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| April 17, 2000 | ||
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| ENCOUNTER
DEATHS Bloody Backlash Under pressure to show results, excessive use of force by the security personnel sparks a dangerous wave of protests in Kashmir even as the Centre makes conciliatory moves By Ramesh Vinayak
For a beleaguered state, haunted by the grim spectre of another phase of ethnic cleansing following the first Sikh massacre in the Valley, the incident at Anantnag could not have come at a worse time. For, not only did the firing episode touch off a wave of violent protests across the Valley leading to curfew at several places, the Pathribal encounter has led to a public outrage that forced the state administration to exhume the bodies of the victims on April 6 for DNA testing to clear doubts about their identities. At a time when public support for militancy was on the wane, the spontaneous manner in which a large number of people took to the streets against the security forces has disconcerting portents of a resurgence in pro-militant sympathies. In a state where more than 25,000 people have been killed in a decade of dogged secessionist violence, never before had the people demanded exhumation of bodies. With public anger threatening to spill over, Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah was quick to mount a damage-control exercise by ordering a high-level judicial probe and transfer of district officials. The incidents have, however, offset the groundswell of anti-Pakistan sentiment in the wake of the Sikh killings. The Sikh massacre had invited widespread protests even from pro-secession outfits, in and outside the Valley. "It's a serious setback to the efforts to win back people's confidence," conceded state Home Minister Mushtaq Ahmed Lone. Whatever the outcome of the DNA test, the unprecedented public outcry over the Pathribal encounter -- termed fake by the locals -- has come as a god-send for pro-secession outfits to resuscitate their failing appeal; especially since family members have claimed two of the exhumed bodies to be of their kin who had gone missing. It did not help matters that on the day of the Anantnag firing, three top Hurriyat Conference leaders released from jail were being flown in from Jammu to Srinagar. The Union Government was forced to divert the plane at the last minute to Delhi. The Hurriyat may have been denied immediate chance to exploit the fresh turmoil in the Valley, but the episode provided a massive grist to the Pakistani propaganda mills which went the whole hog -- including a special panel discussion on TV to slam India on human-rights violations in Kashmir. As Kashmiri leader and CPI(M) MLA Yousuf Tarigami put it, "The Anantnag incidents amount to obliging Pakistan's sinister designs on Kashmir." This, in fact, will only give the Hurriyat some legitimacy and knowing so, its chairman, S.A.S. Geelani, was quick in rebuffing Union Home Minister L. K. Advani's offer for talks. Things began to go wrong on March 25, a day before Advani was to visit Chithisingh Pora, when the army claimed to have killed five foreign mercenaries involved in the Sikh massacre. While Farooq broke the news by interrupting the Assembly session, the Union Home Ministry announced this in Delhi, in an attempt to assuage the outcry by the Sikh leaders, especially of the Akali Dal in Punjab, for the immediate arrest of the Sikh killers. The next day Advani was given a special briefing at Chithisingh Pora on the anti-militant operation, aptly codenamed "Operation Kirpan", conducted jointly by 7 Rashtriya Rifles and the SOG of the state police. The security forces' exuberance over a "big breakthrough", however, proved short-lived when the residents took to the streets in protest. "Those killed were militants as they had weapons on them," insists Major-General R.K. Kaushal of Victor Force in south Kashmir, but there are no takers for this version in the Valley. Curiously enough, there was no public outcry against the killing of another five militants in the same area two days after the controversial encounter. "The spontaneity of disappearances and the Pathribal encounter have fuelled nagging doubts in the public mind," says Divisional Commissioner (Kashmir) Khurshid Ahmed Ganai. What have lent credence to the public allegations are the glaring chinks in the army version. While security officials are still clueless about the whereabouts of the missing locals, the army has no convincing answers to how it dubbed those killed as foreign mercenaries when their faces were disfigured beyond recognition. The bodies were hurriedly buried at the encounter site without a post-mortem and bypassing the normal practice of calling the locals for identification. Red-faced security officials admit in private that the Pathribal encounter could have been a result of the tremendous pressure on security forces in the wake of the Chithisingh Pora massacre. "All security agencies on the ground went on a head-hunting overdrive," says a senior security official. The Pathribal incident, officials point out, has exposed the flip side of the police's strategy to turn the heat on local militants and their sympathisers in order to isolate foreign mercenaries. The worst fallout of the Pathribal firing has been that far from restoring the shaken confidence of the Kashmiri Sikhs, the incident has heightened the sense of insecurity among the minority community. Officials say that an impression that the Pathribal Muslims were killed only to appease the Sikhs has gained currency among the Kashmiris. "The suspected fake encounter has made the Kashmiri Sikhs more vulnerable," says Tarigami. Despite a high kill rate against militants, a worrying feature of the Valley after the Anantnag incident is the sullen and defiant mood of the public. "The return of protest processions could work to the advantage of the secessionists," says the state Director-General of Police Gurbachan Jagat. Indeed, as K. Rajendra Kumar, dig (Kashmir), points out, in the coming weeks the police expects its hands to be full on the law and order front. Especially after the darbar shifts to the summer capital Srinagar in the first week of May. With security forces battling the rising suicide attacks by foreign mercenaries, the police simply doesn't have enough personnel to deal with protest demonstrations that, as in the past, could provide the militants a chance to pit security forces against civilians. Kashmir has been more or less free from mass protest demonstrations during the past one year or so as top Hurriyat leaders were behind the bars. In this backdrop, the release of senior Hurriyat leaders is worrying the state administration which advised Farooq to take the soft line. His statement in the Assembly that there was excessive use of force against the processionists is being analysed thus. What's worrying is that besides the Anantnag incidents, the Hurriyat would try and exploit the growing public disenchantment with the National Conference Government to shore up its stock among Kashmiris. In the name of mobilising people against the Farooq Government, the Hurriyat is expected to whip up its secessionist propaganda once its leaders arrive in Srinagar. Though touted as a goodwill gesture by Delhi, the release of the Hurriyat brass is seen in Kashmir as the result of Washington's plainspeak on the issue during President Bill Clinton's visit. Implicit in the Government's olive branch to the Hurriyat leaders is an attempt to blunt Pakistan's propaganda, and bring them around to the negotiating table. For now, it is Farooq who faces the unenviable task of reversing the public disaffection while not lowering the guard against militants. Security agencies expect a new surge in militancy in the summer months when Pakistan would try to push in fresh batches of jehadis into the Valley. "Infiltration is the key to the situation," says Jagat. Clearly, Srinagar will be a much hotter seat once the darbar shifts to the summer capital in less than a month from now. |
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One
of the time-tested ironies of the Kashmir Valley has been its public mood.
So volatile that, like a pendulum, it can swing to extremes in no time. It
did on April 3, when nearly 2,000 people took to the streets in Anantnag,
protesting the killing of five people in an encounter near Pathribal
village. The five, they claimed, were innocent civilians who went missing
a day before the encounter and not foreign mercenaries responsible for the
March 20 massacre of 35 Sikhs at Chithisingh Pora. But even as they walked
towards the district magistrate's office, the Special Operations Group (SOG)
opened fire and killed seven protesters and injured several others.