Arundhati Roy Calls For End To Indian ‘Occupation’ Of Kashmir

Renowned Indian novelist and political activist, Arundhati Roy Friday called for the end of the Indian occupation of Kashmir.

Arundhati Roy made a strong case for Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination before an American audience, with an impassioned call for an end to the brute Indian occupation of Kashmir. “I think that the people of Kashmir have the right to self- determination—they have the right to choose who they want to be, and how they want to be,”he said in the course of a discussion on ‘Kashmir: The Case for Freedom’ at Asia Society. “Kashmir is one of the most protracted and bloody occupations in the world and one of the most ignored,” Roy told a large number of people jampacking an auditorium. “While India brutalizes Kashmir in so many ways, that occupation brutalizes the Indians,” said. “It (the occupation) turns us into a people who are able to bear a kind of morally reprehensible behaviour done in our name, and the fact that so few Indians will stand up and say anything about it is such a sad thing.”

She called for the demilitarization of Kashmir as a step towards peace in the region. “Why the international community doesn’t see that when you have two nuclear-armed states, like Pakistan and India, there couldn’t be a better thing than a buffer state like Kashmir between them, instead of it being a conflict that is going to spark a nuclear war.”

In her remarks, she lamented the fact that so little is known about the atrocities being committed by more than half a million Indian troops, the continuing repression and indignities let loose on Kashmiri men, women and children.

More than 700,000 troops were concentrated in the tiny valley, with check points at every nook and corner of Kashmiri towns and cities, The huge Indian presence is in sharp contrast with 160,000 US troops in Iraq, she said.

Two other Indian scholars—noted writer Pankaj Mishra and a Ph.D student, Mohamad Junaid ,from Indian-held Kashmir—also deplored the fact that the international community gave such little attention to the suffering of the Kashmiri people.

Both Mishra and Junaid read out their respective papers containing moving stories of the Kashmiri victims of brutalities of Indian occupation forces. Under the Indian military rule in Kashmir, Roy added, freedom of speech is non-existent, and human rights abuses were routine. Elections were rigged and press controlled. She said the lives of Kashmiris were made miserable by gun-toting security personnel were harassed and terrorized people with impunity.

Disappearances were almost a daily occurrence as also kidnapping, arrests, fake encounters and torture. Mass graves have been discovered and the conscience of the world remained unstirred. Roy attributed the apathy towards Kashmir, especially in the western world, to their pursuit of commercial interests in India where they were more eager to sell their goods than human rights.

India had also successfully used the argument that if it gave up Kashmir, another Islamic state would emerge—a prospect the West feared. That’s why India had made no effort to bring back to the valley the Kashmiri Pandits who fled to camps in New Delhi at the height of the 1998 uprising in the state. “Aren’t 7000,000 troops enough to protect the Pandits?”

“Even as the world speaks about the Arab spring—three years ago there was massive unarmed uprising in the streets of Kashmir,” she said, adding that the Indian army or the security forces were not looking away; they were killing young children.

Roy acknowledged that Islamic sentiment was prevalent in Kashmir, but the Kashmiris were not radical Islamists, Wahabis or jihadists as India portrayed them. In this regard, she strongly deplored the Indian attempts to demonize Kashmiris who were moderate Muslims. She reminded that before his election, President Barack Obama had pledged to resolve the international dispute of Kashmir between Pakistan and India. But seeing “consternation” in India over the remark, Obama hasn’t said a word about Kashmir since, she said, adding that he was more interested in selling military aircraft and Boeings to India.Despite the threat of being slapped with sedition cases, Roy told the Americans that Kashmir was not an integral part of India, as New Delhi claimed. She reiterated that Kashmir was never part of India historically.

Secularism was a misnomer in India, she said, citing the killing of Muslims and other minorities across the country. Was the killing spree in Gujerat several years ago represented secularism, she asked. India should find some other word for secularism.

Lava Of Anger Too Close To Surface

Guest Post By: Hassan Zainagiree

Last year’s spontaneous and massive uprising blew to smithereens the ‘integral part’ rhetoric Indians are hooked to. Instead of respecting the democratic voices of people, Indian political leadership decided to muzzle the voice and curb the dissent through the barrel of the gun. True, for a while, they succeeded in defusing the anger and controlling the situation, yet in the heart of their hearts they are privy to the naked reality that every act of suppression, far from forcing Kashmiris to reconcile to their fate and fall in capitulation before Indian military might, adds to the lava of anger and makes them more furious and determined in their resolve. Dressed in semantics though, the realization is piercing their hearts. Our resistance though they don’t acknowledge as struggle for freedom, nonetheless, in scaling it down to ‘alienation’ they know the brittle nature of relationship. And the close proximity of ‘anger bubble’ ‘close to surface’. And its intrinsic nature of getting exploded. Anytime. How long they can run away from what Kashmircries for. Call it ‘alienation’, call it Intifadah, the destination point is not far away. And stands all visible.

Recently the Delhi nominated interlocution panel submitted its hundred page report to Home Minister P Chidambaram. The report according to official sources, stressed the need fo r addressing what they say ’sense of victimhood’ and genesis of Kashmir problem. It said:

‘Alienation runs very deep in the valley. Anger bubble is close to the surface and risk of mass protests breaking out again is still present…. The deep rooted alienation of youth was underlined by the unrelenting protests and consequent tragic deaths last year.’

The very acknowledgement of the ‘alienation’ on part of interlocutors gives lie to the Indian propaganda that Kashmiris have reconciled to Indian rule and ‘expressed their faith on Indian democracy’ {the leitmotif we hear after every election amidst the boycott call by Hurayat Conference}. It also is reflective of the indigenous nature of the movement and deflates the Indian balloon that the movement is Pakistan sponsored. The amount of violence in movement too melts down before the assertion of the panelists. It also underlines the factor of deep rooted alienation behind the last year’s summer uprising. In a way the panel headed by eminent Indian journalist Padgoankar turns approver against the political establishment which manufactured violence and resorted to ‘give the dog a bad name and kill it’ strategy to suppress the movement.

Read the “confession” again. As gets outpoured from the interlocutors {sometimes pricks of conscience force you to vomit out you want to hide under proverbial seven covers}, it is the fear of Intifadah breaking out again and holding Kashmir in its thrall that continues to weigh heavily on the minds of rulers in Delhi and their lackeys in Kashmir that Kashmir continues to be ruled through regime of AFSPA and PSAs. The fear is also reflective of the imperialistic hold of Delhi, ‘exposing’ simultaneously, its democratic claim. That is why we see leaders like Geelani being deprived of his right to offer Friday prayer in the Masjid and restricted him from holding peaceful assembly.

How Do You Think Of A Mass Grave?

By Suhail Akram

When you think of a mass grave, what do you think? Do you think of it as a warm grassy patch of land in some distant meadow wedged between the lofty mountains with little or no tombstones and just rectangular pieces of clay protruding here and there numbered two hundred fifteen two hundred sixteen two hundred seventeen and so on and so forth…? Or do you think of it as a proper cemetery with regular clearly visible marble engraved names of unknown men on her hazy epitaphs? Something, I am sure must be coming to your mind. What is that?

When you think of a mass grave, do you feel the heaviness of the word mass? Do you weigh it in your hand? Does it choke you a bit? Do you know anyone personally who haplessly in broken whispers tells you that they fear one of their lost one’s might be in that mass grave? Do you know what do they think of a mass grave than what you think of a mass grave? What is the difference? Is there a difference? Who are in the mass graves, by the way?

When your parents said one day that you be around the house and that they are locking you from outside and that they will return in some time, did you feel the scary loneliness in the big house with fear of Djinnslurking there amidst the eerie silence? Or when your elder brother jokingly tried to bury you under the heavy weight of the big Cashmere quilt and it was black and breathless inside and you felt like dying of claustrophobia, or when you heard that you will get stitches on your knee wound you got when you hurt yourself while learning to ride bicycle, how exactly scary did you feel at those moments? Can you elaborate pain in twenty six letters? Can you draw a diagram with exact angles of a mass grave, forty degree here sixty degree there? Which compass will you use? How big will it be? Can you measure how frightened you get when you see a dead battered body, in kilos? How, in units of electricity, I am asking, terribly black and lonely must be it inside a mass grave?

When you think of a mass grave, do you get upset or angry or both? If someone just grabs you from behind, drags you to the nearest ground outside and forces your legs down into the ditch he has already dug for you and buries you half in and half out, how tragic and nonsense would it feel? Or what if , God forbid, he just buries you the other way round, half in and half out but the legs facing the sky and your head and shoulders and your arms buried quite ruthlessly in the ground, would not it be more tragic and more stupid and thus ultimately a more bizarre an affair which cost you your life? That is not done, is it? Why should you be grabbed in the first place? Is there no justice?

When you think of a mass grave, what exactly do you think of a mass grave? After you involuntarily draw a sad picture of a foggy mass grave in your mind, what do you do after that? Do you go to sleep? Or do you rush to have dinner? Or do you go to the toilet? What do you do after you bury the pictures of mass grave into your head? Do you also bury them just like that? Or do you swallow a two fifty milligram Paracetamol tablet?

Do you find it difficult to breathe when the old grave digger tells you the stories of the young men inside the mass graves? ‘There is somebody’s leg sandwiched between the skull and the feet of somebody else’s, sandwiched between the yellowy wormed leg bones of somebody else, all bullet ridden’ how does it feel, if he asks you? What crayons would you use to draw that on a canvas? Where would you buy those crayons?

How many old men are grave diggers? Who is the oldest grave digger? Where does he live? Are his hands different in texture and colour than what you know of hands of an old man? Can you measure the depth of that small wrinkle among many bigger wrinkles on his hand? How deep should be a wrinkle to qualify you to be a grave digger? If some wrinkles are so deep that they qualify to be a bruise or a fissure, do you get more stars, more points I mean? Are there little specks of black clay still trapped inside the rim of his finger nails? If he has a habit of eating his nails, is he also eating the soil of mass graves? Is it a sin to eat the soil of the mass graves? Are there any religious injunctions about it? What does religion speak about a mass grave?

re there any young men as grave diggers? Young men who in their twenties were forced to perform this drudgery, to dig the earth in the dark numbness of a dawn, hurriedly, as quickly as they can, while the soldiers kept vigil and area cordoned. And do these youngsters don faded jeans in the afternoon and nice T-shirts and go to colleges? During the lectures do their books vomit gnawing scenes of red rotten flesh squirming on the text pages here and there, page number two hundred fifteen page number two hundred sixteen, all in front of their eyes? Is their mind stuck with the haunting memories of the dawn and its burial? Do they want to focus on their books and study well? Why can’t they? How does it feel to think of someone inside a grave, leave aside a mass grave? And then how does it feel to think of many inside a common grave?

What handkerchief would you use to keep away the stink of the open mass graves, if they ever open them? Or would you just use the hem of your old Pherans’ sleeve? Would you manage to catch a glance of those small pieces of dried brown mud still smudged on the lower hem of the grave diggers’ Pheran sleeve? Would you tell him to wash it off? Or would you just tell him to curl it up because, unbeknown to him, the dirty hem is constantly getting dripped into his ovalish salt tea cup as he gingerly picks it up towards his hungry mouth?

How many grave diggers are there? How many mass graves are there? Are there any women grave diggers? How red and gory are the scenes in your head when he tells you how he had to bury only a mess of intestines and couple of teeth because the body was blown away? Do you want him to stop telling you all that because you feel it is gut churning? Do you plead, please stop, I can’t take it anymore? And does he look at you with surprise, eyes wide open, ‘If you have come here all the way to know the truth, see it, it doesn’t come easy. Have guts to face it. Truth is like my old shovel I dig the graves with. You got to be strong to hold it…?’ Does he say all this or you just imagine it?

What do you think of a mass grave when you think of a mass grave? Do you curse your helplessness or do you trust your vengeance when he tells you that sometimes he feels like burying himself with the dead itself, that he is tired and sick of all this and he wants to retire some day? What if he had boycotted from burying the dead, what would have happened to the dead then? If it was not for a mass grave, could it have been a more horrendous mound of flesh? Or just scattered pieces of flesh lying here and there, some charred some broken some torn away?

And do you thank him and tell him that his is a thankless unfortunate job? Or in a second thought you tell him, no a thankless but fortunate job, because otherwise it could well have been a horrendous mounds of flesh scattered through the meadows and mountains of Kashmir. How do you thank a grave digger? Do you smile at him? Or do you just shake his old wrinkled hand firmly with his hand cupped inside yours and your head sadly dropped in remorse? What is that you want to convey with this posture? And when you return from mass grave what do you do? Do you rush to have food because you have been hungry? Or do you go to sleep? Or do you go to a toilet? What do you do after you have heard the tales of graves and grave diggers’? Do you just walk, contemplating with measured steps ‘what the hell…’ or do you run? Or do you just walk because you can’t run since you are shy? What if, by now your friend, the grave digger had been shy? Would he have dug just a small ditch and left it there, unsure how to go ahead with his benumbed shivering hands? Who would have volunteered to dig the next grave? If there were none, who would have been dragged out to dig with apt geometrical precision a big fit for all mass grave of mass graves? Where could it thus be located? What beautiful flowers would innocently grow on its surface? What shall be the fragrance of those flowers? Who will measure the wafting fragrance of these flowers in the overwhelming stink of the dead beneath?

SAARC must ask India to free Jammu Kashmir!

By :DR. ABDUL RUFF

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!


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The bruised Childhood of Kashmir

By: Advocate Babar Jan Qadri

“A Nation’s Welfare depends upon the prosperity of its children”

We define minor as a living human usually in his teenage more specifically 16 or less than 16 years. Just after the infancy, starts the minor age of a human being. This age is associated with innocence and grooming of childhood. How a nation shapes its minors on that paradigm depends the future of that very nation. Being a Kashmiri , I think the day our nations sovereignty is plundered and snatched , the same day we the children of conflict have lost our child hood “ curse to occupation “

Unfortunately, revolutionary circumstances prevailing in the Kashmir over the past several decades have not even spared the “Childhood”. The state repression has come with its full force over the children of this deadly conflict zone. Virtually India has waged war against minor revolutionaries of the wounded paradise.

On this global Children Day, we are reminded of horrible scenes .We are reminded of so many young toddlers being beaten to death by merciless men in uniform. We are reminded of constant fear on the faces of our minors.

This year we were heartened by the images of minors being flocked to jails and brought to courts and examination centers in a quiet disgraceful manner by the state forces. The minors on account of alleged involvement in revolutionary activities were subjected to third degree torture .How sham it is for a country that claims herself to be the biggest democracy of globe and boasts of having high morals of loving and catering to young souls.

Probably, after the Nazi Germany, our part of the world is the only places were minors have faced such an unprecedented state brunt. A minor having revolutionary thought is seen as an “Enemy of Nation” by the state and its institutions and is constantly threatened and mentally tortured. Out of state fear, even other parents fear to make their child accustomed with a revolutionary minor .The state even after releasing a minor constantly perpetrates violence on him, as they have to constantly report to their concerned police stations wherein they are humiliated and tortured.This is unknown to any criminal justice system in the world that a person is arrested for want of others surrender " a worst kind of human exchange policy ", but the same happens in Kashmir , as the father/ brother is arrested to force a son / brother to surrender

Indian state might be the rare state wherein the minors, especially the minors of Kashmir have often reported evil deeds like sodomy reported against them. The state has left no stone unturned to turn the childhood of our minors into a virtual nightmare. By hook or crook you have to be a conformist and should remain dumb over the brutalities of the state otherwise the norm has been to crush the innocence and logical rebellion of minor.

One is only dumbfounded by the revelation that state machinery slaps unthinkable charges like “War against nation” against the minor souls of Kashmir.

On the other side of the spectrum, even if the bail is granted the police does not honor the orders of judiciary. The judiciary is made defunct by the villain’s of police department. For a Kashmiri these minors represent hope i.e. the urge for freedom has passed on to next generation in spite of all state terror tactics being employed by the state to quell the sentiment of freedom.According to section 18 of juvinyle justice act , a minor is to be released on bail on the very first day of production before court with or without sureties . According to the same section a juvenile can be sent to juvenile home if required but the role of police is to be minimized by court by handing over the minor to in-charge juvinile home but the same is not complied with , instead it is police personal who administer minors even when they are sent to juvenile home thus putting the minors at risk .

On this children day, India over its track record in Kashmir has shamed the noble institution of childhood by unleashing very possible brutal measure over the minors of Kashmir. The conscience of India should wake up from the slumber and let dawn of freedom and liberty spread its wings over the browbeaten land of Kashmir.

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

By:Majid Maqbool

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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