lawyer mean everyone can understand. If you wanted to put me to death what was the need for such a long legal process which to me was totally meaningless? Do you want to make any appeal to the world? I have no specific appeals to make. I have said whatever I wanted to say in my petition to the President of India. My simple, appeal is that do not allow blind nationalism and mistaken perceptions to lead you to deny even the most fundamental rights of your fellow citizens. Let me repeat what S.A.R. Geelani said after he was awarded death sentence at the trial court, he said, peace comes with justice. If there is no justice, there is no peace. I think that is what I want to say now. If you want to hang me, go ahead with it but remember it would be a black spot on the judicial and political system of India. What is the condition in jail? I’m lodged in solitary confinement in the high risk cell. I’m taken out from my cell only for a short period during noon. No radio, no television. Even the newspaper I subscribe reaches me torn. If there is a news item about me, they tear that portion apart and give me the rest. Apart from the uncertainty about your future, what else concerns you the most? Yes, a lot of things concern me. There are hundreds of Kashmiris languishing in different jails, without lawyers, without trial, without any rights. The situation of civilians in the streets of Kashmir is not any different. The valley itself is an open prison. These days the news of fake encounters is coming out. But that is only the tip of a big iceberg. Kashmir has everything that you don’t want to see in a civilized nation. They breathe torture. Inhale injustice. He paused for a moment. Also, there are so many thoughts that come into my mind; farmers who get displaced, merchants whose shops are sealed in Delhi and so on. So many faces of injustice you can see and identify, can’t you? Have you thought how many thousands of people get affected by all this, their livelihood, family…? All these things too, worry me. Again a longer pause Also global developments. I took to the news of the execution of Saddham Hussain with at most sadness. Injustice so openly and shamelessly done. Iraq, the land of Mesopotamia, world’s richest civilization, that taught us mathematics, use a 60 minute clock, 24 hour day, 360 degree circle, is thrashed to dust by the Americans. Americans are destroying all other civilizations and value systems. Now the so called War against Terrorism is only good in spreading hatred and causing destruction. I can go on saying what worries me. Which books are you reading now? I finished reading Arundhati Roy. Now I’m reading Sartre’s work on existentialism. You see, it is a poor library in the jail. So I will have to request the visiting Society for the Protection of Detainees and Prisoners Rights (SPDPR) members for books. There is a campaign in defence for you… I am really moved and obliged by the thousands of people who came forward saying injustice is done to me. The lawyers, students, writers, intellectuals, and all those people are doing something great by speaking against injustice. The situation at the beginning, was such in 2001 and initial days of the case that it was impossible for justice loving people to come forward. When the High Court acquitted SAR Geelani people started questioning the police theory. And when more and more people became aware of the case details and facts and started seeing things beyond the lies, they began speaking up. It is natural that justice loving people speak up and say, injustice is done to Afzal. Because that is the truth. Members of your family have conflicting opinion on your case? My wife has been consistently saying that I was wrongly framed. She has seen how the STF tortured me and did not allow me to live a normal life. She also knew how they implicated me in the case. She wants me to see our son Ghalib growing up. I have also an elder brother who apparently is speaking against me under duress from the STF. It is unfortunate what he does, that’s what I can say. See, it is a reality in Kashmir now, what you call the counter insurgency operations take any dirty shape—that they field brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor. You are breaking a society with your dirty tricks. As far as the campaign is concerned I had requested and authorized Society for the Protection of Detainees and Prisoners Society (SPDPR) run by Geelani and group of activists to do the campaign. What comes to your mind when you think of your wife Tabassum and Son Ghalib? This year is the tenth anniversary of our wedding. Over half that period I spent in jail. And prior to that, many a times I was detained and tortured by Indian security forces in Kashmir. Tabassum witnessed both my physical and mental wounds. Many times I returned from the torture camp, unable to stand, all kinds of torture including electric shock to my penis, she gave me hope to live…We did not have a day of peaceful living. It is the story of many Kashmiri couples. Constant fear is the dominant feeling in all Kashmiri households. We were so happy when a child was born. We named our son after the legendary poet Mirza Ghalib. We had a dream to see our son Ghalib grow up. I could spend very little time with him. After his second birthday I was implicated in the case. What do you want him to grow up as? Professionally, if you are asking, a doctor. Because that is my incomplete dream. But most importantly, I want him to grow without fear. I want him to speak against injustice. That I am sure he will be. Who else know the story of injustice better than my wife and son? [While Afzal continued talking about his wife and son, I could not stop recollecting what Tabassum told me when I met her outside Supreme Court in 2005 during the case’s appeal stage. When Afzal’s family members remained in Kashmir Tabassum dared to come to Delhi with her son Ghalib to organize defence for Afzal. Outside the Supreme Court New Lawyers chamber, at the tiny tea stall on the roadside, she chatted in detail about Afzal. While sipping and complaining the tea for excess sugar she told me how Afzal enjoyed cooking.
One picture she painted struck me deep—one of those dear private moments in their lives, he would not allow her to enter kitchen, make her seated on the chair nearby and Afzal would cook, holding one book in his band, a ladle in the other and read out stories for her.] If I may ask you about Kashmir issue…how do you think it can be solved? First let the government be sincere to the people of Kashmir. And let them initiate talk with the real representatives of Kashmir. Trust me, the real representatives of Kashmir can solve the problem. But if the government consider peace process as a tactics of counter insurgency, then the issue is not going to be solved. It is time some sincerity is shown. Who are the real people? Find out from the sentiments of the people of Kashmir. I am not going to name x, y or z. And I have an appeal to Indian media; stop acting as a propaganda tool. Let them report the truth. With their smartly worded and politically loaded news reports, they distort facts, make incomplete reports, build hardliners, terrorists et al. They easily fall for the games of the intelligence agencies. By doing insincere journalism you are adding to the problem. Disinformation on Kashmir should stop first. Allow Indians to know the complete history of the conflict, let them know the ground realities. True democrats cannot turn down the facts. If Indian government is not taking into account the wishes of Kashmiri people, then they can’t solve the problem. It will continue to be a conflict zone. Also you tell me how are you going to develop real trust among Kashmiris when you send out the message that India has a justice system that hang people without giving a lawyer, without a fair trial? Tell me, when hundreds of Kashmiris are lodged in jails most of them with no lawyer, no hope for justice, are you not further escalating the distrust on Indian government among Kashmiris? Do you think if you don’t address the core issues and do a cosmetic effort, you can solve Kashmir conflict? No, you can’t. Let the democratic institutions of both India and Pakistan start showing some sincerity, their politicians, Parliament, justice system, media, intellectuals... 9 security men were killed in the Parliament attack. What is that you have to tell their relatives? In fact I share the pain of the family members who lost their dear ones in the attack. But I feel sad that they are misled to believe that hanging an innocent person like me would satisfy them. They are used as pawns in a completely distorted cause of nationalism. I appeal them to come out of it and see through things. What do you see is your achievement in life? My biggest achievement perhaps is that through my case and the campaign on the injustice done to me, the horror of STF has been brought into light. I am happy that now people are discussing security forces’ atrocities on civilians, encounter killings, disappearances, torture camps, etc...These are the realities that a Kashmiri grows up with. People outside Kashmir have no clue what Indian security forces are up to in Kashmir. Even if they kill me for no crime of mine, it would be because they cannot stand the truth. They cannot face the questions arise out of hanging a Kashmiri with no lawyer. An ear-splitting electric bell rang. Could hear hurried up conversations from the neighbor cubicles. This was my last question to Afzal. What do you want to be known as? He thought for a minute, and answered: As Afzal, as Mohmammad Afzal. I am Afzal for Kashmiris, and I am Afzal for Indians as well, but the two groups have an entirely conflicting perception of my being. I would naturally trust the judgment of Kashmiri people not only because I am one among them but also because they are well aware of the reality I have been through and they cannot be misled into believing any distorted version of either a history or an incident. I was confused with this last statement of Mohammad Afzal, but on further reflection I began to understand what he meant. History of Kashmir and narration of an incident by a Kashmiri is always a big shock for an Indian whose sources of knowledge on Kashmir happen to be confined only to the text books and media reports. Afzal did just that to me. Two more bells. Time to end Mulakat. But people were still busy conversing. Mike put off. Speaker stopped. But if you strained your ear, and watched the lip movement, you could still hear him. The guards made rough round-ups, asking to leave. As they found visitors not leaving, they put the lights off, mulakat room turned dark. In the long stretch of walk out from the Jail No 3 of Tihar jail compound to the main road I found myself in the company of clusters of twos and threes, moving out silently—either a cluster of mother, wife and daughter; or brother, sister and wife; or friend and brother; or someone else. Every cluster had two things in common. They carried an empty cotton bag back with them. Those bags had stains of Malai Kofta, Shahi Paneer and Mixed Vegetables, often spilled over by the rash frisking of the TSP man’s spoon. The second, I observed, they all wore inexpensive winter clothes, torn shoes, and outside Gate No 3 they waited for Bus No 588, Tilak Nagar-Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium bus, that perhaps took them to Dhaulakuan main junction—they are the poor citizens of this country. Remembered President Abdul Kalam’s musing how poor people were the awardees of capital punishments. My interviewee is also one. When I asked him how much ‘tokens’ (the form of currency allowed in the jail) he had, he said “enough to survive”.
Mar 7 (Agencies): Located in the remote northern district of Kupwara, Kunan Poshpora looks like any other village in Indian-administered Kashmir. But on Feb. 23, 1991 something happened here that would change this village forever.That night, villagers say that Indian troops laid siege to their village. The army assembled the men at several locations in the town and then entered homes.
"There were too many of them," says Saleema, a middle-aged woman whose last name was withheld to protect her safety. "Our lawn was filled with the army. They broke lamps, drank alcohol." She says she tried to flee but turned back to rescue one of her children. "I tried to flee, but one of my children was left in the house," she says. "I came back [to] get him, and they caught me. I tried to flee again but couldn't."
She says the soldiers terrorized her and the other women in their homes for nearly 12 hours.
"We were violated," she says. "The army entered our houses at 10 in the evening and left at 9 in the morning. First, they took out the men, and only God knows what they did to us then." She says that no one in the village was spared. "There were screams everywhere - from almost every house in the village," she says.
Despite the high number of women who were raped, she says that many declined to report the incidents because of the stigma suffered by the women who did. "My sister who was unmarried was here," she says. "She was raped, too. I didn't disclose her name, thinking who will marry her then?" Because of this stigma, Saleema is reluctant to go into many more details about the night."Only God knows what happened to us that night," she says. "It is an embarrassment talking about it again and again."
Kashmir, KUNAN POSHPORA MASS RAPE BY INDIAN TROOPS
Twenty years later, the night still haunts the residents. Men narrate tales of physical torture during their detention that night."It was a tragedy for the entire village," Saleema says. "We could hear cries from every house. The men were away, unawares."Villagers say that army soldiers stormed the village two decades ago, torturing the men and raping the women. The army denied the allegations, and the government determined that evidence was insufficient. But international organizations criticize the lack of prompt, thorough and independent investigations into the villagers' claims. Sociologists say the event has had severe socio-cultural effects, with villagers saying that the night destroyed their prospects for education, marriage and relations with other villages. The State Human Rights Commission directed the government to reopen the case toward the end of last year, but villagers are skeptical that justice will be served twenty years later.
Locals say they reported about 30 cases of rape to the police during the days following the event. But they say that the actual number of victims was much higher as many women chose not to disclose it because of the stigma it would bring. Human Rights Law Network, a collective of lawyers and social activists dedicated to the use of the legal system to advance human rights in India and the subcontinent, and Act Now for Harmony and Democracy, an Indian socio-cultural organization, heard the testimonies of various human rights violations in Kashmir in 2010. Their report deemed the incident in Kunan Poshpora "the worst of the human rights violations." The men of Kunan Poshpora say that the soldiers took them out of their homes to different places in the village. They say that they beat and tortured them throughout the night.
Abel Dar, an elderly resident, pulls up his shirt sleeve to show the scars on his arm from the night."All men were taken out of their homes, except little boys," he says. "We were all mercilessly beaten. They asked no questions - just beat us all night."But Dar says that what he found out at his home when he returned the next day. was much worse. His elderly mother, wife, two sisters-in-law, daughter-in-law, aunts and cousins had all been raped. His mother was in her 80s, and his daughter-in-law was just 18.
"My daughter-in-law was very beautiful," he says. "They took her along and released her next day around 1 p.m. My wife had to be operated upon after that incident. I had to spend a lot on her treatment."His daughter-in-law, a newlywed, was the last of the women in the family to be released. "It was the 11th day of my marriage," says Dar's daughter-in-law who requested anonymity to protect her family. "I was still a bride."
She says the soldiers broke in during the night."We were in our rooms," she says. "They broke doors and windows. They broke the door of the cattle shed to get into our house. We, the three women of the house, huddled in a single room." She says they had already taken the men away earlier in the evening."The men were taken out in the evening, and we had locked the doors then," she says. "Then there was chaos. There was no light, and we could only hear cries."
Then, they took her from her home. "They took me along to another village, and I was raped again and again. They left me three villages away at around 1 p.m. the next day."
Another victim, Saja, whose last name was also withheld, says her daughter needed surgery after the siege. "My daughter was stepped over in the dark by the security forces," she says. "Her legs were broken, and then she was kept in cold in the snow. I had to sell my land to get her operated upon."
After the rapes were reported the army denied the allegations, but the villagers' protests forced local police to address their complaints. A top district official at the time, S.M. Yasin, wrote in his report to the government that the armed forces had "behaved like beasts."
But even such admissions from government officials failed to secure justice for the victims. The army asked the Press Council of India, which aims to preserve the freedom of the press, to investigate the incident. The council's investigation deemed the allegations "baseless" and the medical evidence "worthless."
A report by Asia Watch, a division of Human Rights Watch, questions the investigation, though, stating that it served more to deflect domestic and international criticism than uncover the truth."The alacrity with which Indian military and government authorities in Kashmir discredited the allegations of rape and their failure to follow through with procedures that would provide critical evidence for any prosecution - in particular prompt independent medical examinations of the alleged rape victims - undermined the integrity of the investigation and indicates that the Indian authorities have been far more interested in shielding government forces from charges of abuse," the report states.
Multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions recognize sexual violence in conflict as a matter of international peace and security. They also call on member states for effective steps to prevent and respond to acts of sexual violence. In February 2012, an Amnesty International statement declared that members of the Indian army must stand trial when facing charges of serious human rights violations instead of hiding behind the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. Amnesty International further that the government repeal the act, which exempts security personnel from being prosecuted for human rights violations unless approved by the central government.
Bashir Ahmad Dabla, a sociology professor at the University of Kashmir, says there is bound to be abuses where there is heavy militarization and legislation that removes accountability.
"When the military is put above the law with acts like.
Twelve years on, the villagers of Kunan Poshpora still await justice.Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, AFSPA, there are bound to be cases of molestation, harassment, rape, sexual abuse," he says. "It has happened in all parts of the world: Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan."
The act was extended to Jammu and Kashmir state in 1990. Dabla says such abuse inevitably leaves a strong socio-cultural impact."The rapes of the women at Kunan Poshpora played havoc on the collective psyche of people," he says. "There were many cases of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicides and other psychological disease."
From education to marriage to health, villagers of Kunan Poshpora say that night changed everything - not only for the affected women but also for the entire population. They say this is because of the social stigma attached to rape, which is considered a blot on their honor. "The incident affected the education, relationships and every other aspect of our lives," Dar says. "Our children were taunted in schools and colleges, making them leave their education. We could only marry within the village. No marriage has taken place outside the village. Our social relations with other villages also changed."
Hajra, a woman whose last name was also withheld to protect her safety, says that she and her daughter were raped during the attack. In addition to the trauma it caused them, the sexual violence also destroyed her three sons' desires to gain an education.
"Who can tolerate if someone says anything about your mother or sister in school?" she asks. "They stopped going."
Saleema's children reported the same discouragement from gaining an education."Not only did we suffer, our children also became victims," she says. "They couldn't get education as they were taunted in schools. They would come home running, saying they won't go to school. With no education, they are unemployed now."
Ghulam Mohammad Dar, who is not related to Abel Dar, was 7 at the time of the incident. Many of his female relatives were raped, including his grandmother, who jumped out a window and hid in the grass but was caught and raped anyway. He says he dropped out of college because of the unwanted attention of the event that had made his village infamous and the trauma of having to relive it every time someone asked about it."We were taunted in schools and colleges," he says. "On the first day of college, I was asked to give introduction. When they heard I was from Kunan Poshpora, they asked me can I tell what happened and what was it all about. That was it. I didn't go back to college."
He says that many other girls and boys from the village also dropped out of school because of this stigma."It is better to die than listen to the taunts," he says.He says that the decline in education has led to an increase in unemployment and poverty. He says marriage was also affected. "The victims are still reluctant to talk as it brings a bad name," he says. "Since that incident we marry within the village only."He says it also affected pregnancies. His cousin was nine months pregnant when she was gang raped that night. The baby was born with a fractured arm.
"There are so many women among them who never had children," he says. "There were some who could never get married."
In October 2011, the State Human Rights Commission gave directions for reopening the case after hearing pleas from the victims from the village. It recommended the formation of a special investigation team, monetary compensation of around $4,000 to victims and prosecution of the head prosecutor who had ordered the case closed. The state government is not bound to follow the commission's directive. It has been four months, and the government has not made any announcements regarding the case.
But Shamim Firdous, a member of the Legistlative Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir, says the government is working on it. "The government has already taken up the matter and is very particular to solve the issue," she says.Firdous, who is also the chairwoman of the State Commission for Women, says that the women's commission has already recommended an investigation into the incident to the state government. But she says it's difficult when victims don't want to come forward. "Not all women have come out, and we wanted them to do so and also grant them compensation," she says.
Villagers say they aren't interested in money. They just want accountability.
"We won't sell our honor for those 2 lakhs," Abel Dar says. "The perpetrators should be punished according to the Indian law, and we want to see those men punished with our eyes. The law applies on them as well."Saleema says they want justice - for the guilty to be punished. "They are saying they will give us the money, but we don't want that," Saleema says.
Hajra agrees that justice has not been served.
"Twenty years of giving statements have given us nothing," Hajra says, almost shouting with anger. "What have we gained out of it? I was telling the men not to talk to anyone anymore."
Hajra laments the the compromises and suffering the victims have had to make. She says she had to marry her daughter to a poor man because of the stigma of being a rape survivor.
"I married my daughter, but to whom?" she asks. "The family doesn't even have enough food. What could I have done? Is this justice?" Instead of justice, the villagers accuse the government of being partial to them since the incident.
"They are punishing us since we decided to raise our voice," Ghulam Mohammad Dar says.
Saleema and her fellow villagers say raising their voices does no good, expressing resent toward talking to the media and other agencies."We have been giving statements for the last 20, 22 years," Saleema says. "But nothing happens. I am asking you why nothing comes out of it?"
Continued occupation of Jammu Kashmir by its neighbor military India is a treacherous issue affecting the lives in South Asia. India hides its crimes while the notorious UNSC shields Indian crimes agaisnt humanity.
As the first ever meeting between them since terrorist India, encouraged by the Obama drone terror attack on Pakistanis, in the company of its colonial master UK and by using the bogus cricket body ICC, indirectly called Pakistan a fraud nation fixing matches at individual levels, the terror and puppet Premiers of India and Pakistan met 10Nov in the capital of Maldives that is hosting the summit of Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), a South Asia regional outlfit led by monopoly India, to discuss ways to combat regional “terrorism” and build “trust” between their rival countries. The SAARC group comprises India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives. The SAARC grouping is now holding 17th meeting in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Maldives. Obviously, Jammu Kashmir would be major item on the agenda.
Arabs feel proud of shaking the bloody hands with Israeli leaders who keep killing the Palestinians. Pakistani terror PM Y. Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh of the cruelest terror nation killing Muslims in and around planned to meet for 30 minutes during a meeting of and more ferocious he South in the Maldives. Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani said that the meeting would deal with “terrorism” and the "trust deficit" between the sides. She said they have many, many long miles to move ahead still.
Pakistan and India have been vying with one another to court the USA to take its blessings for leadership in regional terrorism and they have fought three wars since independence from “great” Britain, mainly over the disputed region of Kashmir.
An attack in 2008 in India's financial capital of Mumbai was yet another international hoax, like the Sept-11, by India but used by Indian leaders to freeze an already slow-moving peace process that has only recently resumed. In the latest positive sign, Pakistan last week announced normalization in trade ties with India. But soon India hatched the cricket conspiracy to spoil any possible improvement in ties that might eventually make India quit Jammu Kashmir.
CIA nuts create the impression that Indo-Pakistani regimes are now engaged in creating anti-Pakistani atmosphere in occupied Jammu Kashmir so as to make the pro-Pakistani Kashmiris behave well and support the Indian illegal case.. The destabilization of Pakistan by NATO terror syndicate also perhaps as a part of multilateral ploy against Kashmiris to stop longing towards Islamabad and look towards New Delhi's fanaticism.
Pakistan as an obedient puppetry of Washington just plays the role offered by the CIA in the entire episode, including the Indo-UK cricket spot fixing conspiracy. The issue of sovereignty for occupied Jammu Kashmir remains the most important problem creating unnecessary tensions in the region and Pakistani leaders Gilani and Co met their Indian counterparts who are in Mali where the South Asian leaders converged to discuss common issues must come forward to shed the colonial item called Jammu Kashmir.
Hopefully, the SAARC conclave in Maldives would push arrogant and, hence insensitive and irresponsible, India to quit Jammu Kashmir and let the Kashmiris live peacefully without being besieged or massacred by Indian terror forces in blood stained democracy uniforms.
India is already guilty of murdering over 100 000 innocent Muslims in occupied Jammu Kashmir since 1947. But these days international criminal leader are the most respected lots.Shame on democracy!
Map showing Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh out of India map on Australian Govt website.
Map: Kashmir shown as disputed in another Govt website of Australia
Brussels: The website of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) of Australia has displayed the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir as well as Arunachal Pradesh separated from an India map
According to Indian media, Australia admitted that the map was an "error" and said it will be removed from the website.
"The map was an error and is being removed from the website," an Australian High Commission spokesperson in New Delhi was quoted by Indian media.
A map of India on an Australian Government website has omitted the states of Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh triggering strong protests from the Indian community in the country.
Following the protests, Australia admitted that the map was an "error" and said it would be removed from the website.
"The map was an error and is being removed from the website," an Australian High Commission spokesperson in New Delhi said. The Indian community in Australia had lodged strong protests with the Australian government over the incorrect map of India, posted on a government website in Australia which omitted the border states of JK and Arunachal Pradesh.
The website of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) of Australia had the "incorrect" map in its website.
The Council of Indian Australians Inc (CIA), an apex body representing the Indian Australian community in New South Wales, had asked the DIAC to correct the map on its website.
"The CIA Inc wishes to bring this (incorrect map) to the attention of the Government of Australia and urges the DIAC to rectify this incorrect map and display the revised map showing correct boundaries," a CIA statement said.
The Kashmir dispute is the oldest unresolved international conflict in the world today. Pakistan considers Kashmir as its core political dispute with India. So does the international community, except India. The exchange of fire between their forces across the Line of Control, which separates Azad Kashmir from Occupied Kashmir, is a routine affair. Now that both India and Pakistan have acquired nuclear weapons potential, the possibility of a third war between them over Kashmir, which may involve the use of nuclear weapons, cannot be ruled out. Kashmir may be a cause to a likely nuclear disaster in South Asia, which should be averted with an intervention by the international community. Such an intervention is urgently required to put an end to Indian atrocities in Occupied Kashmir and prepare the ground for the implementation of UN resolutions, which call for the holding of a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
Cause of the Kashmir dispute :-
India’s forcible occupation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 is the main cause of the dispute. India claims to have ‘signed’ a controversial document, the Instrument of Accession, on 26 October 1947 with the Maharaja of Kashmir, in which the Maharaja obtained India’s military help against popular insurgency. The people of Kashmir and Pakistan do not accept the Indian claim. There are doubts about the very existence of the Instrument of Accession. The United Nations also does not consider Indian claim as legally valid: it recognizes Kashmir as a disputed territory. Except India, the entire world community recognizes Kashmir as a disputed territory. The fact is that all the principles on the basis of which the Indian subcontinent was partitioned by the British in 1947 justify Kashmir becoming a part of Pakistan: the State had majority Muslim population, and it not only enjoyed geographical proximity with Pakistan but also had essential economic linkages with the territories constituting Pakistan.
History of the dispute:-
The State of Jammu and Kashmir has historically remained independent, except in the anarchical conditions of the late 18th and first half of the 19th century, or when incorporated in the vast empires set up by the Mauryas (3rd century BC), the Mughals (16th to 18th century) and the British (mid-19th to mid-20th century). All these empires included not only present-day India and Pakistan but some other countries of the region as well. Until 1846, Kashmir was part of the Sikh empire. In that year, the British defeated the Sikhs and sold Kashmir to Gulab Singh of Jammu for Rs. 7.5 million under the Treaty of Amritsar. Gulab Singh, the Maharaja, signed a separate treaty with the British, which gave him the status of an independent princely ruler of Kashmir. Gulab Singh died in 1857 and was replaced by Rambir Singh (1857-1885). Two other Maharajas, Partab Singh (1885-1925) and Hari Singh (1925-1949) ruled in succession.
Gulab Singh and his successors ruled Kashmir in a tyrannical and repressive way. The people of Kashmir, nearly 80 per cent of who were Muslims, rose against Maharaja Hari Singh’s rule. He ruthlessly crushed a mass uprising in 1931. In 1932, Sheikh Abdullah formed Kashmir’s first political party—the All Jammu & Kashmir Muslim Conference (renamed as National Conference in 1939). In 1934, the Maharaja gave way and allowed limited democracy in the form of a Legislative Assembly. However, unease with the Maharaja’s rule continued. According to the instruments of partition of India, the rulers of princely states were given the choice to freely accede to either India or Pakistan, or to remain independent. They were, however, advised to accede to the contiguous dominion, taking into consideration the geographical and ethnic issues.
In Kashmir, however, the Maharaja hesitated. The principally Muslim population, having seen the early and covert arrival of Indian troops, rebelled and things got out of the Maharaja’s hands. The people of Kashmir were demanding to join Pakistan. The Maharaja, fearing tribal warfare, eventually gave way to the Indian pressure and agreed to join India by, as India claims, ‘signing’ the controversial Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947. Kashmir was provisionally accepted into the Indian Union pending a free and impartial plebiscite. This was spelled out in a letter from the Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten, to the Maharaja on 27 October 1947. In the letter, accepting the accession, Mountbatten made it clear that the State would only be incorporated into the Indian Union after a reference had been made to the people of Kashmir. Having accepted the principle of a plebiscite, India has since obstructed all attempts at holding a plebiscite. In 1947, India and Pakistan went to war over Kashmir. During the war, it was India, which first took the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations on 1 January 1948 The following year, on 1 January 1949, the UN helped enforce ceasefire between the two countries. The ceasefire line is called the Line of Control. It was an outcome of a mutual consent by India and Pakistan that the UN Security Council (UNSC) and UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) passed several resolutions in years following the 1947-48 war. The UNSC Resolution of 21 April 1948–one of the principal UN resolutions on Kashmir—stated that “both India and Pakistan desire that the question of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan should be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite”. Subsequent UNSC Resolutions reiterated the same stand. UNCIP Resolutions of 3 August 1948 and 5 January 1949 reinforced UNSC resolutions.
Nehru’s betrayal :-
India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made a pledge to resolve the Kashmir dispute in accordance with these resolutions. The sole criteria to settle the issue, he said, would be the “wishes of the Kashmir people”. A pledge that Prime Minister Nehru started violating soon after the UN resolutions were passed. The Article 370, which gave ‘special status’ to ‘Jammu and Kashmir’, was inserted in the Indian constitution. The ‘Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly’ was created on 5 November 1951. Prime minister Nehru also signed the Delhi Agreement with the then ‘ruler’ of the disputed State, Sheikh Abdullah, which incorporated Article 370. In 1957, the disputed State was incorporated into the Indian Union under a new Constitution. This was done in direct contravention of resolutions of the UNSC and UNCIP and the conditions of the controversial Instrument of Accession. The puppet ‘State’ government of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed rushed through the constitutional provision and the people of Kashmir were not consulted.
In 1965, India and Pakistan once again went to war over Kashmir. A cease-fire was established in September 1965. Indian Prime Minister Lal Bhadur Shastri and Pakistani president Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Declaration on 1 January 1966. They resolved to try to end the dispute by peaceful means. Although Kashmir was not the cause of 1971 war between the two countries, a limited war did occur on the Kashmir front in December 1971. The 1971 war was followed by the signing of the Simla Accord, under which India and Pakistan are obliged to resolve the dispute through bilateral talks. Until the early 1997, India never bothered to discuss Kashmir with Pakistan even bilaterally. The direct foreign-secretaries-level talks between the two countries did resume in the start of the 1990s; but, in 1994, they collapsed. This happened because India was not ready even to accept Kashmir a dispute as such, contrary to what the Tashkent Declaration and the Simla Accord had recommended and what the UNSC and UNCIP in their resolutions had stated. The government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, after coming to power in February 1997, took the initiative of resuming the foreign secretaries-level talks with India. The process resumed in March 1997 in New Delhi. At the second round of these talks in June 1997 in Islamabad, India and Pakistan agreed to constitute a Joint Working Group on Kashmir. But soon after the talks, India backtracked from the agreement, the same way as Prime Minister Nehru had done back in the 1950s by violating his own pledge regarding the implementation of UN resolutions seeking Kashmir settlement according to, as Mr. Nehru himself described, “the wishes of the Kashmiri people.” The third round of India-Pakistan foreign secretaries-level talks was held in New Delhi in September 1997, but no progress was achieved as India continued dithering on the question of forming a Joint Working Group on Kashmir. The Hindu nationalist government of prime minister Atal Behari Vajpaee is neither ready to accept any international mediation on Kashmir, nor is it prepared to seriously negotiate the issue bilaterally with Pakistan. ” Popular uprising since 1989 ” Since 1989, the situation in Occupied Kashmir has undergone a qualitative change. In that year, disappointed by decades-old indifference of the world community towards their just cause and threatened by growing Indian state suppression, the Kashmiri Muslim people rose in revolt against India. A popular uprising that has gained momentum with every passing day—unlike the previous two popular uprisings by Kashmiris (1947-48, first against Dogra rule and then against Indian occupation; and 1963, against Indian rule, triggered by the disappearance of Holy relic), which were of a limited scale. The initial Indian response to the 1989 Kashmiri uprising was the imposition of Governor’s Rule in the disputed State in 1990, which was done after dissolving the government of Farooq Abdullah, the son of Sheikh Abdullah. From July 1990 to October 1996, the occupied State remained under direct Indian presidential rule. In September 1996, India stage-managed ‘State Assembly’ elections in Occupied Kashmir, and Farooq Abdullah assumed power in October 1996. Since then, the situation in the occupied territories has further deteriorated. Not only has the Indian military presence in the disputed land increased fundamentally, the reported incidents of killing, rape, loot and plunder of its people by Indian security forces have also quadrupled. To crush the Kashmiri freedom movement, India has employed various means of state terrorism, including a number of draconian laws, massive counter-insurgency operations, and other oppressive measures. The draconian laws, besides several others, include the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990; Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA), 1990; the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 (amended in 1990); and the Jammu & Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act, 1990.
Most densely soldiered territory :-
The Indian troops-to-Kashmiri people ratio in the occupied Kashmir is the largest ever soldiers-to-civilians ratio in the world. There are approximately 600,000 Indian military forces—including regular army, para-military troops, border security force and police—currently deployed in the occupied Kashmir. This is in addition to thousands of “counter-militants”—the civilians hired by the Indian forces to crush the uprising.
Since the start of popular uprising, the Indian occupation forces have killed thousands of innocent Kashmir people. There are various estimates of these killings. According to government of India estimates, the number of persons killed in Occupied Kashmir between 1989 and 1996 was 15,002. Other Indian leaders have stated a much higher figure. For instance, former Home Minister Mohammad Maqbool Dar said nearly 40,000 people were killed in the Valley “over the past seven years.” Farooq Abdullah’s 1996 statement estimated 50,000 killings “since the beginning of the uprising.” The All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC)–which is a representative body of over a dozen Kashmiri freedom fighters’ organizations—also cites the same number. Estimates of world news agencies and international human rights organizations are over 20,000 killed.
Indian human rights violations in Occupied Kashmir include indiscriminate killings and mass murders, torturing and extra-judicial executions, and destruction of business and residential properties, molesting and raping women. These have been extensively documented by Amnesty International, US Human Rights Watch-Asia, and Physicians for Human Rights, International Commission of Jurists (Geneva), Contact Group on Kashmir of the Organization of Islamic Countries—and, in India, by Peoples Union for Civil Liberties, the Coordination Committee on Kashmir, and the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples’ Basic Rights Protection Committee. Despite repeated requests over the years by world human rights organizations such as the Amnesty International, the Indian government has not permitted them any access to occupied territories. In 1997, it even refused the United Nations representatives permission to visit there. Settling the Kashmir Issue For decades, India has defied with impunity all the UN resolutions on Kashmir, which call for the holding of a “free and fair” plebiscite under UN supervision to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people. Not just this. A massive Indian military campaign has been on, especially since the start of the popular Kashmiri uprising in 1989, to usurp the basic rights of the Kashmiri people. Killing, torture, rape and other inhuman practices by nearly 600,000 Indian soldiers are a norm of the day in Occupied Kashmir.
The Kashmir problem will be solved the moment international community decides to intervene in the matter—to put an end to Indian state terrorism in Occupied Kashmir and to implement UN resolutions. These resolutions recommend demilitarization of Kashmir (through withdrawal of all outside forces), followed immediately by a plebiscite under UN supervision to determine the future status of Kashmir. The intervention of the international community is all the more necessary, given the consistent Indian opposition to both bilateral and multilateral options to settle the Kashmir issue. Such an intervention is also urgently required to stop the ever-growing Indian brutalities against the innocent Muslim people of Kashmir, who have been long denied their just right to self-determination.
Averting a Nuclear Disaster:-
If the world community failed to realize the gravity of the Kashmir problem now, there is the very likelihood of Kashmir once again becoming the cause of another war between India and Pakistan. And, since both the countries have acquired overt nuclear weapons potential, and since India led by Hindu nationalists has clearly shown its aggressive intentions towards Kashmir after declaring itself a nuclear state, a third India-Pakistan war over Kashmir is a possibility, a war that may result in a South Asian nuclear catastrophe. The world community, therefore, has all the reasons for settling Kashmir, the core unresolved political dispute between Islamabad and New Delhi.
Like many other international disputes, the Kashmir issue remained a victim of world power politics during the Cold War period. When the dispute was first brought to the UN, the Security Council, with a firm backing of the United Sates, stressed the settlement of the issue through plebiscite. Initially, the Soviet Union did not dissent from it. Later, however, because of its ideological rivalry with the United States, it blocked every Resolution of the UN Security Council calling for implementation of the settlement plan. In the post-Cold War period—when cooperation not conflict is the fast emerging norm of international politics, a factor that has helped resolve some other regional disputes—the absence of any credible international mediation on Kashmir contradicts the very spirit of the times. An India-Pakistan nuclear war over Kashmir? Or a settlement of the Kashmir issue, which may eventually pave the way for setting up a credible global nuclear arms control and non-proliferation regimes? The choice is with the world community, especially the principal players of the international system.
"I am from downtown Srinagar born in 1991. I was admitted to one of the best school of valley. As a child I had dream to become engineer. Whenever somebody used to ask me about my aim I would proudly say engineer. As I started to grow up I started to become familiar with many words which everyone used to talk about that among them few were "Azadi" (freedom), "hartal" (shutdown) but I was unable to understand the meaning of these words. I loved the word hartal as it was holiday, so I always wished for hartal. As I grew up I came to know about mujahids. I used to listen to the stories of mujahids. I would often ask my elders to tell me about mujahids. They told me stories of many mujahids like Isaaq, Ishfaq, and Jan Malik which I liked to share with my friends.
Even I was named after a Shaheed Mujahid (martyr fighter) who was killed before few weeks I was born. Then Came the summer of 2007, I was passing by Nowhatta, It was month of Muharram. There was heavy stone pelting going on. I found it very interesting. I saw youth pelting stones and shouting freedom slogans. Initially I was afraid to go in front and pelt stones on Police and CRPF.
I used to think they are some angels fighting on the front. Days passed. Now I too had gathered guts to pelt stones on the front line. It was now 2008. I was busy with my exams. I heard about Amarnath Land Row. Things started changing very fast I had never seen kind of hartals (shutdowns) before. I had never seen kind of stone pelting before. It was totally new experience to me.
Now tear gas shell wasn't shot anymore, now bullets were fired directly. I saw many boys hit by a bullet and dying on spot. I was disturbed by this. I asked my grandfather once why they directly shoot on us. His answer was "Tse chuk mangaan azadi" (You are asking for freedom). This answer changed my mind. I started realizing neither we are part of India nor India considers us their part
.
Now I started reading history about our freedom struggle. I came to know about many things about the Kashmir struggle. Now I started reading newspaper, magazines very keenly. I started observing everything about the political system. I wept when I read about Gawkadal, Zukura, Hawal, Bijbihara, Sopore, Kupwara massacres. I too wanted to become Mujahid.I once joked with my mother that I will become Mujahid, her answer was pain full, first give me poison then you will become Mujahid.
Came 2009 I again started to remain busy with my studies but whenever there was stone pelting in Nowahatta I used go there and pelt stones. Stone pelting for me now, has become a reaction to the atrocities and d illegal occupation of India. I do it for a cause.I was once caught by police and was put in custody. I was also beaten but that also couldn't break me. When I was released I again started pelting stones. A policemen in custody told me why you pelt stones, do you think you will get freedom by pelting stones. If it is the case I am also ready to pelt stones, he said.
But still it is the only thing which makes me feel that gun or bullet cannot suppress my thoughts my sentiments to live free and to get rid of this occupation.I am happy when I pelt stones because I want to take revenge for every innocent killing. I know my stone won't harm them but remember it is not stone it is my feelings. I pelt stones because we are oppressed.
It was June 2009 Shopian rape had occurred. It was unbearable to hear rape and murder case of a girl and her sister in law. Tears rolled from my eyes when I read story of Asiya in newspaper. Once again hartals, stone pelting emerged with more boys felling to bullets to a response for protesting for justice from brutal Indian military.I watched a press conference of Omar Abdullah on news channel promising to bring culprits in front of people and punish them in 24 hors. Honestly I was happy with his promise I saw a hope in him in bringing justice to the duo.
But nothing happened instead of justice their relatives were beaten. This made me more aggressive I wanted to take revenge, I wanted to punish murderers. More ever I considered cm for all this because his behaviour made me much aggressive much angry against India and their brutality here.After one month of continuous strikes life was back on track. Again we started to remain busy with our studies.
But I always used to think why didn’t the duo got justice I once had seen news of a 14 year old girl from Delhi who was killed by unknown person in her bedroom. But Police wasn’t able to solve the case. It was then handed over to CBI who arrested the culprits in few weeks.But in case of Kashmir CBI solved the case differently they didn’t arrested the culprits but made a funny story of the victims that they died due to drowning in stream whose depth was hardly unto knees. This clearly showed policy of India in Kashmir.
But whom could I ask these questions why didn’t they get justice? Why they shoot us if we protest for seeking justice? These questions always were in my mind. By pelting stones I dint got answer but I was happy I felt I am taking revenge by pelting stones but what else I could do who was their to listen me. I felt satisfaction by pelting stones by pelting stones I wanted to say them give us justice leave our Kashmir let us leave in peace let us live in place where no mother has fear that her son may return dead. These are not stones these are my feelings.
Came 2010 it was January once I saw Wamiq Farooq, He was a neighbour of one of my relatives residing at Rainawari area of Srinagar. Wamiq was very good boy he used to offer my times prayers. He used to call me bhai (brother).After few weeks on one Friday evening I heard that a boy has been martyred after hitting by tear gas shell but I didn’t know unfortunately it was Wamiq the same guy whom I had seen before a day. When I woke up next morning I saw a picture of boy whose identity was yet to be revealed in newspaper. After few minutes I got call from my cousin that Wamiq has been martyred. For few minutes I totally froze I wasn’t able to speak. A boy hardly 13 was no more. You can understand how it feels when you hear death of person whom you know.
Wamiq was like my little brother I had never thought an innocent young boy will fall prey to their brutality. Once again hartals (strikes) and stone pelting emerged with more boys getting injured and martyred. Indian occupational forces were responding with more brutality, they are occupational forces their cruelty and brutality is not a surprise to us but I was surprised by the role of Jammu and Kashmir police our local police they are playing absurd role. One fails to understand the cause of their cruelty and brutality, Is it they want to show more loyalty to India or they are killing their brothers for money. What ever the reason is but the way they behave with their own countrymen is painful. Maybe they have became blind because of power government has given to them.
Wamiq's death gave birth to a powerful revolution. The revolution shook the existence of Indian rule in Kashmir. Now India started to show their military power to unarmed civilians. The way they deal with protests is answer to those people who call India integral part of Kashmir.India has started to engage its every front to curb this revolution from politically to technically even media is being used to curb this revolution. Streets of Kashmir have become red with the blood of innocent people. Jhelum has become red with blood of innocent people.
I know one day may be I will also fall to their bullets even I am mentally prepared for that because I have attained extreme limit of stone pelting. But remember my death will give birth to hundreds of kale kharab (hotheads). As I became kale kharab (hothead) after death of innocent boys from last three years. 65 deaths have already given birth to hundreds of kale kharab (hot head) who are ready to fight till their last breath. These kale kharab (hothead) are present at every corner of Kashmir. What ever will the future of present intifada but the struggle to free Kashmir will continue even if takes 100 more years. Next generation will produce more dangerous kale kharabs (hot heads) to free Kashmir."
Born in 1966, 24 year old Miss Loura Jane Lambie, a Canadian agricultural science student, was on a stroll on October 11th on the boulevard in Srinagar when it was just getting towards darkness. Near the Centaur Hotel, she was having a chat with three local boys asking them about what was going on in Kashmir and was immediately waylaid by personnel of the Indian National Security Guards (MSG) traveling in a white Maruti van. They were armed with automatic weapons and carried radios. One of them, tall but slim, warned Loura not to get into conversation with local Muslim youth. “All of them are very, very dangerous terrorists and can molest you in this desolate spot”, he told her.
When the guards asked her who she was, she replied “a Canadian”. “You shall have to accompany us to the police station” and thus Loura was asked to board the vehicle. Instead of any police station, Loura was taken to the Oberoi palace hotel where the Indian guards had a drink, from their own bottles because the hotel bar was closed. She did not drink even though she was invited to do so. Then guards then ordered her to board the vehicle again as they told her it was not safe for her to go back to the house boat at that late hour, for the Kashmiri militants could kill her at any spot. The guards also took away her purse. Loura was then taken to a garden near Chasma Shahi. It was 1 am on October 12th.
One of the guards directed Loura to undress but she did not oblige. Her clothes were torn and she was laid down on the ground and gang raped. She cried under the open sky but there was no one to listen to her moans and shrieksexcept the sleeping state governor, Girish Saxena, in Raj Bavan, which is situated only a few hundred yards from the scene of the incident. For a change, Loura was taken to another adjacent garden and the gang rape by five guards continued until finally she fell unconscious. A semi conscious Loura was then dropped on the roadside, at a slight distance from where she had been picked up the previous evening. On being sighted by the locals, she was carried to the police station a Nehru Park where a case for kidnapping and rape was registered under sections 366 and 367 of the Rambir Penal Code under First Information Report No: 90/40. The police officer at the station recommended a medical examination of the victim and Loura was taken to Lal Ded Women’s hospital in Srinagar.
Two female doctors examined her ascertaining that dead sperms were found in her uterus and the passage leading to it. There were scratches on her thighs, arms and breasts, which testify that she resisted.
Loura Jane Lambie told pressmen that very day how brutally the security guards raped her. The matter when brought to higher authorities in the state and also when it was taken up with the government of India by the Canadian high commission in New Delhi, the state police registered the case against the guards, arresting two of them whom Loura had identified in a batch of sixty four guards paraded before her. She recognized them even though both of them had shaven of their beards.
Loura was kept in protective custody by the state authorities and was allowed an interview with the state governor on October 13th who promised stern action would be taken against the guards turned rapists.
The authorities acted swiftly in view of the Canadian government taking serious notice of the incident and it was in record time that an inquiry was conducted and the culprits punished.
Here lies the difference between the rape of a foreigner and that of a Muslim Kashmiri woman. The latter is treated as an allegation and passed of unnoticed and unwept.”
Without wasting time in the embellishment of this article, I would prefer to come on to the point, directly. Kashmir imbroglio may be hard to resolve, because of India's adamance, but it's not hard to ascertain the culprit among the parties involved. In this piece of writing, I have no intention to go through the events from 1947 to 2011, in order to prove my interpretations right. In fact, I would like to present some facts which will leave no room for interpretations. Let's see what was promised to us (Kashmiris), not by the United Nations, not by the International community, not by Pakistan but by the very Greats of the Nation of India.
Ponder over these historical statements and you will be astonished at India's arrogance towards Kashmir in 2011.
1) “People seem to forget that Kashmir is not a commodity for sale or to be bartered. It has an individual existence and its people must be the final arbiters of their future.”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (Report to the All-India Congress Committee, 6 July 1951; The Statesman, New Delhi, 9 July 1951).
2) “We had given our pledge to the people of Kashmir, and subsequently to the United Nations; we stood by it and we stand by it today. Let the people of Kashmir decide.”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (Statement in the Indian Parliament, 12 February 1951).
3) “We have taken the issue to the United Nations and given our word of honour for a peaceful solution. As a great nation, we cannot go back on it. We have left the question for final solution to the people of Kashmir and we are determined to abide by their decision.”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (Amrita Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, 2 January 1952).
4) “If, after a proper plebiscite, the people of Kashmir said, 'We do not want to be with India', we are committed to accept that. We will accept it though it might pain us. We will not send any army against them. We will accept that, however hurt we might feel about it, we will change the Constitution, if necessary.”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (Statement in the Indian Parliament, 26 June 1952).
5) “I want to stress that it is only the people of Kashmir who can decide the future of Kashmir. It is not that we have merely said that to the United Nations and to the people of Kashmir; it is our conviction and one that is borne out by the policy that we have pursued, not only in Kashmir but everywhere. Though these five years have meant a lot of trouble and expense and in spite of all we have done we would willingly leave Kashmir if it was made clear to us that the people of Kashmir wanted us to go. However sad we may feel about leaving. We are not going to stay against the wishes of the people. We are not going to stay against the wishes of the people. We are not going to impose ourselves on them at the point of the bayonet"
“I started with the presumption that it is for the people of Kashmir to decide their own future. We will not compel them. In that sense, the people of Kashmir are sovereign”.
(Statement in Indian Parliament, 7th August, 1952)
6) “The whole dispute about Kashmir is still before the United Nations. We cannot just decide things concerning Kashmir. We cannot pass a bill or issue an order concerning Kashmir or do whatever we want.
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (The Statesman, 1 May 1953)
7) “Leave the decision regarding the future of this State to the people of the State is not merely a promise to your Government but also to the people of Kashmir and to the world.”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (In telegram No. 25 dated 31 October 1947 addressed to Prime Minister of Pakistan).
8) “In regard to accession also it has been made clear that this is subject to reference to people of State and their decision.”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (In telegram No.413 dated 28 October 1947 addressed to Prime Minister of Pakistan).
9) “We have always right from the beginning accepted the idea of the Kashmir people deciding their fate by referendum or plebiscite………..”
“Ultimately, the final decision of settlement, which must come, has first of all to be made basically by the people of Kashmir…….”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (Statement at Press Conference in London, 16 January 1951, The Statesman, 18 January 1951).
10) “But so far as the Government of India are concerned, every assurance and international commitment in regard to Kashmir stands.”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (Statement in the Indian Council of States; 18 May 1954).
11) “The issue in Kashmir is whether violence and naked force should decide the future or the will of the people.”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (Statement in Indian Constituent Assembly; 25 November 1947).
12) “Kashmir should decide question of accession by plebiscite or referendum under international auspices such as those of the United Nations.”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU ( Letter No. 368-Primin dated 21 November 1947 to Prime Minister of Pakistan).
13) “…….the people of Kashmir would decide the question of accession. It is open to them to accede to either Dominion then.”
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU ( In telegram No.255 dated 31 October 1947 addressed to Prime Minister of Pakistan).
14) “First of all, I would like to remind you of the fateful days of 1947 when I came to Srinagar and gave the solemn assurance that the people of India would stand by Kashmir in her struggle. On that assurance, I shook Sheikh Abdullah's hand before the vast multitude that had gathered there. I want to repeat that the Government of India will stand by that pledge, whatever happens. That pledge itself stated that it is for the people of Kashmir to decide their fate without external interference. That assurance also remains and will continue”.
(Address at public meeting in Srinagar, 4th June, 1951)
15) “India is a great country and Kashmir is almost in the heart of Asia. There is an enormous difference not only geographically but in all kinds of facts there. Do you think (in dealing with Kashmir) you are dealing with a part of U.P or Bihar or Gujarat?”
(Statement in Indian Parliament, 26th June, 1952)
16) “As a result of the plebiscite over the entire state, we would be in a position to consider the matter, so that the final decision should cause the least disturbance and should take into consideration geographical, economic and other important factors.
“I should like to make it clear that there is no intention on my part to exclude the UN from this question of Kashmir.
(Letter to Prime Minister of Pakistan, 3rd September, 1953
17) “Our object is to give freedom to the people of Kashmir to decide their future in a peaceful way so as to create no upset, as we said in our joint statement”.
(Letter to Prime Minister of Pakistan, 10th November, 1953)
18) “India will stand by her international commitments on the Kashmir issue and implement them at the appropriate time."
“The repudiation of international commitments would lower India's prestige abroad”.
(Statement reported in The Time of India, 16th May, 1954)
19) “Kashmir is not a thing to be bandied about between India and Pakistan but it has a soul of its own and an individuality of its own. Nothing can be done without the goodwill and consent of the people of Kashmir”.
(Statement in Indian Parliament, 31st March, 1955)
"Until now, you were reading comments of the very first Prime Minister of India. Now, let us analyze what did The Father of their Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, had to say about Kashmir, even though he did not get much time to address this issue. Let us read the statement of the person whose photo can be viewed on the Indian currency notes, which seems to be the only value given to him by his people"
20.“If the people of Kashmir are in favour of opting for Pakistan, no power on earth can stop them from doing so. They should be left free to decide for themselves”.
(Speech at Prayer Meeting, 26th October, 1947. Complete Works of Mahatma Gandhi)
Not to forget, Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten, in his letter to Maharaja on 27th October 1947, wrote as follows;
21). “The question of the state's accession should be settled by a reference to the people”.
After these pioneers, let's go ahead and see what other political personalities had to say about us;
22) “The people of Kashmir would be free to decide their future by the recognized democratic method of plebiscite or referendum, which in order to ensure complete impartiality may be held under international auspices.”
(Letter from Government of India to UN, 31st December, 1947)
23) “In accepting the accession they [the Government of India] refused to take advantage of the immediate peril in which the State found itself and informed the Ruler that the accession should finally be settled by plebiscite as soon as peace had been restored. They have subsequently made it quite clear that they are agreeable to the plebiscite being conducted if necessary under international auspices."
“On the question of accession, the Government of India has always enunciated the policy that in all cases of dispute the people of the State concerned should make the decision."
“We have no further interest, and we have agreed that a plebiscite in Kashmir might take place under international auspices after peace and order have been established. “We desire only to see peace restored in Kashmir and ensure that the people of Kashmir are left free to decide in an orderly and peaceful manner the future of their state."
Gopalaswami Ayyangar, (Statement at the Security Council, 15th January, 1948)
24) “The question of accession is to be decided finally in a free plebiscite, on this there is no dispute”.
(White Paper on Kashmir issued by Government of India, 1948)
25) My government has always taken the view that resolutions, if they are passed, must be implemented.”
Krishna Menon, (Statement at UN General Assembly, 5th April, 1951)
26) We adhere strictly to our pledge of plebiscite in Kashmir – a pledge made to the people because they believe in democratic government …… We don't regard Kashmir as a commodity to be trafficked in”.
Krishna Menon (Press statement in London, reported in the Statesman,
New Delhi, 2nd August, 1951)
27) “The Government of India not only reaffirms its acceptance of the principle that the question of the continuing accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India shall be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations, but is anxious that the conditions necessary for such a plebiscite should be created as quickly as possible”.
(Letter from Govt. of India to UN Representative for India and Pakistan, 11th September, 1951)
28)“We do not seek to go behind the UNCIP resolutions, or to ignore the vital elements of principle contained in them. ……We have always adhered to the UNCIP resolutions….. We cannot be a party to the reversal of previous decisions taken by the United Nations Commission with the agreement of the parties.”
Mrs. Vijay Lakshmi Pandit, (Statement at the Security Council, 8th December, 1952)
29) “I want to say for the purpose of the record that there is nothing that has been said on behalf of the Government of India which in the slightest degree indicates that the Government of India or the Union of India will dishonor any international obligations it has undertaken.”
Krishna Menon (Statement at UN Security Council, 24th January, 1957)
30)“If, as a result of a plebiscite, the people decided that they did not want to stay with India, then our duty at that time would be to adopt those constitutional procedures which would enable us to separate that territory.”
Krishna Menon, (Statement at UN Security Council, 8th February, 1957)
31) “The resolutions of January 17, 1948 and the resolutions of the UNICP, the assurances given, these are all resolutions which carry a greater weight – that is because we have accepted them, we are parties to them, whether we like them or not.”
Krishna Menon,(Statement at UN Security Council, 20th February, 1957)
32) “These documents (UNCIP reports) and declarations and the resolutions of the Security Council are decisions; they are resolutions, there has been some resolving of a question of one character or another, there has been a meeting of minds on this question where we have committed ourselves to it.”
Krishna Menon,(Statement at the Security Council, 9th October, 1957)
33) “India believes that sovereignty rests in the people and should return to them.”
Krishna Menon, (The Statesman, Delhi, 19th January, 1962)
"I reiterate that I won't conclude by trying to feed you with my personal interpretations to beautify my tail piece. In fact, after taking a brief tour of these properly referenced facts,I would like to ask this open-ended question to the people of Kashmir, people of India and the world community that How do you feel when India calls us its integral part and says there is nothing called Kashmir dispute and its final fate was decided with the fake accession of Maharaja in 1947? If I am not wrong, all the above statements have come after India's military occupation in 1947. Does not India stand Naked?"
Mehboob Makhdoomi is the President of 'Kashmir Youth Intellect', a global academic group of young Kashmiris, seeking to raise awareness of the Kashmir dispute. His essay 'Resolution of Kashmir' was awarded first prize by the ICRD (International Centre for Religion and Diplomacy) in 2008.
