India's moral defeat in Kashmir

State brutalisation puts the fear of the arbitrary in everyone, gradually making all Kashmiris potential victims.

A system of state brutality - marked by thousands of nameless graves - reigns in Kashmir [Showkat Shafi]

In the early 1990s, I had a long conversation with a former Kashmiri militant. Among other things, I asked him why he had given up. He did not, or could not, go beyond inchoate answers that hovered around fear, disillusionment, uncertainty, and so on.

There was one thing, however, that struck me as significant, thought provoking and ultimately disturbing. He said he was grateful to the authorities that he had not been killed in custody. He had spent a few nights in a local prison when he was picked up by the armed forces a year or so after he had given up. His family feared for his life, so they went on a frenzied campaign to save him, and they did succeed in getting him out alive. In Kashmir many do not, as we witnessed in the recent custodial killing of 28-year-old Nazim Rashid in the town of Sopore in central Kashmir.

At the time, I did not fully register the import of what the former militant had said. Here was someone, even though a former combatant, who had come to believe that it was routine for the state, the government as he put it, to kill him while in their custody. He was grateful for not having been killed extra-judicially.

In other words, he had accepted the perversion of the idea of justice, and also of the moral and legal order, in his life - as well as in the world around him - and come to accept, and then believe, that was the normative relationship between the state and its subject.

The state, in this case the Indian state as it operates in Kashmir, does not execute this relationship only through the stated mechanism of coercion, extraordinary legal provisions such as those black laws AFSPA (the Armed Forces Special Powers Act) and PSA (the Public Safety Act), which mock the very concept of legality. It also employs deliberate legal, moral and technical obfuscations to do so.

'Acts of mass murder'

Nearly 20 years later, this kind of brutality by the state continues unabated, and a damning testament of it was on display last year in a particularly barbaric and almost ritualistic performance of state power when the men who run Kashmir decided that the most effective way to deal with unarmed protesters on the street was to shoot them dead.

There are clear statutes in international law that apply to the treatment of civilian protesters and prisoners in conflict regions - the killings of 2010 may not go to The Hague, but there were what could be seen as 'acts of mass murder' throughout the summer of that year. It is also important to remember that no one has been held accountable, let alone punished for any of those murders, which by itself is a shameful indictment of the state's behaviour. And that is one of the many consequences and expressions of the abnormal structures that the state employs to deal with dissent and enforce normalcy - no one is held accountable, and therefore no one among those who wield the reins of power feels responsible even for mass murder.

Perhaps that is why no one ever resigns in places such as Kashmir. Immunity (the word assumes a horrific meaning in the official lexicon of conflict) guaranteed by draconian legal structures is all pervasive, and cushions everyone in the military-police structure, right down to the level of the most ordinary functionary of the state.

This is how you have a state that kills the mentally handicapped Ashok Kumar in the border district of Poonch, claims he was the divisional commander Abu Usman of the LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba), provides a detailed press release about the long encounter, and when the truth about a premeditated murder is revealed, does not even bother to put out an apology. No cogent explanation of the murder or answers to rudimentary questions are offered - such as if it was a 'goof up' (a term used by some sections of the Indian press) why did they make it a point to claim that it took 12 hours to kill this 'militant'?

But then Kashmir has witnessed many instances of premeditated murder, also known as 'fake encounters' - a term reminiscent of Bollywood gangland-speak. And barring one instance of a punishment amounting to termination of active service in the case of the Machhil 'fake encounter' of April 2010, and a few police officials serving prison terms, no one from the armed forces has been punished for any of the murders in Pathribal (2000), Ganderbal (2006), Lolab (2004) and other cases before that.

The language of conquest

On the street, then, amidst a brutalised people who are expected to behave normally as an acquiescent citizenry, the state that wants the world to believe that Kashmir is an integral part of India is often found speaking the language of conquest. Martin Luther King's 'arc of the moral universe' does not bend towards justice in places such as Kashmir, it does not even begin to stir, because the compass is not still - it is comatose.

How does this almost completely dehumanised 'conflict management' (for neither India nor Pakistan have demonstrated any serious intent to resolve the dispute) impinge on the lives of ordinary people, and what are its goals with regard to the aspirations of those people?

The perpetrator of violence, whether by immediate personal choice or as part of a system that allows the executor to live in moral comfort or comfortable moral ambiguity, wants the victim to "renounce all claims to asserting his identity". This is essentially what violence, torture, brutality are meant to do. To reduce a person, a mind, and consequently a collective of minds, to a "spiritless body". And that, then, is what a repressive regime in Kashmir, an oppressive ruler in Arabia, or an occupying super power in Afghanistan, ultimately seeks to achieve: the complete destruction of the will of the victim, which in turn ensures a people kept in submission, slavery even.

And if you factor in other mechanisms of subjugation, for instance, turning people into willing or unwilling accomplices and collaborators, you have a well-oiled, thriving security or police state in which moral and legal insanity becomes the norm. And so we arrive at a former militant who is grateful that the state did not kill him in prison.

In the 1990s, the Indian state put in place a system of brutalisation to crush the armed revolt in Kashmir. As a prerequisite to that horrific state of affairs marked by thousands of nameless burials , littered corpses, street massacres and notorious torture chambers (Papa II in Kashmir was Abu Ghraib before Abu Ghraib became Abu Ghraib), a suspension of moral and legal order is necessary. That is how the case for dark emergency laws, reminiscent of the worst dictatorial regimes of the last century, becomes acceptable to the agency imposing it. Again, in the case of this state, these bulwarks of tyranny not only become acceptable but, as a general of the Indian army would have us believe, also tenets from a 'holy book' .

This then gradually makes everyone a victim, and in my reckoning, worse, a potential victim. Fear is the overarching thread here. Apart from a handful of members of the elite and collaborators needed to check the governance box, everyone is a victim. Some directly, others indirectly. Brutalisation, beyond the immediate goal of crushing people's aspirations or an armed revolt, means putting the fear of the arbitrary in everyone. 'Anything can happen to you – anytime,' the state seems to say to the common Kashmiri almost all the time. As the family of Nazim Rashid, the latest victim of custodial murder in Kashmir, found out.

Nazim was found dead in Sopore on July 31; a case has been lodged, a few low-ranked policemen have been arrested, the autopsy report has found evidence of torture - and yet the Indian state and its representatives in Kashmir have not admitted any responsibility for a murder that was committed under their watch. People will remember this, record a dirge for yet another extinguished young life, and wonder, first with frustration and then with fury, how hard it can really be for a gargantuan police state that sometimes resembles a loose Alcatraz, to deliver justice.

A personal conflict

One of the concerns of my work, both in fiction and outside of it, is to examine how the perpetrator of such random and ruthless violence objectifies the victim. This is germane to all conflicts between the powerful and the weak: The perpetrator has to 'otherise' the victim - how else does a member of the security forces come to bludgeon a nine-year-old to death, as we saw in the killing of Samir Rah in Srinagar last year?

And conflict is very personal. When you grow up in Kashmir, you are troubled by some very fundamental questions: Why are my people being killed? Why am I in this crackdown? And why do they always use expletives when they talk to you? When a member of the armed forces talks to you, you are never addressed normally. You are always a 'maderchod' or 'behanchod'. Even an 'abeyy' would be honourable. Therefore, you see, you feel, you think, and even walk differently once you have witnessed your share of the brutality in play.

During my first year in Delhi, I was once walking near Pragati Maidan when I saw a Delhi police vehicle parked on the roadside. Instinctively, I started to run, to look for a place to hide.

That to me is complete brutalisation of a people. Apart from occasional shootings by unknown gunmen, and genuine battles between the armed forces and militants (it is hard to tell in the haze created by the fake 'encounter mafia' that rears its head from time to time); there is only one kind of terror that chills the hearts of parents of young men in Kashmir - the terror of the man in uniform.

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Kishanganga hydel power project threatens an ancient culture

The Dard Shin tribe of Gurez, speakers of the Shina language, are to be uprooted to Srinagar. But what is a pastoral hill community to do in the city, asks Iftikhar Gilani

Imagine the kind of uproar civil society and rights groups would have created had the Centre decided to shift the indigenous Jarawas from their native Andaman and Nicobar Islands to New Delhi. However, no such noise has been made so far even as the Dard-Shina tribe, said to be the last of the original Aryans living in the remote Gurez region is being robbed of its hearth and home. The tribal community will be relocated to Srinagar, making way for the 330-MW Kishanganga hydro-electric project in Kashmir. Away from the high-profile land acquisition cases of Bhatta Prasaul and Nandigram, this scenic place on the north-western tip of the Valley has hardly had anyone crying foul after the Centre announced relocation plans.

Since there is no land in this heavily militarised region close to Line of Control (LoC), the Government has decided to rehabilitate the tribals to Srinagar. Hyder Ali Samoon, a sub-inspector, a resident of Badwan village looks at his ancestral house with a sense of foreboding. The water from the dam will submerge what has been home to him and his ancestors. Pointing towards a nearby graveyard, where his ancestors lay buried, Samoon tells his sons and grandsons to engrave and store images of the house and the picturesque beauty of the village in their minds so that they can, at least, pass on their heritage to the future generations.

Nearly 300 families belonging to three villages of Badwan, Wanpora and Khopri are being relocated to Srinagar city. Against their peers across the Kanzalwan mountains in Bandipora, these villagers are getting a compensation of Rs 5.75 lakh per kanal (a unit of area). The farmers in Bandipora, on the other hand, with more fertile lands are being paid only Rs 2.25 lakh per kanal. Why this difference? Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir Asghar Samoon, who incidentally was touring the area, told TEHELKA that Gurez tribes are being paid more because they are not only losing land but also their culture, civilisation, and will probably become extinct over the next few decades, thanks to the hustle and bustle of Srinagar.

The controversial Kishanganga project, which envisages diverting water from the Kishanganga river through tunnels to the Wullar Lake in Bandipora district of Kashmir Valley has not only come to focus due to Pakistan’s opposition invoking the clauses of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) to complain against India to the World Bank but the project has drawn enough attention to itself for being ambiguous about its nature. What is intriguing is that the National Hydel Power Company (NHPC) officials have kept the voluminous environmental assessment report of Kishanganga undertaken by the Centre, for Inter-disciplinary Studies of Mountain and Hill Environment, close to its chest. Not only has it refused to share it with the state government, but it also did not accede to the request of former Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz, when as a minister he wanted to see the report, before it went to the Cabinet.

The Rs 3642.04-crore power project will displace 362 families and consume a total of 4280 kanals (535 acres) of land. The Centre and the NHPC’s move to relocate the displaced families outside Gurez Valley were influenced by several factors. For instance, land in the mountainous valley is very limited. Some 27 revenue villages, inhabiting the region with a population of 31,900 (latest census) houses around 26,000 troops. Total land under Army occupation is 2802 kanal, out of which 918 kanals are unauthorised. Out of 1883 authorised occupation, the Army provides rent for 1140 kanals. The LoC fencing has consumed 339 kanals.

The local magistrate of Gurez Mohammad Ashraf Hakak said that the only land that was available on the foothills of mountains was prone to avalanches. Therefore, the Government, with the help of the NHPC, decided to shift the affected families to Mirgund, around 16 km from Srinagar.
At the core of this rehabilitation exercise stands the Dard Shin tribe of Gurez. Speakers of the Shina language, the rare tribals will be cut off from their culture, livelihood and roots if moved to Srinagar. Many historians and anthropologists claim that the Dard Shin people are pure Aryans.

For more than six months Gurez remains cut off from the rest of the world. Until Jammu and Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan, Gurez was part of the Gilgit state.

“Relocating people outside Gurez is an attempt to divide and rule the people of Gurez,” said the chairman of J&K Dard-Shin tribal minorities, Mir Hamidullah. Unhappy with the plan, he said that in order to preserve their culture and language, the people of Gurez should be provided land and rehabilitated in Gurez itself. “Shina language is the mother of Sanskrit. We are a people with our own history and relocating our people outside Gurez will hurt the community,” said Mir.

Apart from jeopardising their cultural identity, the move to rehabilitate them will also risk the state of cultivable land in the area, which will be shrunk further by the dam. “This project will affect whatever little agricultural land is left in our village,” said Abdul Khaliq Ganie of Tarbal, the last village near LoC, about 20 kms from Gurez town. “We have been losing our cattle to the minefield areas every year, and now this project has added to our worries as this village remains cut off from the Kashmir Valley for most part of the year,” he added.

Known for its scenic beauty, Gurez is separated from the Valley by the north Kashmir mountain range that runs west of Zojila Pass. For more than six months Gurez remains cut off from the rest of the world. Until Jammu and Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan, Gurez was part of the Gilgit state. The taxes would be paid at Drass, which happens to be the only area on this side of the LoC that shares its language, culture and customs with Gurez.

The compensation being offered to the people for their homes and land, the locals say, is too little. “They are giving me one lakh rupees for one kanal of land, but how am I going to survive on this little amount along with my nine children,” rued a resident of one of the affected villages in Gurez.

According to civilian officials, the NHPC has promised (under the new relief and rehabilitation plan) to pay Rs 5.57 lakh to the families whose houses will be affected by the project and construct a new house per household outside Gurez. The powerhouse will be located in Kralpora village of Bandipora. Waters from a fast flowing Kishanganga—from Teetwal to Gurez—would be stored at Gurez and diverted to the Bandipora power station. The water will then go into the Bonar Madhumati and eventually flow into the Wullar Lake.

“Shina language is the mother of Sanskrit. We are a people with our own history and relocating our people outside Gurez will hurt the community,”

Pakistan has raised objections over the water diversion part of the project as it believes the inter-tributary transfer amounts to a violation of the IWT of 1960. Pakistan is worried that the diversion of the river will leave thousands of acres of its rice fields, fed by Neelum (that’s what Kishanganga is known as in Pakistan) dry, and impact Mangla Dam and the viability of its upcoming Neelam-Jhelum power project.

Environmental experts say that the rise in water level of Kishanganga will adversely affect the ecology of Gurez, submerging substantial plantation and leaving an impact on its agricultural land and wildlife. The dam will also affect the breeding cycle of trout fish, found in Kishanganga. “There will be no breeding of trout fish because of this dam as they need fast running water to breed,” said an official from the fisheries department. The dam will also lead to an extreme winter in Gurez, which already has a long winter, as the river will freeze because of the dam, some experts said. “There is a danger of floods too as the water level increases and this will affect other adjoining villages as well,” revealed a government official.

However, despite many pitfalls, work on the power project continues on both sides of Gurez and Bandipora. The Hindustan Construction Corporation (HCC) has been allotted the EPA contract by NHPC for implementing the project. An amount of Rs 269.96 crore has been spent until March 2010, sources said.

Conceived in 1996, the work on the project began in 2007. HCC is constructing a 37m-high rock-filled dam, and a 23.50 km headrace tunnel to take water to three turbines (110 MW each) for generating 1,350 million units of energy a year. The HCC, last winter, spent a crore on the helicopter service to reach the dam site in Gurez.

In addition to the various problems associated with the project, the HCC has been accused of discriminating against Kashmiri engineers and employees. The HCC authorities, locals alleged, are forcing families in the affected villages to vacate their houses and land even before providing them with compensation.

“The affected families are asking the HCC authorities to give compensation before they vacate their lands,” said a Kashmiri engineer working for the HCC site in Bandipora. “People of Kralpora, which is the most affected village, were recently beaten up by the HCC authorities for protesting and demanding land compensation,” he added. The HCC and NHPC officials, however, refused comment.

Local labourers alleged that they are paid less than the outsiders. “NHPC did not employ the people from the villages that will be submerged because of the dam. They should have been given preference, but the project authorities brought employees from outside the valley,” a government official said.

The region with its unique history is littered with gems of archaeological interest. Archaeologists believe that there are many sites in Gurez, which have inscriptions in Kharoshthi, Brahmi, Hebrew and Tibetan. Experts are of the opinion that an archaeological investigation of Gurez valley will give further insight into the history of the Dard Shin people and about Kashmir in general.

Incidentally, Gurez valley falls along the section of the ancient Silk Route, which connected Kashmir valley with Gilgit and Kashgar. Archaeological surveys in valleys north of Gurez along the Silk Route, particularly in Chilas, have uncovered hundreds of inscriptions recorded in stone. The Kishanganga project will also affect this route, which has traditionally been crucial for trade in Central Asia. One of the three villages that will also be affected by the project is Kanzalwan, which is believed to be an archaeological site of historic importance. The last council of Buddhism is said to have been held in this village, and further down the stream, the ruins of ancient Sharada University lie preserved along the Neelum.

The toll the project is going to take on the local population is heavy. It will mostly hit people who are entirely dependent on agriculture and allied activities for their livelihood. “Those families whose livelihood is entirely dependent on agriculture will be affected more as they have to look for other avenues of employment after their land compensation is exhausted,” said a government official in Gurez.

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PaK leader leaves for Srinagar to attend wedding

Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry, the former premier of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, today left on his first visit to the Jammu and Kashmir to attend the wedding of a friend's son and to meet Hurriyat leaders.

Chaudhry, a leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, was issued a visa by the Indian High Commission to visit Srinagar to attend the wedding of the son of his close friend Zahoor Ahmed Shah Watali.

He flew from Lahore to Delhi this afternoon and will travel to Srinagar tomorrow, one of his aides told PTI. During his stay in Srinagar, Chaudhry will meet representatives of the Kashmiri community and leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, the aide said. This is the first time that such a senior leader from PaK is visiting the Indian side and the visit will provide an opportunity for interactions and exchange of ideas, the aide said.

Chaudhry is one of the leading Pakistan-based Kasmhir lobbyists.He was continuously elected to the PoK Assembly during 1985-2006. Watali, a leading businessman of Srinagar, has invited other political leaders from PaK, including Muslim Conference chief Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan, to his son's wedding to be held on September 17.

British parliament debates Indian Held Kashmir

In a significant development, the first of its nature, a general debate was held on Kashmir in the House of Commons, in London, on Thursday.

The debate was initiated by a conservative MP, Steve Baker, who demanded that an International Commission should investigate the human rights violations in Jammu & Kashmir, KMS reported. Referring to an Amnesty International report MP Baker said, each year hundreds of people are held under the black law, Public Safety Act without charge or trial with many exposed to higher risk of torture and other forms of ill-treatment. tabling the motion, Mr Baker said, we should be strong advocates for the rights of Kashmiris.

A Labour MP, Shabana Mahmood maintained that the Kashmir dispute had turned into one of the most dangerous conflicts in the world, which needed urgent attention. She said that the suppression of an uprising in Indian Occupied Kashmir had led to grave human rights violations.Several MPs including lan Austin, Jonathan Lord and Andrew Griffiths said that the right to self-determination was the only way to resolve the dispute.

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Kashmir panel wants international probe into unmarked graves

A day after the state human rights panel directed the Jammu and Kashmir government to begin a probe into the more than 7000 unmarked graves in various parts of the state, the association of parents of disappeared persons (APDP) maintained that only an international probe would be "credible, independent and representative".

Talking to IANS here Saturday, Khurram Parvez, coordinator of the APDP and liaison person of the International People’s Tribunal on Kashmir (IPTK), said: “The state human rights commission (SHRC) has ordered that an independent, credible and representative probe must be held into the unmarked graves in north Kashmir and those in Poonch and Rajouri districts of the Jammu region.
“We believe only an international probe would be credible, independent and representative.

“The SHRC has shifted the responsibility on the state government. They have ordered the state government to create a structured independent enquiry. We still hold that only an international probe would be impartial.”

The human rights activist and coordinator of the APDP said: “We hope the state government will immediately start DNA profiling of all the nearly 7,000 unmarked graves, 2,730 of which have been found in north Kashmir and 3,844 in Poonch and Rajouri districts.


“The SHRC has not been clear in its order on the forensic examination of those buried in these graves. There has to be a thorough forensic examination of the buried persons because we want to know how and why the buried persons were killed which cannot be found out just through the DNA profiling.”The SHRC had passed on order here Friday directing the state government to start a structured independent probe into the unmarked graves identified by its investigating wing.On the plea of the APDP, the SHRC had also extended its order pertaining to the mass graves in north Kashmir to those the APDP said existed in the Poonch and Rajouri districts of the Jammu region.

The SHRC had also asked for creation of a compensatory mechanism by the state government which must be put in place for the next of kin of the victims. The SHRC order directed the state home department, the director general of the police (DGP) and the district magistrates of the concerned districts to speed up the investigating and the prosecuting process in connection with the unmarked graves.

The security agencies, however, continue to maintain that those buried in the unmarked graves are either foreign or local guerrillas who were killed in gunfights with the security forces close to the line of control (LOC) after infiltrating into the state. “The traditional of marking graves is an urban practice. In majority of rural areas the graveyards are full of unmarked graves.

“When killed, the slain militants are handed over to the locals by the police for burial as per the Islamic practices. Yes, when a local militant was killed close to the LOC, attempts have invariably been made for identification and such identities are recorded with the local police,” said a senior intelligence officer here.

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Brutish Indian Authorities thrash Indian journo unnecessarily in Kashmir

David Devadas, journalist, and author of In Search of a Future, the Story of Kashmir, was beaten by the police in Srinagar on last Monday. Devadas says that he is worried about his life after the incident.

In a letter written to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Devadas said that on September 5, when he was crossing the Rambagh bridge in his car in evening in heavy traffic, he heard a loud bang at the back of his car. His car was hit by another car.

Image: David Devadas shows the injuries he sustained after policemen thrashed him last Monday

It was a security vehicle which was part of a convoy. One of the vehicles had a car flying the national flag. Devadas claims, "Those who were in this convoy had apparently got the impression that my car was obstructing their way, and became angry with me for this reason."

What followed after was "a terribly upsetting experience" for Devadas. He explains, "How negatively many ordinary citizens of Kashmir experience the State."

Particularly during the disturbed period over the past two decades, the armed forces have too often been the face of the State most visible to the people. Increasingly, over the past few years, it is the Jammu and Kashmir police rather than central forces that have been the leading interface between the State and the people, says Devadas.

After few minutes a traffic policeman stopped his vehicle. They wanted him to leave his vehicle and hand it over to them. He was asked to wait on the road. Devadas requested that he has an appointment with former MP Jaya Jaitley, but the police didn't listen to his plea.

Devadas found that he was illegally detained. He called the Inspector-General of Police, Kashmir Range, SM Sahai. He could not find him. He kept the message with Sahai's assistant who picked up the phone. The policemen kept insisting that Devadas should hand over his vehicle and also go with them to the police station. That was a scary proposal in a city like Srinagar.

In few minutes, more policemen came and started hitting him with hands and metal lathis and abused him. In spite of such serious assault, policemen have filed an FIR against Davadas, saying that he made a `jaan-leva hamla' (lethal attack) against them when their convoy had passed his car.

Devadas says, "At no point of time during this incident did I resort to using force against police persons, even in self-defence. They further made a baseless allegation that I had a pistol. I do not own any pistol, and I made it clear to them that I was not carrying any pistol. On mentioning that I was a journalist, they threatened that they would teach me a lesson in the police station. Further, they continued to use profanities and issued threats."

Devadas believes that "outrageous allegation" that he possessed a pistol was police's excuse to use physical violence against him.

Devadas, who lives in Kashmir since long, knew that it's not wise to accompany policemen to police station. He insisted that he should be checked right there with help of witnesses.

"I requested him to search me on the spot in front of passers-by who were witnesses before taking me anywhere. I told him the men in the security detail had accused me of having a pistol and that I therefore wished for the veracity of this allegation to be established in front of independent witnesses from the public." says Devadas.

However, he was not given any choice. Nobody agreed to search him. He was forced to sit in police vehicle. "Even after having volunteered to board the vehicle, the police personnel, instead of respecting my action, seized me by my hair and pulled, pushed, kicked and forced me into the back of the jeep. My shirt was torn across my torso at this point. In the jeep, I was further beaten, abused and kicked, while my head was held down at the floor of the jeep by my hair. I was unsure of my fate, and what would follow inside the police station."

When Devadas was bleeding in the police station, various policemen kept asking him where his pistol is.

Only when the deputy superintendent of police came the assault stopped.

He was taken into his room. Here Devadas claims that the station house officer completely twisted the facts, and fabricated a false story stating that that Devadas was beaten on the street by people.

Devadas has written to CM Abdullah, "Sir, I am deeply distressed at my discovery thus of the ease and impunity with which guardians of the law utter bald-faced falsehood. I am also concerned, sir, that I was not provided with a copy of my medico-legal examination at the Bone and Joints Hospital at Barzulla. I was taken to this hospital directly from the police station that night."

Devadas alleges that when he was beaten by police mercilessly policemen taunted that, "Get your home ministry to withdraw the disturbed areas order" that gives him such power.

Devadas has written to CM that, "He also told me angrily that what had happened to me was nothing compared to what Kashmiri journalists have experienced. Further, he told me that this sort of thing happens all over India [ Images ]; he knows this, he added, since he has been an 'international police officer."

Devadas has requested that, 'There is an urgent need to address and check the untrammeled abuse of powers by the police personnel, and other arms of the State, in Jammu and Kashmir. In relation to this incident, a strict action may be taken against these erring police personnel, who unleashed violence on a civilian without any provocation or any legal reason."

Since last 25 years, Davadas has been writing about conflict in Kashmir when he was working for India Today, Economic Times, Business Standard and Gulf News

To do research for his book he left his regular job and moved to Kashmir. Currently, Davadas is associated with Jamia Millia Islamia and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

For Devadas life will never be same again. He writes to Abdullah that, "After this experience, I am apprehensive about my safety. Through that evening, it became clear to me that rules, procedures and court guidelines are treated with contempt by the police force. I would be grateful, sir, if you would kindly advise me on how best to proceed and whether you consider it safe for me to remain in Kashmir."

On advise of fellow journalists, Devadas didn't file any FIR, although the police has filed FIR accusing him of 'lethal attack' on them.

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