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Cry Freedom: Return Kashmir to
its Peoples
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Members and
activists of the Committee for the Release of Political
Prisoners visited various parts of Kashmir between 24-28 July
2009. They included academics, civil rights and political
activists, namely, Prof. S. A. R. Geelani (Vice President, CRPP),
Prof. Sujato Bhadra (Vice President, CRPP), Prof. Amit
Bhattacharya (General Secretary, CRPP), Prof. Ravindra Goel
(Delhi University), Prof. Jagmohan Singh (Voices for Freedom),
Shiv Nandan (civil rights activist), Kanwarpal Singh (Dal Khalsa)
and Gopal Menon (documentary film maker). We present here the
document officially released by the panel that includes the
interim findings of the team and suggestions/demands. |
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Introduction:
·
To
understand the historical and cultural roots of the
Kashmir problem;
·
To
study and assess the ground realities of the life of the people of
Kashmir
-from the cities to the far-flung inaccessible areas;
·
To
engage with the families of victims of gross and systematic abuse of
human rights by the security forces -police, para military and
military;
·
To
gauge the extent of presence of the Indian armed forces and to
measure the depth of impunity with which the Indian army operates
throughout
Kashmir,
and
·
To
decipher the social, cultural, religious and political layers of the
Indo-Kashmir conflict and on the basis of that understanding to
suggest postulates for the resolution of the conflict,
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Prof. Ravinder
Goel (Delhi University), Kanwarpal Singh (Dal Khalsa),
Prof. S.A.R. Geelani (CRPP), Jagmohan Singh (Voices for
Freedom),
Shiv Nandan (Civil Rights Activist, Kathua) addressing the
media in Srinagar |
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THE SHOPIAN
SHAME:
Members of the team visited Shopian to confirm what was already
common knowledge to every resident of the small town -that the young
lady Niloufer and her sister-in-law Aaisa Jan were brutally
assaulted, raped and killed.
We
met the members of the family, the leaders of the Mushawarat
Committee, the father of the two eye witnesses -Ghulam Mohinuddin
Lone and Ghulam Ahmed Lone (who were later detained by the Special
Investigation Team and are still in their illegal detention),
members of the Bar Association,
Srinagar
and residents of the town. We visited the scene of the crime
alongwith the father and cousin of the Niloufer and witnessed the
spots from where the two women were abducted, raped and killed and
from where their bodies were found. Each of the people who spoke
to the team members repeated with tears in their eyes that the "men
in uniform" committed the brutal act. They narrated to us as to how
the SP of the area, Javed Iqbal Mattoo, conspired with a section of
the doctors to destroy evidence, including forensic evidence, how he
repeatedly threatened the women members of the victim family, how he
dismissed the act by loudly repeating, "Aise wakye to hothe hi
rahten hain".
People who saw
on television, as did the team members were shocked to listen to the
diatribe of the Inspector General of Police, the Divisional
Commissioner, Srinagar and the state chief minister, Mr. Omar
Abdullah shamelessly trying to dismiss it as a case of "drowning",
knowing fully well that the water flowing in the stream where the
bodies were found was not more than four to six inches deep. We
learnt from the members of the Mushawarat Committee and Niloufer's
father that the police is still attempting to shield the barbaric
perpetrators and how the SP, who was arrested for destruction of
evidence is not in a police lock-up but in the confines of a police
officer's mess.
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Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners demands
immediate demilitarisation of Kashmir and restoration of the
rights of the people in consonance with the aspirations of the
people of Kashmir |
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The inhuman,
bizarre and blatant flouting of all norms of decent human behaviour
and political boldness to speak the truth is apparent, even to the
blind eye.
Unmindful of the
agony of the victims' family and uncaring of the peoples’ resistance
and concern cutting across party lines and caring two hoots for
deliverance of justice, the cover-up campaign is still on by the
administration. People suspected and circumstances bear this out
that in case the SP is released on bail and the government continues
to admit the nature of the crime, these two murders (rather three,
as Niloufer was on the family way) is likely to become yet another
statistical addition to the long list of people who have been killed
with impunity by the security forces in Kashmir.
To rub salt on
the wounds of the families and to brazenly demonstrate the
high-handedness of the state, the government of the youngest chief
minister has suspended from service Dr. Nighat, who sincerely
followed the Hippocrates Oath, did not buckle under police and
government pressure and who in the second postmortem declared that
the two women were brutally gangraped, while those doctors who
connived with the police and spoke lies continue to enjoy the
patronage of the state. Nothing can be more shameful.
The brutal
assault and murder of Bibi Amima in Dolipora in the dead of night,
in her own house by a security force personnel, who came there to
commit the crime with cover from his colleagues of the same unit, is
another case of increasing assaults on women in this disputed
territory.
Such cases of
rape and harassment of women are now new. They have happened in the
past in Kanun Paushpora Kupwara, Chak Saiyadpora Shopian and many
other places where civil society and even may be media is not aware
of.
The Committee is
of the view that the security forces are using Rape as a weapon to
suppress the spirit of revolt and rebellion of the people of
Kashmir
and to exert their authority.
 WHO
RULES
KASHMIR?
Streets, Bridges, cultivable lands, mountain rangers, schools,
hospitals, cinema halls, orchards, houses and all other places of
habitat have been occupied by almost every denomination of the
Indian army and other security forces. According to a media report,
more than 40,000 acres of cultivable lands is under the control of
various army and paramilitary units. At Trehgam we saw that the
water resources of the town have been taken over by the army and
clean drinking water is not available for the 17,000 odd inhabitants
of the area. It is estimated that more than half a million
gun-toting security men dot virtually every inch of the region.
Kashmir is under seige. Every Kashmiri, conscious of his rights and
even willing to die, lives in a climate of fear.
The Committee
closely observed the slogans used by army units. Sample a few: 1.
Respect All, Suspect All, 2. Be Alert Be Alive, 3. Fighting for You
and 4. Relax with CRPF. Likewise the names of army and para
military units too have been changed to browbeat the people. To show
their prowess, we have units like the Rajwar Tigers. In the village
Khaigam, the total number of inhabitants is less than 600, but there
are four army units stationed in the area. The army units taunt men
and women everyday, as the villagers had asked for their
withdrawal. Clearly the nomenclature is meant to poison the minds
of the people and to force their allegiance to the presence of the
army in the region.
Civil
administration is virtually non-existent and whatever is there is
subservient to the Indian armed forces. The army in Kashmir is not
in the "aid of civil administration" as is required by law but is
actually at the mercy and beck and call of the deeply entrenched
armed forces, who with the assistance of a plethora of draconian
laws like Public Safety Act, Armed Forces Special Powers Act, Enemy
Agent Ordinance and the like maim and kill with complete impunity.
The newly elected government is merely a mask to shield and provide
free run to the armed forces.
The daily
movement of the troops in vast numbers from one part of the state to
another as a public demonstration of power and authority of the army
leaves nothing to the imagination as to who is running the affairs
of this region. Political authority is totally under the jackboots
of the army and the bureaucratic policy makers in Delhi who have
abrogated to themselves the right to decide the fate of the people
of Kashmir. Every maneouvre like the so-called "free and fair
elections", the setting up of the toothless and near-absent State
Human Rights Commission, the "turning of the blind eye" by the
judiciary in the face of contempt of court by the police and the
administration, the backtracking from the pre-election promises of
release of political detenues and withdrawal of Armed Forces Special
Powers Act and other such laws by the incumbent chief minister,
political talks without the participation of Kashmiri
representatives, are all facades of democracy being enacted in this
territory.
The armed forces
continue to violate all Supreme Court directives, guidelines of the
National Human Rights Commission and
Geneva
conventions to be followed in the event of an armed conflict.
 DETENTION
OF KASHMIRI LEADERS:
To demonstrate the functioning of democracy, like the earlier
experiments in Punjab and the North-east, it was "proudly announced"
by political participants", political pundits from Delhi and the
Union government in Delhi and their blue-eyed boy chief minister Mr.
Omar Abdullah that all political prisoners will be released. He has
done exactly the opposite. Unabashedly. Veteran Hurriyat leader Syed
Ali Shah Geelani, JKLF leader Yasin Malik (since released after
nearly four months of house arrest), Huriyat Chairperson Mirwaiz
Omar Farooq (who too has been placed under house arrest for long)
other political leaders like Shabir Shah, Naeem Khan, Asiya Andrabi,
Masrat Alam, Mushtaq ul Islam, Ashraf Shahrai, Bilal Siddiqui and
hundreds of others have been detained under preventive detention
laws, particularly the Public Safety Act. Instead of releasing
prisoners, the new state government has filled in prisons in
Srinagar
and Jammu and there are affidavits by the administration that "jails
are overcrowded."
The Committee
also learnt that in order to create rifts between one section of the
leadership with the other, the government has resorted to the policy
of divide and rule in a rather vicious way. Shabir Shah has been
detained for the death of Sheikh Abdul Aziz, though the whole world
knows that last year, this leader was killed in full public view in
the presence of thousands of Kashmiri demonstrators by
indiscriminate firing by the security forces.
WHITHER DUE
PROCESS AND RULE OF LAW:
From our interaction with jail authorities, who denied us permission
to visit the Srinagar prison to assess the living conditions there
and to meet the detenues and from our talks with members of the
Srinagar Bar Association, we learnt that this region, with such
heavy presence of security forces is invariably "short of security
forces for escort vehicles" to transport detenues to and from
judicial complexes.
We learnt that a
habeas corpus petition, which should be normally heard and
adjucicated upon in days takes not lesss than a year to be disposed
off. We further learnt that many lawyers who were human rights
defenders have been killed and many have been attacked during the
last years. The functioning of the judiciary, which allows the
impunity through sheer negligence or inefficiency or even pressure
demonstrates that there is no "rule of law" in Kashmir.
SADHBAVNA
-FOR WHOM and WHERE?
Since long the Indian Armed Forces have been touting their
Sadhbhavna approach towards the citizens of Kashmir. This kind of
approach has been spoken by the new political establishment too. To
find out more, we chose to go to the worst affected area which could
have been a bench mark for this programme. We visited Dardpora
village, which has the unfortunate distinction of living up to its
name. It is indeed a village of pain with more than 150 widows and
450 orphans. A majority of the men have died at the hands of the
security forces. We interacted with young and old widows whose pain
and suffering has had no remorse and no rehabilitation package from
the state. The Vocational Centre set up has no teachers and no
investment has been made, there is no private school, the Sarva
Siksha Abhiyan exists on paper and medical facilities are close to
nil. Widows have been reduced to picking wood from the forests and
begging.
 THE KELLER
KILLINGS:
Members of the team visited Keller village and met the wife of the
deceased. She told the team members unequivocally that the killings
were because of a family feud and another member of the family had
been killed in the past because of the same reason.
On the basis
of our on the spot study, the Committee for the Release of Political
Prisoners,
1. demands that
the Indian armed forces, various other kinds of para military forces
like the CRPF, etc, should all be withdrawn without delay.
2. demands that
all draconian laws should be repealed and withdrawn. The
recommendations of the Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee must be
implemented and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act must be
withdrawn.
3. denounces the
detention of political leaders and seeks the immediate release of
Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Shabir Shah, Aiyaz Andrabi and others.
4. demands that
the culprits in the Shopian case should be identified and arrested.
5. demands that
the deliberate subversion of justice by denying escort facilities to
undertrials must stop and there should be speedy trials of all
accused as per Supreme Court guidelines and speedier disposal of
habeas corpus petitions.
6. demands that
all accused who have been shifted to prisons in
Jammu
and elsewhere must be transferred back to jails near their homes as
per Supreme Court guidelines, pending the disposal of their cases.
7.The Committee
For the Release of Political Prisoners is of the firm view that the
rightful aspirations of the people of Kashmir should be respected
and they should be given the free, fair and unfettered opportunity
to express their desire through the universally accepted right to
self-determination.
S. A. R. Geelani
Vice President
Committee For Release of Political Prisoners
28 July 2009
Srinagar
29
July 2009
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