It dates back to the chaddeee days of my grandpa. I wont be talking about those past events, they will put Indians to shame. I will be talking about the more recent developements.
Kashmir is sometimes refered to as "Heaven on earth". Different titles given by different people. The world’s best saffron grown here and in the middle of those saffron fields is a Army Camp. The largest fresh water lake of Asia is in Kashmir – The Wular Lake. Adjacent to it is an Army Camp. Jahangir loved this place, now known as Verinag. A beautiful mughal garden, the source of river Jehlum. Half of it under military occupation (they are vacating though). Kokernag, the biggest spring in Kashmir, half of it under Army. The Almond orchards of the “HIGH GROUND”, completely under army control. Sher Bagh, a spiring in Islamabad district of Kashmir, surrounded by Army Camp. Lal Chowk, the hub of Srinagar city, home to an Army Camp. After the AFSPA was launched these army men didn’t even spare private toilets. You spit anywhere, at random, and you spit at an Army Personnel, such is their density in Kashmir. Doesn’t matter much though.
This nation, Kashmir, has been raped time and again by Indian troops. Be it the Tengpora massacre or the Zakoora massacre, the Gawkadal Massacre or the Sopore massacre. Be it the Bomai killings or any other fake encounters, rape rape everywhere. (Read my artng though). Kokernag, the biggest spring in Kashmir, half of it under Army. The Almond orchards of the “HIGH GROUND”, completely under army control. Sher Bagh, a spiring in Islamabad district of Kashmir, surrounded by Army Camp. Lal Chowk, the hub of Srinagar city, home to an Army Camp. After the AFSPA was launched these army men didn’t even spare private toilets. You spit anywhere, at random, and you spit at an Army Personnel, such is their density in Kashmir. Doesn’t matter much though.
“These killings aint random, this is an organised genocide”.
In the last 11 years, over 2000 people, between the ages of 10 and 70, have disappeared from the Kashmir Valley after they were allegedly picked up by the security forces. They have left behind desperate families who have tried everything to trace their dear ones, but to no avail. Consider these:
* Zahoor Ahmed Sofi. Arrested on August 8, 1994, by 15th Battalion, BSF. Petition filed under 491-CrPC no.20/99. Still missing.
* Mohammed Rafiq Bhatt. Arrested on August 19, 1992, by BSF. Petition filed under 491-CrPC No.19/99. Still missing.
* Mushtaq Ahmed Khan. Arrested on midnight April 13/14, 1997, by 20th Grenade Army C/O 56 APO. Petition filed under 491-CrPC No. 15/99. Still missing.
It was June 27, 2000 that some 300 Muslim refugees from Indian-controlled Kashmir have crossed into the Pakistani side of the disputed territory after being beaten and threatened by Indian troops. The refugees said they had been abused for several days and eventually threatened with death unless they left their village about three kilometres (two miles) from the unofficial border between the Indian and Pakistani sides.
"We were scared that we were going to be killed so it was better to get across to a Muslim area," said 24-year-old mother of one Kulsoom Begum, from the village of Tarkundi. "It was a collective decision to leave by the whole family."
Another refugee told how he brought his wife and one-year-
old son across the Line of Control after being beaten repeatedly for several days by an Indian officer.
"They said that they would set everything on fire and we would have nothing to eat but dust unless we left the village," said 25-year-old Zakir.
"We had to leave everything behind except the clothes we were wearing."
Local Pakistani military commander Colonel Rizwan Ali Khan said 284 people from 51 families had crossed so far and would be taken to a refugee camp near Kotli, 120 kilometres (72 miles) south of Muzaffarabad.
This aint the end MARWAL (PULWAMA), May 8, 2000, A shroud of fear had enveloped the village. The houses were all bolted from inside, even the windows are shut. Women do not venture out alone even during the day, 10 years have passed. Two men from the nearby Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) camp barged into the house of Abdul Rehman Dar and raped his 40-year-old housewife. The Dar household is still to recover from the shock. His wife, a Bengali, had come to Kashmir eight years ago as the bride of Abdul Rehman, who works as a labourer. "I had never imagined this will be my fate here," she says. The villagers who have assembled in front of her house are restless. She asks them to keep quiet. "Let me talk. I want to tell my pathetic story. Somebody will definitely listen to me," her voice is choked with pain and anger. Chill buddy AFSPA is at their backing you cant do anything.
"Aag lagao. Mere ko dead body chahiye". This is how J. K. Sharma Additional Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Commandant of Border Security Force's 75th battalion, is to have told his men before they shot nine innocent civilians
in cold blood in Mashali Mohalla, Srinagar district, on August 6, 1990. Now the BSF court of inquiry is drawing to a close. This will be the first court martial of its kind and E N Rammohan, Director General of the BSF, says the final orders against the DIG and others, will be issued later this month. (Buddies this is from the Indian Express dated 2, july 1998).
Mashali Mohalla was resounding with the wails of hysterical women and children. Mehbooba, one of the widows of Mashali Mohalla, told the court of inquiry that she first heard the sound of vehicles screeching at her door and some men shouting, "Pakistani Kutto, Bahar ajayo" (Pakistani dogs, come out). After this she heard sounds of rapid-fire and the shattering of windowpanes. Her husband, Bashir Ahmed Baig, 60,was sleeping by her side. Within minutes, the door was broken down and the BSF Jawans stormed in. They pulled off her clothes. In the meantime, she heard shots in the other room. Her youngest son, Izaz, had hidden himself under a table and was dragged out. One of the BSF men shot him too. Mehbooba ran to other room to find her husband, older son Muzzafar and a guest Abdul Rehman, all bleeding from bullet-injuries. Ten minutes later, a turbaned BSF officer returned. Seeing a new face in uniform, Mehbooba ran wailing to him, only to be shot at on the left side of her chest. She wrapped a quilt around herself and lay near the body of her husband. Her youngest son died on the way to the hospital. Abdul lived to tell the tale though he lost his left eye. The house was then set on fire. Tasleema, the other Mashali Mohalla widow, has also given a graphic account of the massacre at the hands of the BSF. She has stated that the BSF personnel came to the first floor of her house and opened fire. She hid under the bed when she was pulled out by a BSF jawan, who ripped her cloths and tried to force himself on
PAMELA CONSTABLE writes for The Washington Post, June 21, 1999 her. It was the whistle from DIG Sharma a signal to end the "operation" which Tasleema says she her self heard, that saved her from further humiliation. She stepped out only after the firing stopped to see the bodies of her father, Ghulam Qadir Magloo, and her two brothers, Mushtaq and Ahmed Magloo, lying on the ground, riddled with bullets. By their side was their neighbour, Farooq Baig. All of them were dead. The youngest witness for the BSF's court of inquiry is Baby Jaan, Farooq Baig's 15 year old daughter. She told the court of inquiry how the Jawans attempted to molest her when she was cowering under the bed. A BSF officer pulled her out but disgusted with her hysterical screaming, cut open her right cheek with a knife, spat on her and left.
Khargam - India: Until Tuesday, this was a prosperous village of brick and cement houses. Women and girls worked looms in shady yards, weaving carpets for export. Men tended apple orchards, rice paddies and plump milk cows.
Today Khargam is a heap of charred rubble, silent except for the sound of women wailing. Outside, families squat among their ruined possessions: scraps of flowered carpeting, piles of blackened cooking pots. Inside their sheds lie the corpses of incinerated cows.
According to authorities, the annihilation of Khargam was the consequence of "cross-fire" between Muslim separatist guerrillas and Indian security forces. According to villagers, it was an act of vengeance by army and police who sealed off the village, found and shot two guerrillas, torched the community with kerosene and kept watch while it burned for hours.
The incident was not the first of its kind in Kashmir, a scenic but heavily militarized region that is the subject of a decades-old dispute between India and Pakistan and the site of a long-smoldering guerrilla conflict that has caused some 700,000 Indian troops to be stationed here. But it was an especially gruesome example of how the latest flare-up of tensions over the region - a three-week battle in the Kargil mountains 100 miles east of here on the Line of Control separating Indian and Pakistani-Occupied Kashmir, has revived an array of regional problems that m
ost Kashmiris hoped they were finally putting behind them.
The News International, Jan 03, 2001
Indian forces have burnt down historical Jamia Masjid in Kishtwar, a town in Doda south of occupied Kashmir. The mosque was gutted in fire during the intervening night of January 1-2 when the whole town was under curfew.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the gruesome event triggered strong protest demonstrations and people raised slogans against India and in favour of Kashmir's liberation. According to eyewitnesses, the Indian forces prevented fire-fighting trucks from extinguishing the fire.
Add the following to it….
The burning of the 700-year-old Shah-e Hamdan shrine in Tral, Indian occupied Kashmir, on December 16 was no accident. This was the third 'accidental fire' that has destroyed an important Islamic monument in Kashmir.
In May 1995, the 600-year-old shrine at Charar-i Sharif was destroyed by what the Indian occupation forces described as 'cross-firing' with a group of mujahideen who allegedly had taken shelter there. No mujahid was found when the shooting stopped. Three years earlier, the library at Srinagar's main mosque was set ablaze. A large number of priceless manuscripts were destroyed.
After the Shah-e Hamdan fire, home minister in the Kashmir puppet administration, Ali Mohammed Sagar, was quoted by the AFP on December 20 as saying that the government would investigate the cause thoroughly, adding: 'We have nothing to hide.' The people of Kashmir have no faith in such pronouncements who consider the Farooq Abdullah administration as unrepresentative and a puppet of Delhi.
India, which claims to be the 'largest democracy' in the world, has drawn an iron curtain around Kashmir. Human rights organisations, especially Amnesy International, have been barred from entering the state since 1978. Even so, reports have trickled out painting a grim picture. Freedom House, a New York-based non-profit organisation, described on December 21 India's occupation of Kashmir as the 'worst of the worst' where basic human and political rights were denied to the people. In its annual report on Kashmir (December 1997), Human Rights Watch/Asia said that since the induction of the Abdullah government, there has been a marked 'increase in extrajudicial executions,' in Kashmir.
Brutalities in Kashmir have also been condemned by Indian human rights groups. The Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Hyderabad; Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai, and Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi, issued a stinging rebuke of Indian forces' practices in Kashmir following a visit to the state by their fact-finding team last year.
The Indian team was particularly scathing in its attack of random killings of civilians by the occupation forces. Their report listed a large number of incidents in which innocent civilians were simply grabbed and shot dead. The purpose behind such brutality is to terrorise the civilian population. An even more insidious practice is the burning alive of innocent people by Indian-backed militants. On December 12, Bashir Ahmed Ganai, a 17-year-old youth, from Sundo village near Achabal, was burned to death by Indian-sponsored militants.
World press on Indian atrocities in Kashmir:
"As the conflict in Kashmir enters its fourth year, central and state authorities have done little to stop the widespread practice of rape by Indian security forces in Kashmir. Indeed, when confronted with the evidence of rape, time and again the authorities have attempted to impugn the integrity of the witnesses, discredit the testimony of physicians or simply deny the charges everything except order a full inquiry and prosecute those responsible for rape". (Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, May 09, 1993)
"Since January 1990, rape by Indian occupation forces has become more frequent. Rape most often occurs during crackdowns, cordon and search operations during which men are held for identification in parks or schoolyards while security forces search their homes. In raping them, the security forces are attempting to punish and humiliate the entire community." ('Pain in Kashmir: A Crime of War' issued jointly by Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, May 09, 1993)
"By beginning TV cameras and prohibiting the presence in Kashmir of the International Red Cross and of human rights organization, the Indian authorities have tried to keep Kashmir out of the news." (`Kashmiri crisis at the flash point', The Washington Times, by columnist Cord Meyer, April 23, 1993)
"Despite pressure from League of Human Rights and other humanitarian organizations the Indian forces have not desisted from using torture and sequestration of political opponents and using methods that defy imagination." (Le Quotidien de Paris, September 05, 1992)
"(On February 23, 1991), at least 23 women were reportedly raped in their homes at gunpoint (at Kunan Poshpora in Kashmir). Some are said to have been gang-raped, others to have been raped in front of their children ... The youngest victim was a girl of 13 named Misra, the oldest victim, name Jana, was aged 80". (Amnesty International, March 1992)
"The most common torture methods are severe beatings, sometimes while the victim is hung upside down, and electric shocks. People have also been crushed with heavy rollers, burned, stabbed with sharp instruments, and had objects such as chilies or thick sticks forced into their rectums. Sexual mutilation has been reported". (Amnesty International, March 1992)
"Widespread human rights violations in the state since January 1990 have been attributed to the (Kashmir) Indian army, and the Paramilitary Border Security Force and Central Reserve Police Force." (Amnesty International, March 1992)
"The term "rape of Kashmir", is no exaggeration. India's Hindu and Sikh forces have adopted a concerted policy of raping Muslim women which is designed to break the will of the Kashmiri resistance... The world community should immediately bring political and economic pressure on India to stop behaving like a Mongol." (Eric Margolis, Sunday Sun, April 12, 1992)
"The worst outrages by the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) have been frequent gang rapes of all women in Muslim villages, followed by the execution of the men". (Eric Margolis, The Ottawa Citizen, December 8, 1991)
"While army troops dragged men from their homes for questioning in the border town of Kunan Pushpura, scores of women say they were raped by soldiers....a pregnant Kashmiri woman, who was raped and kicked, gave birth to a son with a broken arm." (Melinda Liuin, Newsweek, June 24, 1991) [Anthony Wood and Ron MaCullagh of the Sundav Observer (June 02, 1992) estimated that over 500 Indian army men were involved in this orgy of rape and plunder in Kunan Pushpura.]
"The security forces have entered hospitals, beaten patients, hit doctors, entered operating theaters, smashed instruments. Ambulances have been attacked, curfew passes are confiscated." (Asia Watch, May 1991)
"Sexual molestation, beatings, threats of violence, and electric shock are the most common forms of torture. " (Asia Watch, May 1991)
"Jammu and Kashmir is almost the only part of India where demands for democracy and human rights and protest against corruption and administrative injustices were branded as treason. If a deliberate experiment had been launched, under controlled and most favorable conditions, with Kashmir as a laboratory, to implement a textbook model of terrorism, it could hardly have improved upon the present situation." (Hindu observer quoted in Asia Watch report, May 1991).
"Subjugated, humiliated, tortured and killed by the 650,000-strong Indian army, the people of Kashmir have been living through sheer hell for more than a year, the result of an increasingly brutal campaign of state repression. . India hides behind its carefully-crafted image of "non-violence" and presents itself in international forums as a model of democracy and Pluralism. Yet , it is unable to stand up the scrutiny of even its admirers. All journalists, especially television crews, were expelled from the Valley. with no intrusive cameras to record the brutalities of the Indian forces, the world has been kept largely in the dark." (The Toronto Star, January 25, 1991)
"Young girls were now being raped systematically by entire (Indian) army units rather than by a single soldier as before. Girls are taken to soldier's camps and held naked in their tents for days on end. Many never return home....Women are strung up naked from trees and their breast lacerated with knives, as the (Indian) soldiers tell them that their breast will never give milk again to a newborn militant. Women are raped in front of their husbands and children, or paraded naked through villages and beaten on the breasts." (The Independent, September 18, 1990)
These Indiots didn’t even leave sikhs. Yes buddy (may be they were demanding Khalistan). PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
SRINAGAR, MARCH 25: Five top foreign mercenaries, suspected to be involved in the massacre of 35 Sikhs in the Kashmir Valley early this week, were on Saturday killed in a gun-battle with security forces at Panchaltran, 82 km from here, a Defence Ministry spokesperson here said.
All the militants were in combat uniform and involved in the March 20 night massacre at Chattisinghpura village, 70 km from here, in Anantnag district, he said. He said five rifles, two wireless sets and five grenades were recovered from the militants' hideout which was blasted by security forces.
Police did not rule out the possibility of more militants being involved in the encounter as the operation was still continuing.
Acting on a tip-off provided by Mohammad Yaqoob Wagey, who is believed to have taken part in the massacre and was arrested by the authorities on Thursday, the security forces cordoned off the house where the militants were hiding and launched the operation to flush them out ensuing a heavy gun battle between the two sides.
However, the Indian lie was quickly exposed as the Kashmiris and even the Sikhs themselves accused the Indian forces for this heinous act. Rattled by this development, the Indians shot dead 5 Kashmiri civilians in a fake encounter and claimed them to be Kashmiri Mujahideen responsible for killing the 35 Sikhs. However, people protested against this blatant lie and the bodies of these 5 men were exhumed and examined by forensic experts. It was established beyond any doubt that these men were innocent and that they had been liquidated as part of the Indian game plan. It also became clear that the Indian government tried to falsify evidence in order to blame these five men. Thus, the entire world came to know of India's lies with regard to Kashmir.
For a detailed account of what really happened, read Valley of Death, an article written by Pankaj Mishra.
The best way to do it. Yes indians have discovered it. Indian army patrols looking for mines and booby traps in troubled Kashmir have found the safest and most effective way to conduct their dangerous searches -- get a civilian to do it.
Abdul Hamid, 16, steps gingerly into a large hole along an isolated stretch of the Rajouri-Poonch highway, around 200-km northwest of the Kashmiri winter capital Jammu. Clad only in a pair cotton trousers and a T-shirt and carrying a wooden stick, Hamid's figure cuts a striking contrast with the small army sapper patrol watching him. The soldiers are dressed in full army fatigues and flak jackets, and carry sensitive metal detectors and semi-automatic weapons. As Hamid hesitates, a member of the patrol points towards the hole with a stick, edging him on. Such scenes are common in Kashmir.
Hamid and his friend, Rashid, 20, remained with the patrol the entire morning, poking into bushes and under boulders along the sides of the highway. The patrols can be seen all over Kashmir, performing their daily check for landmines and other explosives.
Villagers in Poonch and Rajouri say most patrols will force two civilians to accompany them on the routine searches. "Two civilians, usually young men, accompany every 20 odd soldiers every morning to look for landmines or explosives planted by mujahideen," said Muhammad Hussain of Sarankote village. "They have to search along the roadsides, under the bridges and culverts, and behind the heavy rocks," Hussain said, adding that they were rarely given anything more than a wooden axe handle in terms of equipment.
An army officer leading the patrol containing Hamid and Rashid, denied any coercion was used when drafting in villagers for help. "It is with their agreement that we ask locals to accompany us who know the topography of the area very well," the officer said.
Darling, it doesn’t end here. In a charity hostel in Srinagar, young Kashmiri boys pray together. All of them are orphans, their parents have been killed during the ongoing struggle for the right of self-determination, which has resulted in savage Indian atrocities and genocide in the held territory. They are just a handful of an estimated 100,000 children orphaned by the crisis - many of them forced to fend for themselves as child labourers. Kashmiris say some eighty thousand people have been killed during the past eleven years. It was March 30, 2002.
The News International writes on March 30, 2002 Black laws for Kashmiris
Last 13 years have witnessed a rapid rise in human rights violations in Kashmir. The Indian security forces disregarding any fear of international criticism continue to practice their barbaric methods despite the fact that many human rights groups have consistently took notice of these despicable acts. Mary Robinson, United Nations high commissioner for human rights, during her recent visit to Pakistan, described human rights violations in Indian occupied Kashmir as "serious". The US State Department in its annual report on human rights for the year 2001 also expressed somewhat similar views. The report stressed that the Indian security force continued to commit human rights abuses in Kashmir including killing of civilians, excessive use of force, extra-judicial killings, torture and rape.
Most regional sources indicate that more than 81,000 Kashmiris have already sacrificed their lives in pursuit of freedom from Indian rule. Over 102,000 houses and shops have been either burnt or looted. More than 100,000 children have been orphaned and roughly 8,350 women have so far been molested. It is indeed difficult to calculate that how many Kashmiris are missing or hiding but rough estimates put the figure to over 100,000. These figures by themselves paint a horrible picture in Kashmir.
A simple look at the figures certainly lends ample support to Mary Robinson's contentions. It is indeed imperative that an immediate stop is put to such barbaric and blatant violations. It becomes even more pressing when one realises that the Indians have intensified their killing spree following the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Effectively using the cover of international coalition against terrorism, the Indians are killing their own people as they claim that the disputed state of Kashmir is an integral part of India.
To sum it up, here is a tribute which Indians have given us.
Since 1990 - Oct.1996:
* 59 750 Murdered
* 49 000 Murdered by indiscriminate firing
* 550 Burnt alive
* 3 200 Bound and drowned in the River Jhelum
* 4 500 Murdered crossing the cease-fire line
Early 1990's estimate:
* 15 873 Rape cases (reported)
* 934 Women murdered in gang rapes
* 756 Rendered disabled
* 43 390 Men and women held in prison without trial
* 11 600 Youth in torture cells
* 97 654 Burnt houses and shops
* 250 678 Refugees (successfully crossed) in Pakistan (1)
* 30 Schools destroyed
* 189 Schools and hospitals bomb blasted
* 200 Primary school children burnt alive on October 1, 1990
* 358 Hospital Clinics destroyed
* 346 Mosques destroyed
* 358 Children died without treatment
* 66 094 Houses and shops burnt
* 1 480 Cattle burnt
* 1 225 Food burnt (worth in dollars)
* 1 123 Forest burnt (worth in millions of dollars)
* 848 Hospitals and schools burnt
* + Thousands of people dismissed from jobs
And the persecution is still continuing at an ever-increasing rate. In a land where even gatherings of more than four persons is prohibited, everyday is a nightmare; every place is a holocaust. Every family has suffered in one way or another.
I leave it upto you. I don’t have any further words.
Earlier Published As A Note On: Shah Saaib Ahmed Rabbani ·
