“I think it is insidious what army is trying to do within Kashmir society”

Vrinda Grover, a New Delhi based lawyer, researcher, human and women’s rights activist tells Safwat Zargar that people of India will face consequences for allowing army a say in public affairs in Kashmir

Kashmir Life (KL): What brings you to Kashmir?
Vrinda Grover (VG): I come to Kashmir very often. I work in close association with APDP which is led by Parveena Ahangar and I think there are many grave injustices and human rights violations which are taking place in Kashmir for many decades now. As a lawyer and as a human right activist, I am associated with families who have been fighting against enforced disappearances.

KL: How do you view the current situation in Jammu and Kashmir today?
VG: Well, I would view it from the lens and frame of law and justice itself. I think what is happening is that impunity which we have seen being very common place here for every case. I have done a fact finding for instance into the Shopian murder and rape cases and I have been looking at enforced disappearances. I was part of a group which did report on the 2010 killings and many of which are extra judicial killings. I thing in all of them there is one common thread; complete and absolute impunity for any person who belongs to the state security forces or the army or the police from any form of accountability. And in a place where injustice is the only form in which people are experiencing actions of the state, it is bound to have very serious repercussions in the socio-political milieu.

KL: With the change of government at centre, do you expect any change in the status quo of lawlessness and impunity in Kashmir?
VG: I would be very surprised if anything would change because of the change at the centre. I have been actively engaged with cases in Gujarat, where again we have fought for justice and there is impunity in those cases too. The government in power today, has actually reinstated into power those people, who have been charge sheeted for fake encounters and murders. Despite that, they have been given very prominent positions in government and political parties who are in power. Keeping that in view, I do not have any expectation of justice from such a regime.

KL: How do you see the working of human right organizations like APDP for justice in Kashmir?
VG: I really think it is a very important struggle. For instance the sit-in protest that APDP does once a month, year after year when those women sit down, I think that is something that challenges the government. That they are not going to forget their sons/husbands/brothers/relatives who disappeared 10 or 20 years ago. The urge for justice will persist and the struggle for justice will still continue, and I think that is the real challenge to the Government, they pose.

KL: Recently, noted Indian historian Mridu Rai was here. In her interaction, she said, “Kashmiris can never get justice from India, and if they will, they will get it in the form of AFSPA and PSA. You can raise the voice for justice only to expose the state, but you can’t seek justice from it which will only legitimize the state institutions.” How far do you agree with her?
VG: I think there are many ways of engaging with it. I have engaged with the issue of law in many domains whether it is Gujarat or other places including Muzaffar Nagar where recently communal violence broke out. I do agree that the paradigm of Kashmir is very different and distinct and they should not blur that distinction. It is the political and historical distinction and the distinction should be maintained which I completely agree with. However, I think there are different ways in which we use law. I see the space of law the legal challenge that we pose whether through public campaigns or through court processes, as ways in which we expose systems; we expose the courts, we expose the laws, we expose the façade that the government puts out of rule of law. We contest the narrative that the rights of people are protected under these regimes and I see courts as an important arena where we challenge and contest this. I do not think we strength, we show the true face of the institution.

KL: Don’t you think you can do that to a certain limit and not beyond that?
VG: I think it is how you combine your political advocacy, your public advocacy, say on the issue of enforced disappearances along with taking such steps, particularly when you are working with in a political regime of a kind that the Indian state is. I think every institution needs to be challenged constantly.

KL: You have fought few cases of Kashmiris in Supreme Court who were first dealt with here? How much vibrant is judiciary in Kashmir?
VG: Well, I can only read from what I saw in the cases that happened and one or two cases that I have been asked to handle them in Supreme Court after been dealt with here. I think there is a mixed background and I think at times, particularly the judiciary of Kashmir, knows what the situation is, after all they are part of it, they experience the life here, their families live here, they live here. When you raise the same issue of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) or you raise the issue of an atrocity committed by an army force personnel in the Supreme Court of India the understanding and grasp of that in Indian Supreme Court is almost negligible. For them, the army is very important institution and very honorable institution. They do have not experienced the kind of atrocity and violation that the judiciary here has. I think that makes some difference in how they approach the cases and the manner in which they would like to give relief. However to a very large extent the law itself is the problem and the law is loaded against the people and then the judiciary hands here also, will be bound.

Let us take a very small example of the case of a young boy Zahid Farooq who in 2010 February in Nishat was shot dead, I fought in Supreme Court. In all the cases like these the army was repeatedly saying that we will take the case for court martial. Now, over here people know that court martials are not fair trials and army courts are not places where you get justice, however in the Indian Supreme Court, court-martial is seen from a very different angle. I also think to a larger extent it comes out your own interface and experiences with violations.

KL: How can that be brought to balance so that people engage in approaching Indian judiciary through a different angle all together?
VG: I think it is through the work here lot of activists and groups are doing. It is important to constantly raise the issues which the mass media does not. Whether it is electronic or the print media in India, the only news that we hear of Kashmir is some alleged terrorists have been killed in an encounter or if somebody has been killed. That is the only breaking news that we get or that makes one little line. But what is the way of life? What is the humiliation? The indignity that every Kashmiri is experiencing whether they are going to work, office or going to study, that is not an experience anyway experienced or understood there and it is important for those issues to constantly be raised. I think a lot of young people today in Kashmir through their writings, books, analysis, films, are bringing it to the people of India that they have to reckon with what is happening here.

KL: What can Indian civil society and activists do in bringing up the realities of Indian state in Kashmir to the Indian public?
VG: I think we have an ethical political responsibility to stand in solidarity and I don’t think the struggle is only of the people of Kashmir. I think we need to fulfill the issue of human rights and human rights doesn’t stop at you national borders and human rights is not subordinate to patriotism. Patriotism is strengthened by complying with human rights.

KL: Indian Army has been engaged in various “cultural and religious” operations which it calls to “win the hearts and minds of people,” in Kashmir. Is it an indicator that army is widening its operations and delving in the matters, that are otherwise the domain of civilian administration in Kashmir?
VG: I have a very strong view that this is not the job of the army. What army is doing in Kashmir is insidious. The army’s job is to protect the borders of the country and it should not be allowed to come into these matters at all. According to me, not only is this insidious what army is trying to do within Kashmir society, but if we as Indian people are going to keep quiet about this. This is not going to end only here. Once you are going to allow army to have a say in many matters in your country. The people of India will face consequences of this later also.

KL: How do you see the discourse of “governance and development” relevant to an issue like Kashmir? Is it a remedy?
VG: I don’t agree with that at all. Even in India also, we listen rubbish of good governance, here they did talk of governance and development. Justice and rights of people are at the heart of any governance. We have to address those issues first otherwise there is no meaning about governance at all.

via Kashmir Life

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Army jawan shoots dead five colleagues, kills self

SRINAGAR: An Army soldier on Thursday shot five colleagues dead at point blank range when they were sleeping before committing suicide in Jammu & Kashmir's Ganderbal district.

"A soldier of a Rashtriya Rifles unit ran amok in the early hours, killing five soldiers before killing himself," an Army spokesman said.

The incident took place inside the Army camp of 13 Rashtriya Rifles at Safapora. A court of inquiry has been ordered into the incident, he said.

According to sources, the soldier, who was posted on sentry duty at the camp, entered one of the barracks at around 2.00am and opened indiscriminate firing on his sleeping colleagues.

They said five soldiers were killed and another injured in the firing before the jawan went on to shoot himself.

via Times of India

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Frozen in time

Bashaarat Masood, Safwat Zargar. 

Families and villagers preserve the signs that remind them of the victims of the Pathribal killings of 2000. The Indian Express visits some of these villages after an Army court martial cleared five personnel accused of faking the encounter.

Nazir Ahmad Dalal opens a dusty, sky-blue refrigerator and takes out a half-empty bottle of Rooh Afza squash. The last one to sip from it was his nephew Zahoor Ahmad Dalal, 29, and that was 14 years ago. “No one has touched this bottle since,” says Nazir Ahmad.

Zahoor’s body, burnt and mutilated, was among five exhumed from graves in three villages on April 6, 2000. Army personnel had killed the five on March 25 and described them as foreign militants responsible for the killing of 36 Sikhs five days earlier in Chittisinghpora, close to Pathribal. Last fortnight, the Army closed court-martial proceedings against five personnel and cleared them of charges of having faked the encounter.

It is the first time the Dalal family in Mominabad is letting an outsider into the house since Zahoor was killed. The Dalals themselves unlock and enter the two-storey building once or twice a week — only to switch on the lights. “It is a feeling we have that the house is not empty,” says Nazir Ahmad. “It has been 14 years and we haven’t snapped the electricity and water supply to the house. If we do, our sister will feel sad.”

It retains many reminders. A yellowed telephone directory carries romantic verses in Zahoor’s handwriting. The directory is from 1994, when a telephone connection was a luxury, and lists Zahoor’s name on page 159. In the corridor is a kerosene lamp, now covered in cobwebs, a reminder of the time when inverters hadn’t come into fashion.

In a wood and glass cupboard in the kitchen is a plastic jug that Zahoor drank water from. There is a red toothbrush he used in 2000. On the top shelf is an empty bottle of Dabur Chyawanparash, manufactured in October 1999. “Zahoor regularly ate from this,” says Nazir Ahmad.

Mominabad: the house

Zahoor was well-off, running a textiles shop in Anantnag. He disappeared on March 22, 2000, after stepping out for evening prayers.

“He was sitting besides me. I asked him to buy some oranges,” says his eldest uncle, Mohammad Yusuf Dalal, who now runs Zahoor’s textiles shop. “When he brought the oranges, I offered him some but he hurried to his house and then left for the mosque. Everybody else returned but he didn’t.”

The family’s search ended after a few days. “A villager from Pathribal told me he had been killed,” says Yusuf. “We were hoping the news was wrong. The Army wouldn’t allow anyone to go to Pathribal, but an old friend of mine went in the guise of a holy man and came back with a piece of cloth. It was from Zahoor’s shirt.”

The exhumation confirmed it. “I identified him from his ring and burnt sweater,” says Nazir Ahmad. “He was in an Army uniform, which was intact when the entire body was charred. It was after burning them that they dressed them up in Army fatigues.”

Zahoor’s father, Abdul Gaffar, had died when the only son was just nine. With his four sisters married, Zahoor’s world revolved around his mother Raja Begum. She hasn’t entered the house since he died. Her brothers too restrain her fearing the reminders will be too painful to bear. What she does do is gaze at the house from the floor verandah of her brothers’ home.

“Ask Farooq Abdullah (the then chief minister) what he said that day and what he has to say today,” she calls out from the verandah. “Ask them what wrong my son had done.” And when the house is shut again: “Did you find my prince there? Tell him, please come.”

Brari Angan: the pictures

In a small, rusty tin box, Mirza Noor has kept three pictures of her husband Juma Khan, 55 in 2000. The first shows him with a henna beard and in a green turban. He had it taken in Jammu, the day before he returned home. “This picture gives me the reason to live,” she says.

Another picture is of Juma Khan’s second funeral in his village, Brari Angan, after the body had been exhumed from the original grave. The third shows the burnt, mutilated body on the ground. “I still cannot sleep,” Mirza says. “Whenever I shut my eyes, that image comes to me.” Yet she refuses to destroy the picture. “How can I? It is his last photograph.” Two men from this village, the other too called Juma Khan, were killed.

Zona Tengri: the shacks

From Wuzkhah, a roadside village at Pathribal, a 1½-km uphill trek leads to Zona Tengri, a small plateau where Gurjjar shacks lie unused. These connect the five families who lost members to the “encounter”.

On the morning of March 25, 2000, the army cordoned off the area and asked villagers to stay inside their homes. They heard gunfire and the loud thuds of mortar shells. When they were allowed to come out of their houses, they found the five burnt bodies in the shacks.

A fortnight later, when the victims had been identified as innocent civilians, villagers here decided to turn the site into a place of prayer. “It was a collective decision of the villagers to use this area  only for prayers,” says Gulzar Ahmad Khan of Zona Tengri.

The villagers haven’t repaired their old shacks but built new ones instead.  “How could we live in those shacks? The blood of innocent people was spilled there,” says Syed Mohammad Yousuf, 65. “It gets scary sometimes.”

via The Indian Express

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Indian military court fails victims in Kashmir killings: HRW

SRINAGAR. The U. S.-based rights watchdog - Human Rights Watch (HRW)denounced a military court verdict that exonerated five Indian army officers involved in the killing of five civilians 14 years ago.

The closure of Pathribal "fake gunfight" in Indian-controlled Kashmir case by Indian army's court of inquiry demonstrates the military's continuing impunity for serious abuses, it said. "Five villagers were abducted and murdered, yet the army has been allowed to absolve itself," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

"The Armed Forces Special Powers Act should be repealed so that soldiers who commit serious crimes against civilians face trial in civilian courts and can no longer be protected from prosecution." India army Friday said it could not found enough evidence to press charges against its men in Pathribal case. The Indian army troopers including officers were accused of killing five Kashmiri civilians in 2000 in a gunfight in Pathribal village in Anantnag district, about 85 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. The army had claimed the victims were foreign militants responsible for the killing of 35 members of a minority Sikh community. The killings triggered massive public outcry with victim families.

Indian police later on exhumed the bodies, which turned out to be those of missing local residents in DNA testing. India's premier investigating agency- CBI probed the matter and in 2006 indicted five Indian army troopers for the killings. CBI stated it had sufficient evidence to show that the killings were extrajudicial executions and "cold-blooded murder." It filed charges against the eight army officers in local courts in Indian- controlled Kashmir. "The Indian government should urgently act on the recommendations of several commissions and repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which provides effective immunity for military personnel implicated in human rights violations," a statement issued by HRW. New Delhi has imposed the controversial AFSPA in the region in 1990. The law gives extraordinary powers to its troops such as shooting a person on mere suspicion in the region. Indian troops and police have consistently been accused of grave human rights violations in the region in the last two decades.

 India has rejected all requests made by the local government of Indian-controlled Kashmir over the last more than two decades for sanction to prosecute its troopers for their alleged involvement in rights abuses, activists said. The army had opposed the trial of its accused troopers in Pathribal case in a civilian court. In 2012, India's Supreme Court asked Indian army authorities to decide whether its personnel accused in Pathribal killings be tried by court-martial proceedings or by regular criminal courts.

"The Supreme Court gave the army a test as to whether it could hold its personnel accountable," Ganguly said. "The army has now failed this test, showing yet again its inability to fairly prosecute abuses by its personnel." Indian-controlled Kashmir is considered as one of the highest militarized regions in the world.

Officially India does not reveal the actual number of its troops deployed in Kashmir. Rights groups say that India has deployed more than 700,000 troopers and paramilitary troopers in the region to fight militants. A guerrilla war is also going on between militants and the Indian army troops stationed in the region since 1989.

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan is claimed by both in full. Since their Independence from British, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.

via Xinhua

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Indian army trooper commits suicide in Indian-controlled Kashmir

An Indian army trooper committed suicide in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said Thursday. The trooper committed suicide by jumping in front of speedy train in Jammu city, the winter capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"An Indian army trooper identified as Amit Kumar yesterday committed suicide by jumping in front of running train at Tawi railway station," said a police spokesman at police control room in Jammu. "The trooper was knocked down by the speedy train on the track and he died on spot."

Reports said Kumar had returned from home after completing his leave. Earlier this month a junior commissioned officer (JCO) of Indian army committed suicide using his service rifle inside a camp stationed at Khour in Akhnoor sector, 30 km northwest of Jammu city. Indian troops fighting insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir are reported to be under tremendous stress and strain. During more than two decades of unrest in the Himalayan region several incidents of suicides and fratricides among the stationed troops were reported. Health experts generally describe suicides and fraternal killings among troopers as "panic reactions." These are attributed to a plethora of reasons, work under hostile conditions, experience of a continuing threat to one's life, lack of recreational options, and homesickness due to long separation from families.

Last year eight Indian troopers committed suicide in the restive region. Indian-controlled Kashmir is considered the highest militarized region. Officially India does not reveal the actual number of its troops deployed in the troubled region. However, rights activists say there are over 700,000 Indian troops and paramilitary troops in the region fighting an anti-India insurgency that broke out in 1989.

A guerrilla war is going on between militants and Indian troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The gunfight between the two sides takes place intermittently across the region.

via Global Times

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Be sensitive, J&K govt tells security forces

Toufiq Rashid.

The Jammu and Kashmir government has asked the security forces to discharge their duties "sensitively and without harassing civilians".


A circular was issued to security forces, including the state police, Army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Border Security Force (BSF), Kashmir divisional commissioner Shailendra Kumar said on Monday. The circular was issued following reports of a woman giving birth outside a locked health centre amid severe snowfall in Kupwara on Thursday. An Army operation was underway at that time.

"All security agencies have been asked to be sensitive towards the general public while discharging their duties. They have been asked to allow sick people, pregnant women and students going for examinations to move after verifying their details," Kumar told Hindustan Times.

The circular also says that doctors and emergency staff should be allowed to reach their workplaces.

The woman's husband had alleged that he and his wife, who was in labour, were intercepted by the Army when they were on their way to a primary health centre in Kupwara during a search operation, and were not allowed to move for over an hour. When they reached the facility, they found it locked and the staff missing, forcing her to give birth in the street with the help of local women.

Later, doctors from the health centre had alleged that they had been delayed due to the cordon.

However, the army had claimed that the woman was delayed as she had been referred from one health centre to another.

"The circular has been issued after I completed my investigation. The call records of the hospital staff showed that they desperately wanted to reach the hospital. Otherwise, how is it possible that everyone from the sweeper to the senior-most doctor remain absent on the same day? It shows that they were not allowed to pass through the cordon. Due to god's kindness, mother and child are fine, else she may have developed complications and required surgery," he added.

"The security forces have been asked to follow the standard operating procedure. We are not blaming anyone, just asking that the standard operating procedure be maintained. The security forces are fulfilling their duties, and should allow the others to fulfill theirs," he said.

"How will stopping a pregnant woman help catch a militant? It was broad daylight and the woman visibly pregnant. The personnel should have been sensitive to her pain," he added.

via Hindustan Times

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Prashant Bhushan wants referendum on Army presence in Kashmir

Rahul Kanwar - Kashmir could see a Delhi style referendum if the Aam Aadmi Party were to form the next government at the centre. In an interview with Aaj Tak's Seedhi Baat, senior AAP leader Prashant Bhushan called for a referendum in the valley to decide whether or not the Army should be deployed to deal with internal threats in Kashmir. 

"People should be asked whether they want that the army to handle the internal security of Kashmir. Any decision which does not have the backing of the people is undemocratic. If people feel that the Army is violating human rights and they say they don't want the Army to be deployed for their security then the Army should be withdrawn from the hinterland," he said. Bhushan nuanced his views adding, "The government can decide if the Army needs to be deployed to deal with external threats along the border. The government can also decide if the Army needs to be kept to help protect the minorities in the valley. But there should be a referendum on whether people want AFSPA to continue in the valley or not." 

When pressed on what would happen if the referendum suggested that the people of Kashmir wanted to break away from India, Bhushan said, "Secession from India is unconstitutional. We have to find solutions within the purview of the constitution. We have to win the hearts of people in the valley who have moved away from the mainstream since they feel that they Army has been deployed in Kashmir against their wishes and is violating their human rights." Bhushan had stirred a hornet's nest in September, 2011 when he had called for a plebiscite in Kashmir at a press conference in Varanasi and had said that Kashmir should be allowed to break away from India if Kashmiris did not want to stay as part of India. Bhushan no longer supports severing Kashmir from India but still backs the idea of a referendum on deploying the Army. Prashant Bhushan's controversial comments come on a day the Aam Aadmi Party announced ambitious plans to contest the general elections of 2014 and the party's views on national issues are now being put under intense scrutiny. 

Opponents of the Aam Aadmi Party pounced on Bhushan's views on Kashmir. BJP spokesperson Sidharth Nath Singh said, "Prashant Bhushan should remember he no longer runs a NGO. Demilitarisation of Jammu and Kashmir is a language that is being spoken by separatists in Pakistan and Bhushan as a senior AAP leader is playing into the hands of the separatists by making such comments. Till the terror infrastructure in Pakistan is dismantled, any reduction in Army presence would be disastrous for the country and unacceptable to the people of India." Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abudallah's political advisor and National Conference spokesperson Tanvir Sadiq too opposed Bhushan's views. Sadiq said, "There is an elected government in J&K and they along with the centre are the best judge of whether AFSPA should be kept or removed. National Conference too believes that AFSPA can be withdrawn from some areas but why does AAP want to politicise AFSPA?" Only Mehbooba Mufti's PDP supported Bhushan's call for a referendum on AFSPA. Party spokesperson Sameer Kaul said, "The heart and mind of AAP is in the right place. We are happy to hear about Bhushan's views that the people of Kashmir should be consulted on Army deployment." 

However, senior Army officers who have served in the valley were aghast at Bhushan's call for a referendum. Former Army chief General VP Malik told Mail Today, "Prashant Bhushan has shown complete lack of awareness of the kind of situation that exists in J&K both in the hinterland and along LoC. It reflects poorly on his knowledge of politics and strategy. He has totally ignored the proxy war that Pakistan has waged over the last few decades. His comments have come as a great disappointment to people who are supportive of the Aam Aadmi Party." Major General (Retired) GD Bakshi who commanded the Army's Romeo force in Rajouri said, "I hope Bhushan is aware that as soon as US soldiers are withdrawn from Afghanistan, terrorists will be redirected into the valley by Pakistan. I am sorry to say, this is an anti-national view. 

This would initiate the process of break up of the country." Bhushan also sounded extremely confident about the prospects of the Aam Aadmi Party in the forthcoming general elections and said that there is now a very real chance that AAP may be able to form the next government at the centre. "One month ago I felt that we may be able to win around 50 seats in the general elections. But after forming the government in Delhi the response that we are getting from across the country is beyond our imagination. No limit can be drawn on the number of seats that AAP can win. Why just a simple majority, the Aam Aadmi Party could even end up with over 400 seats." Bhushan drew a parallel with the 1977 elections held after the emergency and said that there is a wave of positive change that is blowing across the country and people now believe that AAP can clean up the corrupt politics of the country. 

Bhushan said, "Indira Gandhi revoked the emergency in January 1977 and called general elections in March. Who would have thought that in two months the Janata Party would be able to field candidates on every seat and that the Congress would be decimated across north India. Once people make up their minds then anything is possible." 

via India Today

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