Altaf Hussain Wani

22nd Jan, 2023. 09:05 am

Rajouri killings

For decades Kashmiris have witnessed long spells of dreadful violence

A silent war with no foreseeable end has been going on unabated in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). As the region reels under relentless oppression, killing of innocent civilians has become a regular feature of life in the disputed territory, chosen by New Delhi as a new battlefield to achieve its nefarious designs in the region.

For decades Kashmiris have witnessed long spells of dreadful violence, but during the recent couple of years a new, worrying pattern has emerged, where members of minority communities are being deliberately targeted with a sinister plan to paint a negative picture of Kashmir and the Kashmiris’ ongoing struggle.

The targeted killings of six civilians, including two children, at Dangri village near LoC in Rajouri district is yet another sickening chronicle of deadly violence that is intrinsically connected to the Indian state, which has a notorious track record of killing innocent people to exact its strategic goals. There are plenty of cases of mass killings, which the Indian authorities allege to have carried out by resistance fighters. However, investigations conducted later on proved that Indian army officials and secret agencies were directly involved in planning these attacks on members of minority groups.

The mass killings at Chattisinghpora, Pathribal, Barakpora, Wandhama and other places were among scores of deadly massacres the Kashmiris have witnessed during the decades’ long turmoil. These massacres amply demonstrate how callously Indian governments have been using violence and mayhem as a strategic tool to serve its so-called interests in the region.

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At Chattisinghpora, 35 men belonging to the Sikh community were brutally gunned down by the Indian army. The massacre, which was carried out on the eve of the then US President Bill Clinton’s visit to the subcontinent, was orchestrated and executed by the Indian army to discredit the Kashmiris’ freedom movement. Years later, a retired Indian general, who was part of the investigations, revealed that the Indian Army was involved in the massacre and the report had been submitted to LK Advani who was the home minister in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government back then.

Five days after the events at Chattisinghpora, the Indian army killed five men in Pathribal village of Anantnag district, claiming that the victims were “foreign militants” responsible for the attack. However, on March 19, 2012, India’s own investigation agency, the CBI, told the Supreme Court of India that the encounter at Pathribal in Jammu and Kashmir was fake and the accused officials deserve to be meted out exemplary punishment. Brutal killing of eight people at Barakpora who were protesting against these two massacres were glaring examples of Indian state “sponsored terrorism” in Jammu Kashmir.

On January 25 in 1998, the ghost of terror struck the village of Wandhama, leaving 23 members of a minority community (Hindu) dead. The deadly attack carried out in the holy month of Ramzan was orchestrated by the cunning and crafty Indian intelligence agencies, obviously, to terrorize the Hindu community who stayed back in Kashmir when pundits were driven in droves out of the valley under a deep-rooted conspiracy hatched by then governor Jagmohan pundit to give a communal colour to the ongoing freedom struggle.

Interestingly, the pattern of these killings bears the imprint of an old playbook that seeks to divide the Kashmiri society on religious basis at grassroots level by spreading hatred and sowing the seeds of discord amongst communities. And the BJP, which is a master at creating communal divide in the Indian society, is applying the same techniques in Kashmir to push forward its agenda. Since the BJP’s assumption of power in New Delhi, its political discourse that revolves around Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra has exacerbated communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims not only in the Indian mainland but also in Kashmir.

During the past couple of years several incidents of target killings of Kashmiri pandits took place in the valley. Despite the fact that the assailants involved in these killings remain unidentified, the police and authorities in Srinagar and New Delhi started to blame Pakistan and the Kashmiri freedom fighters. Resorting to its disinformation campaign, the BJP weaponised the pain and plight of victims to further its divisive agenda and drove a wedge between the communities who have lived together for centuries with absolute religious harmony.

A close look at the events shows a lot of parallels between past incidents in the valley and the one that took place at a frontier village in Rajouri this year. Motives behind the attacks are more or less same. However, what India’s security establishment wants to achieve out of this crafty move is to create ground to arm the so-called village defence guards (VDGs) – workers of RSS/BJP. On January 7, 2023 the district administration distributed arms to these ‘defence guards’ in Rajouri, whereas more of these ‘guards’ were also activated in other districts, such as Samba, Kathua and Rasi. Moreover, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has been asked to setup training modules for these VDGs.

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The track record of these ‘defence guards’ and their involvement in massive human rights abuses highlights a dangerous triangular nexus between the Indian army, BJP, and predominantly Hindu vigilante groups that have unleashed terror by targeting marginalized communities, particularly the Muslims in communally sensitive areas of the region. India’s Ministry of Home Affairs had already sanctioned the approval for the Village Defence Guard Scheme, 2022 in Jammu and Kashmir last year. It came into effect on August 15, 2022.

The initiative to revive the Village Defence Committees (VDCs), and to provide them weapons and training will further increase communal tensions in Jammu region besides squeezing civic space and disempowering Muslims in the area. There is every likelihood that the region will become a new theatre of violence, as the move would further empower the Hindu fanatics who openly call for ethnic cleansing and genocide of Kashmiri Muslims.

Kashmir has been on the brink of genocide. It is time the world took effective notice of the matter, as well as decisive measures, to resolutely stop India from seriously violating the fundamental human rights of Kashmiris and their right to survival. Indiscriminate and irreparable loss of human lives in Jammu and Kashmir is the biggest tragedy of modern times. It is high time the world came forward in a big way to break this vortex by addressing the root cause.

The writer is the Chairman of Islamabad based think tank, Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR)

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