Afia Ambreen
In Occupied Kashmir, Indian troops in their continued act of state terrorism martyred two youth in Shopian district. The two youth identified as Tariq Ahmad Butt and Altaf Ahmad, were martyred during a siege and search operation in Barabugh area. Meanwhile, complete shutdown was observed on September 10 against Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to the territory. All shops and business establishments remained closed, while traffic was off the roads in Srinagar and other parts of the territory. More than 140 Kashmiris have been killed so far this year in the restive valley, where India has deployed thousands of additional troops to hunt for Kashmiris having anti-India sentiments in an offensive dubbed “Operation Allout”.
Ironically, three civilians Shazad Khan (27), Shafi Lone (19) and Riyaz Lone (20) of Nadihal village in Rafiabad were lured to an army camp at Kalaroos in Kupwara where they were subsequently killed in a staged encounter during the intervening night of April 29 and 30, 2010 at Son a Pindi in Machil sector on the Line of Control. The army had dubbed them as foreign militants who were killed in an encounter while trying to infiltrate the Line of Control. Their bodies were buried in a local graveyard near the LoC. To prove that these three youngmen were foreign militants, the army man painted the face of Shafi Lone – the youngest among the three – with black colour to show he had beard and then taken the picture of his face for records. However, the fake encounter was exposed by J&K police investigation after the families of the victims filed a missing report. Subsequently, when the bodies of these youth were exhumed from Machil graveyard where they had been burled as unidentified Pakistani terrorists, the families identified them as the three missing men from Nadihal village in Rafiabad. This fake encounter triggered massive protests across Kashmir. The government constituted a high-level inquiry commission white army too ordered a high level probe.
People in India may talk about the military court ruling being a matter of law, of procedure, of how the system operates, but the fact of the matter is that to the citizens of Kashmir, it does not make any difference. For them, the military, the judiciary, and the government of India are one and the same thing, different faces of the same aggressor. India may appear as a democracy to outsiders, but to those whose kin are spent as fuel for the dirty war in Kashmir, it only appears as one thing: a ruthless empire. In 1993, the Border Security Force (BSF), a force notorious among Kashmiris for its involvement in massacres, acts of large-scale punitive arson, and summary extra-judicial executions in the 1990s, killed at least 37 unarmed protesters in the town of Bijbehara who were angry at the siege of Hazratbal, the holiest shrine of Kashmir. An inquiry into the Bijbehara Massacre indicted the BSF and charged 13 officers with murder – but a subsequent, non-public General Security Force Court acquitted all the officers. Pathribal, too, will be entered into the long list of stark reminders of that darkest of decades, the 1990s, in Kashmir’s history, and of the total impunity the perpetrators of these crimes enjoy under the dark law AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act).
According to a report issued by Kashmir Media Service, the Indian police and army personnel arrest innocent youth from different parts of the territory; bring them to border areas near the Line of Control and kill them in fake encounters. The report says that over 7,063 people have been killed in custody since 1989. Some major fake encounters have been Machil, Sailan-Surankot, Pathirbal and Chattergam. Many such encounters have been documented by international human rights groups. The Chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference, Syed Ali Gilani in a statement said that under the garb of Uri episode euphoria of war like situation was being created by Indian media and politicians with the aim of putting the Kashmir dispute in cold storage. Syed Ali Gilani said that Indian media and politicians were raising hue and cry over Uri attack, but keeping criminal silence over the genocide of Kashmiri people in the territory.
The situation in Occupied Jammu & Kashmir was a travesty of international law, justice and humanity. Peace could not be achieved amid widespread economic and social deprivation, human rights abuses and situations of political and economic injustice. In this regard, Kashmir is the most glaring and tragic examples of historic injustices where people are still denied their fundamental right to self-determination. The issue remained an unfinished agenda of the United Nations.
