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DECEMBER 24, 1999 VOL. 25 NO. 51
Valley Victims
Indian forces in Kashmir are threatened; Kashmiris are too
By AJAY SINGH Srinagar
Hari Singh High Street is a wide boulevard that cuts through the largest commercial market in Srinagar, capital of India's Jammu and Kashmir state. Indian troopers call the road "grenade ground" - a befitting allusion to the numerous attacks they have faced from militants fighting for Kashmir's freedom from Indian rule. One such attack occurred on the evening of Dec. 8 - generally considered the date on which the Himalayan region's popular insurgency accelerated a decade ago. Some militant lobbed a grenade at an armored car of the Border Security Force (BSF) parked in the middle of the busy thoroughfare. The weapon missed its target, bounced down the road and exploded amid a throng of shoppers. What happened next is unclear. Troopers claim the blast killed two civilians and wounded 25. Shopkeepers swear that dazed BSF personnel from a bunker across the road fired into the crowded market, possibly killing the two men and injuring many others.
Welcome to the Kashmir Valley, where the situation these days is widely acknowledged to be more or less comparable to the peak of the rebellion in the early 1990s. After some three years of relative calm, guerrillas are once again on the warpath - and the insecurity among Indian troops is at a new high. The tension is worst in Srinagar, the historical hub of the militancy. Later in the night of Dec. 8, for instance, paramilitary troops stood in the shadows, nervously fingering assault rifles. "We don't know where the attack is going to come from," said Poonam Singh, a lanky BSF trooper who spent the night patrolling the site of the grenade blast. "The terrorists are bent on destruction because Pakistan lost the Kargil war."
The resurgence began in July, just after the Indian army achieved a victory of sorts over Pakistan in the Kargil region of Kashmir. Since then, according to Indian intelligence reports, some 1,500 young Kashmiri men have either joined militant ranks or crossed the border into Pakistan for arms training. On July 13, a day after Pakistan's now deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif ordered his army's humiliating retreat from the mountains of Kargil in a televised speech, a relatively new local militant outfit named Al Badr made its first appearance in the northern Kashmir Valley. Three of the group's guerrillas attacked a BSF camp near Srinagar, killing four personnel, including a senior officer, and taking 12 hostages. It took a crack squad of commandos to rescue the captives and kill the guerrillas.
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It is these guerrillas, popularly called "guest militants," who are now leading the rebellion in the Valley. Supported by Pakistan, which claims all of Kashmir, the militants are taking advantage of the state's weak leadership under Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah. He came to power in 1996, following an election that had a low voter turnout and was marked by allegations of rigging. Kashmiris dismiss Abdullah, who is better known as a playboy than as a politician, as "the only Indian in Kashmir." It is not a jocular reference, for it is a fact that Abdullah owes his position solely to New Delhi's patronage. He has also done everything in his power to suppress political dissent. During the recent general elections, for instance, Abdullah imprisoned several leaders of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference, the only popular political grouping that stands for the genuine self-determination of Kashmiris (see interview, page 28). Abdullah accused the jailed leaders of using violent means to enforce an election boycott - an ironic charge, considering that Indian newspapers had widely reported that the only cases of "violence" witnessed during the polls were of Kashmiris being forced to vote at gunpoint.
The lack of a popular government in the state has forced just about every Kashmiri - even those fed up with the militancy - to support the cause of the guerrillas. Not a few citizens give the rebels shelter out of fear or sympathy and, in the eyes of Indian authorities, this makes all Kashmiris as much an enemy as the militants. It is against this background that soldiers, when attacked by guerrillas, often turn their guns on ordinary Kashmiris. In doing so, Indian security forces have come full circle: During the early stages of the militancy, human-rights abuses by soldiers were common. After the Kargil war, the excesses have resumed and military experts say they could well get out of hand if the guerrillas were to launch a major attack against troops or, say, target a commercial airliner in the state.
The militants certainly have the firepower, which is why army officers privately admit they have a serious problem on their hands. The guerrillas, especially the foreign ones, are well-trained and equipped with highly sophisticated weapons, including anti-aircraft guns and missile launchers. Early this month, the Hizbul Mujahideen, one of the few local militant groups still active, announced that it had acquired chemical weapons. Yet the most potent tool in the militants' arsenal may not be military hardware but money. Security officials say foreign rebels come loaded with cash, which they offer liberally to guides and local recruits. With an estimated 150,000 unemployed youths in the Valley, there is no dearth of takers.
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Kashmir's Cycle Of Violence
Acccording to the Indian government, militancy in Jammu and Kashmir has been ebbing since elections to the state assembly were held in 1996 for the first time in nearly a decade. But as the chart below shows, within the abating disorder lies a qualitative change in the nature of the militancy: Instead of indulging in wanton violence, which affects civilians and gives the militant struggle a bad name, guerrillas are now directly attacking security forces, especially policemen.
* provisional figure Source: Inspector-General of Police (Operations), Srinagar |
The Indian army often complains that it is forced to clean up the mess left by politicians. But it, too, has lately been caught napping in the Valley. And as the politicians often tend to do, the generals are offering lame excuses for the army's lapses. At a recent press conference, senior officers made a baffling denial. The attack on the 15 Corps headquarters, they said, was not aimed at the army but at the press. Their absurd rationale: The slain army public relations officer had been talking to three journalists when the assault occurred. Asked what he made of the recent militant successes, the BSF chief in Srinagar, K. Vijay Kumar, dismissed them as a "potboiler situation."
In the eyes of the outside world, Kashmir is a problem largely confined to the armies of India and Pakistan. But the real war for Kashmir is being waged not on the borders but in its towns and cities, where people suffer from widespread alienation from India and its government. A telling example of how New Delhi is losing this battle is last summer's case of Saleem Akbar, an orthopedic surgeon in Srinagar. One the night of July 21, he was forced out of his house by troops of the Special Operations Group (SOG), a state intelligence agency comprising policemen, troopers and ex-militants who have joined hands with the government. Akbar was beaten, herded into a tiny cell and accused of treating a militant at the local government Hospital for Bone and Joints Surgery where he works. He was released the following day after the hospital went on strike to protest his arrest. It later transpired that his detention was based on false information. If the recent history of Kashmir offers any guide to the future, it is safe to say that the likes of Akbar may one day be forced to pick up AK-47s.
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