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Friday, April 29, 2011

Pakistan test fires nuclear-capable Babur cruise missile

By Johan Simth
Islamabad, April 29: Pakistan test fired nuclear-capable Babur (Hatf-7) cruise missile with a range of 600 km that can hit targets in India.

The test of the indigenous-developed missile was “part of a process of validating the system,” said a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations. The statement did not mention where the test was conducted.

The successful test of Hatf-7 or Babur cruise missile was witnessed by Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen Khalid Shamim Wynne, who said the launch would “go a long way in consolidating Pakistan’s strategic deterrence capability and further strengthening national security.”

“Pakistan’s resolve and commitment to continue its strategic program will remain paramount,” he said.

The test was “warmly appreciated by the President and Prime Minister,” who congratulated the scientists and engineers on their success, the statement said.

The Director General of the Strategic Plans Division, Lt Gen (Retd) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, Army Strategic Force Command chief Lt Gen Jamil Haider, senior officers from the military and strategic organizations, scientists and engineers also witnessed the test.

The Babur can carry strategic or conventional warheads and has stealth capabilities, the statement said.

It is a “low flying, terrain-hugging missile with high maneuverability, pin-point accuracy and radar avoidance features.”

The missile also incorporates modern cruise missile technology of terrain contour matching (TERCOM) and digital scene matching and area co-relation (DSMAC), the statement said.

Kashmiri Pandit boy’s disappearance

Sage cashmeriana: http://jkmpic.blogspot.com
Srinagar, 29 April:  Five weeks on, there is no word about 21-year-old Kashmiri Pandit boy who went missing from his native village Chandrigam in South Kashmir’s Aishmuqam town.  Such instances are not new to Kashmir but Sushil Kumar’s disappearance is significant for two reasons. For one he is a non-Muslim Kashmiri Pandit. Two, his family is among hundreds of other Pandit families that chose to stay put when other Pandit citizens left Valley in 1990, due to mounting violence and a series of murders.

For years now disappearance of Kashmiri youth has been a global concern. Thousands of Kashmiris have gone missing, either in mysterious circumstances or in state custody. Even though the figures projected by state and local human rights bodies are contradictory safe estimates put the number of those missing around seven thousand. By this estimation more than hundred thousand people who are related to these disappeared persons are suffering the trauma. 

The suffering of ‘half-widows’ is a tragic aspect of this issue because the women whose husbands have gone missing are living an uncertain life, their children growing with a huge sense of insecurity.  There has been lot of international focus on this issue with global institutions supporting campaigns in Kashmir. Amidst such complex situation the disappearance of a Pandit boy should have evoked widespread concern among Kashmiri stakeholders. The nature of Sushil’s disappearance may or may not be like other disappearances yet it demanded a sharper response from the government as well as the separatist groups. But, unfortunately, both ignored this issue, triggering further alienation of the non-migrant Pandits. It took a month for main opposition Peoples Democratic Party to react and slam state government over the issue. At a time when mass graves have exposed the reality behind government denials about custodial disappearances and separatist forces too are being blamed for hatching conspiracies against colleagues, it is the moral duty of both mainstream and separatist leaders that they launch a joint effort to trace Sushil Kumar. 

The state government has big stakes in tracing this boy as it is spending huge money to woo back Pandits putting up in Jammu and elsewhere. If the state fails to trace him it will instil a sense of insecurity not just among those willing to return but among those eight thousand who have been living through all sorts of difficulties alongside their Muslim brethren. On the other hand, separatist leaders have taken upon themselves the arduous task of ‘protecting’ the minority community. Notwithstanding the question how can separatists protect minorities in a vicious conflict that is dotted with political massacres and murders, the separatists should side the victim family. 

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Investigate the disappearance of Kashmiri Pandit youth: APDP

Srinagar, Apr 28: Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) demanded an investigation into the case of a youth, who has been missing since April 4, from south Kashmir's Anantnag district.

"When it comes to high profile political murders (like the one of Moulvi Showkat Ahmad Shah recently), police swiftly comes out with a chargesheet against some persons without even providing a shred of evidence, but when there are cases like Susheel no one seems to be interested in investigating," APDP said in a statement.

Susheel Raina, 21, of Chandergam village of Anantnag district had left his home to collect his marksheet from college but has not returned since. "Susheel's disappearance is an indicator of the continued phenomenon of people disappearing in Jammu and Kashmir," the APDP said.

APDP, which is an association of the relatives of youths who disappeared over the last 20 years, also held a protest at the Sher-e-Kashmir park in Srinagar demanding "independent and impartial" investigations into the phenomenon of "enforced disappearances".

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) fear fresh migration, accuse Kashmir govt of callousness

SRINAGAR, Apr 27 :Accusing the state government of failing to trace the missing Pandit youth from Aishmuqam area All Parties Migrant Coordination Committee (APMCC) today said this scenario might lead to fresh migration among their community members, who are permanently residing in the valley or have recently returned, reports Kashmir Times.

A youth Sushil Raina of Chandigam Aishmuqam went missing on April 4  after he left his home for college to collect the marks sheet. Addressing media persons at missing youths residence at the  Chandrigam village, chairman of coordination committee Vinod Pandit said, "Nearly a month has passed since the Pandit boy went missing but unfortunately the government has been showing callous approach in tracing him."
He said  on one hand the government claims to rehabilitate the migrant KPs if they return to valley but on the other hand the government has failed to provide security to those Pandits who had preferred to stay back or have recently returned to join their duties in the valley.
"If the chief minister was really serious in the return and rehabilitation of  Pandits he would have then visited the family of missing youth and expressed a word of sympathy with them," Vinod said.
He viewed that if any thing bad happens to the missing youth it will create fear psychosis among the Pandit community and might result in fresh migration.
Warning the government of serious repercussions if it fails to trace out the youth, Vinod said, "The APMCC will initiate strong agitation if government does not give a time frame and traces out the missing youth in the given time frame."
He demanded setting up of Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a DIG rank police officer for tracing  the youth. However he hailed the efforts of the local Muslims in trying to look out for the missing youth.

Annual drug consumption in JK Rs 600 Cr

Lavatera cashmeriana : http://jkmpic.blogspot.com
Srinagar, April 27: Warning pharmacists and chemists against Over The Counter (OTC) drug purchase, the Divisional Commissioner, Dr Asghar Samoon Tuesday said annual drug consumption in the State is Rs 600 Crores, reports Rissing  Kashmir.

He convened a high level meeting to discuss and review various drug control methods in the valley. “Rs. 600 crore of medicines are being consumed in the Jammu & Kashmir of which Rs. 400 crore in the Kashmir valley only,” Samoon said.

Expressing serious concern over the rising consumption of drugs, the Divisional Commissioner said the rising drug problem is one of the serious challenges we are facing today.  “No medicines, without prescription of the doctor, should be sold to patients,” he said and warned chemists and pharmacists against OVT.

Directing the Health and education sector to work in tandem to create mass awareness, particularly, among the youth in schools and colleges about the hazardous effects of drug use, he suggested Health Department to come up with the de-addiction centres and provide information on their websites on dos and don’ts for the people suffering from addiction.

Samoon directed the Pharmacists, Chemists and doctors to work with ethics while doing their work.  “Standard treatment protocols need to be followed so that patients don’t develop drug resistance and that there is no misuse of drugs.”

He suggested that a crackdown should be made on malpractices by pharmacists and doctors that no medical representatives should be allowed in OPDs and Casualties.

The Divisional Commissioner also stressed on the need to develop Private Sector in health so as to meet the requirements of the patients. He also stressed on exploring and encouraging other systems of medicine like Homeopathy and Allopathy.

Deputy Controller of Drug and Food Control Organisation, presented a Power Point presentation to highlight the efforts of the department. “The department, for the last year, conducted 8185 inspections out of which 645 samples were lifted from the government and private market and only six were found of standard quality. In addition 13 licenses were cancelled and 28 suspended for violating various provisions of drugs and cosmetics act. The food wing has conducted 16600 inspections and launched   prosecution almost 17 cases. In addition, Rs. 5600 was recovered as fine from 480 persons for smoking at public places,” he said.

The meeting also suggested that requisite training should be provided to those working in the medical and diagnostic field.

Samoon stressed that the Private diagnostic centres have to follow proper norms in space and facilities which should “preferably” be located on the ground floor.

The meeting, besides Principal Government Medical College, Dr. Shahida Mir, Director Health Services, Salim-ur-Rehman, Deputy Director Nazir Ahmed, was attended by Satish Gupta from Drug Control, Director ISM, Dr. Kabir and President of Chemists and Drug Association among other officials.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Naked, starving India, More precious than life itself—Pakistan: Aruna Dati Roy

I NEVER FORGET AUGUST 16: Aruna Dati Roy

I NEVER FORGET AUGUST 16, more than 5,00000 people marched to Pampore, to the village of  Father of Jehad-e-Kashmir Sheikh Abdul Aziz, who was shot down in cold ... : By Aruna Dati Roy

For the past sixty days or so, since about the end of June, the people of Kashm
ir have been free. Free in the most profound sense. They have shrugged off the terror of living their lives in the gun-sights of half-a-million heavily-armed soldiers in the most densely militarised zone in the world.

After 18 years of administering a military occupation, the Indian government's worst nightmare has come true. Having declared that the militant movement has been crushed, it is now faced with a non-violent mass protest, but not the kind it knows how to manage. This one is nourished by people's memory of years of repression in which tens of thousands have been killed, thousands have been 'disappeared', hundreds of thousands tortured, injured, raped and humiliated. That kind of rage, once it finds utterance, cannot easily be tamed, re-bottled and sent back to where it came from.

For all these years, the Indian State, known amongst the knowing as the Deep State, has done everything it can to subvert, suppress, represent, misrepresent, discredit, interpret, intimidate, purchase—and simply snuff out the voice of the Kashmiri people. It has used money (lots of it), violence (lots of it), disinformation, propaganda, torture, elaborate networks of collaborators and informers, terror, imprisonment, blackmail and rigged elections to subdue what democrats would call "the will of the people". But now the Deep State, as Deep States eventually tend to, has tripped on its own hubris and bought into its own publicity. It made the mistake of believing that domination was victory, that the 'normalcy' it had enforced through the barrel of a gun was indeed normal, and that the people's sullen silence was acquiescence.

People's movement: Protesters march towards the UN office in Srinagar
The well-endowed peace industry, speaking on people's behalf, informed us that "Kashmiris are tired of violence and want peace". What kind of peace they were willing to settle for was never clarified. Bollywood's cache of Kashmir/Muslim-terrorist films has brainwashed most Indians into believing that all of Kashmir's sorrows could be laid at the door of evil, people-hating terrorists.

To anybody who cared to ask, or, more importantly, to listen, it was always clear that even in their darkest moments, people in Kashmir had kept the fires burning and that it was not peace they yearned for, but freedom too. Over the last two months, the carefully confected picture of an innocent people trapped between 'two guns', both equally hated, has, pardon the pun, been shot to hell.

The Indian government's worst nightmare has come true. Having declared that the militant movement has been crushed, it is now faced with a non-violent mass protest, but not the kind it knows how to manage.   

A sudden twist of fate, an ill-conceived move over the transfer of 100 acres of state forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board (which manages the annual Hindu pilgrimage to a cave deep in the Kashmir Himalayas) suddenly became the equivalent of tossing a lit match into a barrel of petrol. Until 1989, the Amarnath pilgrimage used to attract about 20,000 people who travelled to the Amarnath cave over a period of about two weeks. In 1990, when the overtly Islamic militant uprising in the Valley coincided with the spread of virulent Hindutva in the Indian plains, the number of pilgrims began to increase exponentially. By 2008, more than 5,00,000 pilgrims visited the Amarnath cave in large groups, their passage often sponsored by Indian business houses. To many people in the Valley, this dramatic increase in numbers was seen as an aggressive political statement by an increasingly Hindu-fundamentalist Indian State. Rightly or wrongly, the land transfer was viewed as the thin edge of the wedge. It triggered an apprehension that it was the beginning of an elaborate plan to build Israeli-style settlements, and change the demography of the Valley. Days of massive protest forced the Valley to shut down completely. Within hours, the protests spread from the cities to villages. Young stone-pelters took to the streets and faced armed police who fired straight at them, killing several. For people as well as the government, it resurrected memories of the uprising in the early '90s. Throughout the weeks of protest, hartal and police firing, while the Hindutva publicity machine charged Kashmiris with committing every kind of communal excess, the 5,00,000 Amarnath pilgrims completed their pilgrimage, not just unhurt, but touched by the hospitality they had been shown by local people.

Eventually, taken completely by surprise at the ferocity of the response, the government revoked the land transfer. But by then the land transfer had become what senior separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani called a "non-issue".

Massive protests against the revocation erupted in Jammu. There, too, the issue snowballed into something much bigger. Hindus began to raise issues of neglect and discrimination by the Indian State. (For some odd reason they blamed Kashmiris for that neglect.) The protests led to the blockading of the Jammu-Srinagar highway, the only functional road link between Kashmir and India. The army was called out to clear the highway and allow safe passage of trucks between Jammu and Srinagar. But incidents of violence against Kashmiri truckers were being reported from as far away as Punjab where there was no protection at all. As a result, Kashmiri truckers, fearing for their lives, refused to drive on the highway. Truckloads of perishable fresh fruit and Valley produce began to rot. It became very obvious that the blockade had caused the situation to spin out of control. The government announced that the blockade had been cleared and that trucks were going through. Embedded sections of the Indian media, quoting the inevitable 'Intelligence' sources, began to refer to it as a 'perceived' blockade, and even to suggest that there had never been one.

Flaming chinars: People climb atop trees to hear Hurriyat leaders
But it was too late for those games, the damage had been done. It had been demonstrated in no uncertain terms to people in Kashmir that they lived on sufferance, and that if they didn't behave themselves they could be put under siege, starved, deprived of essential commodities and medical supplies. The real blockade became a psychological one. The last fragile link between India and Kashmir was all but snapped.

To expect matters to end there was of course absurd. Hadn't anybody noticed that in Kashmir even minor protests about civic issues like water and electricity inevitably turned into demands for azadi? To threaten them with mass starvation amounted to committing political suicide.

Hadn't anybody noticed that in Kashmir even minor protests about civic issues like water and electricity inevitably turned into demands for azadi? To threaten them with mass starvation amounted to committing political suicide.   
Not surprisingly, the voice that the Government of India has tried so hard to silence in Kashmir has massed into a deafening roar. Hundreds of thousands of unarmed people have come out to reclaim their cities, their streets and mohallas. They have simply overwhelmed the heavily armed security forces by their sheer numbers, and with a remarkable display of raw courage.

Raised in a playground of army camps, checkposts and bunkers, with screams from torture chambers for a soundtrack, the young generation has suddenly discovered the power of mass protest, and above all, the dignity of being able to straighten their shoulders and speak for themselves, represent themselves. For them it is nothing short of an epiphany. They're in full flow, not even the fear of death seems to hold them back. And once that fear has gone, of what use is the largest or second-largest army in the world? What threat does it hold? Who should know that better than the people of India who won their independence in the way that they did?

The circumstances in Kashmir being what they are, it is hard for the spin doctors to fall back on the same old same old; to claim that it's all the doing of Pakistan's ISI, or that people are being coerced by militants. Since the '30s onwards, the question of who can claim the right to represent that elusive thing known as "Kashmiri sentiment" has been bitterly contested. Was it Sheikh Abdullah? The Muslim Conference? Who is it today? The mainstream political parties? The Hurriyat? The militants? This time around, the people are in charge. There have been mass rallies in the past, but none in recent memory that have been so sustained and widespread. The mainstream political parties of Kashmir—the National Conference, the People's Democratic Party—feted by the Deep State and the Indian media despite the pathetic voter turnout in election after election appear dutifully for debates in New Delhi's TV studios, but can't muster the courage to appear on the streets of Kashmir. The armed militants who, through the worst years of repression, were seen as the only ones carrying the torch of azadi forward, if they are around at all, seem to be content to take a backseat and let people do the fighting for a change.

Everywhere in chains: But it's no barricade to freedom
The separatist leaders who do appear and speak at the rallies are not leaders so much as followers, being guided by the phenomenal spontaneous energy of a caged, enraged people that has exploded on Kashmir's streets. The leaders, such as they are, have been presented with a full-blown revolution. The only condition seems to be that they have to do as the people say. If they say things that people do not wish to hear, they are gently persuaded to come out, publicly apologise and correct their course. This applies to all of them, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani who at a public rally recently proclaimed himself the movement's only leader. It was a monumental political blunder that very nearly shattered the fragile new alliance between the various factions of the struggle. Within hours he retracted his statement. Like it or not, this is democracy. No democrat can pretend otherwise.

Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people swarm around places that hold terrible memories for them. They demolish bunkers, break through cordons of concertina wire and stare straight down the barrels of soldiers' machine-guns, saying what very few in India want to hear. Hum kya chahte? Azadi! We Want Freedom. And, it has to be said, in equal numbers and with equal intensity: Jeevey Jeevey Pakistan. Long live Pakistan.

This time around, the people are in charge. The armed militants, who through the worst years of repression were seen carrying the torch of azadi, are content to let people do the fighting. The separatist leaders are not leaders so much as followers.   

That sound reverberates through the Valley like the drumbeat of steady rain on a tin roof, like the roll of thunder before an electric storm. It's the plebiscite that was never held, the referendum that has been indefinitely postponed.

On August 15, India's Independence Day, the city of Srinagar shut down completely. The Bakshi stadium where Governor N.N. Vohra hoisted the flag was empty except for a few officials. Hours later, Lal Chowk, the nerve centre of the city (where in 1992, Murli Manohar Joshi, BJP leader and mentor of the controversial "Hinduisation" of children's history textbooks, started a tradition of flag-hoisting by the Border Security Force), was taken over by thousands of people who hoisted the Pakistani flag and wished each other "Happy belated Independence Day" (Pakistan celebrates Independence on August 14) and "Happy Slavery Day". Humour, obviously, has survived India's many torture centres and Abu Ghraibs in Kashmir.

On August 16, more than 5,00,000 people marched to Pampore, to the village of  Father of Jehad-e-Kashmir Sheikh Abdul Aziz, who was shot down in cold blood five days earlier. He was part of a massive march to the Line of Control demanding that since the Jammu road had been blocked, it was only logical that the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway be opened for goods and people, the way it used to be before Kashmir was partitioned.

Goodbye, fear: A police post being dismantled in Srinagar
On August 18, an equal number gathered in Srinagar in the huge TRC grounds (Tourist Reception Centre, not the Truth and Reconciliation Committee) close to the United Nations Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to submit a memorandum asking for three things—the end to Indian rule, the deployment of a UN Peacekeeping Force and an investigation into two decades of war crimes committed with almost complete impunity by the Indian army and police.

The day before the rally the Deep State was hard at work. A senior journalist friend called to say that late in the afternoon the home secretary called a high-level meeting in New Delhi. Also present were the defence secretary and the intelligence chiefs. The purpose of the meeting, he said, was to brief the editors of TV news channels that the government had reason to believe that the insurrection was being managed by a small splinter cell of the ISI and to request the channels to keep this piece of exclusive, highly secret intelligence in mind while covering (or preferably not covering?) the news from Kashmir. Unfortunately for the Deep State, things have gone so far that TV channels, were they to obey those instructions, would run the risk of looking ridiculous. Thankfully, it looks as though this revolution will, after all, be televised.

Replace the word Islam with the word Hindutva, replace the word Pakistan with Hindustan, replace the sea of green flags with saffron ones and you have BJP's nightmare vision of an ideal India.   

On the night of August 17, the police sealed the city. Streets were barricaded, thousands of armed police manned the barriers. The roads leading into Srinagar were blocked. For the first time in eighteen years, the police had to plead with Hurriyat leaders to address the rally at the TRC grounds instead of marching right up to the UNMOGIP office which is on Gupkar Road, Srinagar's Green Zone where, for years, the Indian Establishment has barricaded itself in style and splendour.

On the morning of the 18th, people began pouring into Srinagar from villages and towns across the Valley. In trucks, tempos, jeeps, buses and on foot. Once again, barriers were broken and people reclaimed their city. The police were faced with a choice of either stepping aside or executing a massacre. They stepped aside. Not a single bullet was fired.

The city floated on a sea of smiles. There was ecstasy in the air. Everyone had a banner; houseboat owners, traders, students, lawyers, doctors. One said, "We are all prisoners, set us free." Another said, "Democracy without freedom is Demon-crazy". Demon Crazy. That was a good one. Perhaps he was referring to the twisted logic of a country that needed to commit communal carnage in order to bolster its secular credentials. Or the insanity that permits the world's largest democracy to administer the world's largest military occupation and continue to call itself a democracy.

There was a green flag on every lamp post, every roof, every bus stop and on the top of chinar trees.

Of course, there are many ways for the Indian State to hold on to Kashmir. A few strategic massacres, a couple of targeted assassinations, some disappearances and a round of arrests should do the trick for a few more years.   

A big one fluttered outside the All India Radio building. Road signs to Hazratbal, Batmaloo, Sopore were painted over. Rawalpindi they said. Or simply Pakistan. It would be a mistake to assume that the public expression of affection for Pakistan automatically translates into a desire to accede to Pakistan. Some of it has to do with gratitude for the support—cynical or otherwise—for what Kashmiris see as a freedom struggle and the Indian State sees as a terrorist campaign. It also has to do with mischief. With saying and doing what galls India, the enemy, most of all. (It's easy to scoff at the idea of a 'freedom struggle' that wishes to distance itself from a country that is supposed to be a democracy and align itself with another that has, for the most part, been ruled by military dictators. A country whose army has committed genocide in what is now Bangladesh. A country that is even now being torn apart by its own ethnic war. These are important questions, but right now perhaps it's more useful to wonder what this so-called democracy did in Kashmir to make people hate it so.)

Everywhere there were Pakistani flags, everywhere the cry, Pakistan se rishta kya? La ilaha illa llah. What is our bond with Pakistan? There is no god but Allah. Azadi ka matlab kya? La ilaha illallah. What does Freedom mean? There is no god but Allah.

For somebody like myself, who is not Muslim, that interpretation of freedom is hard—if not impossible—to understand. I asked a young woman whether freedom for Kashmir would not mean less freedom for her, as a woman. She shrugged and said, "What kind of freedom do we have now? The freedom to be raped by Indian soldiers?" Her reply silenced me.

She's no terrorist: A woman pelts stones at policemen
Standing in the grounds of the TRC, surrounded by a sea of green flags, it was impossible to doubt or ignore the deeply Islamic nature of the uprising taking place around me. It was equally impossible to label it a vicious, terrorist jehad. For Kashmiris, it was a catharsis. A historical moment in a long and complicated struggle for freedom with all the imperfections, cruelties and confusions that freedom struggles have. This one cannot by any means call itself pristine, and will always be stigmatised by, and will some day, I hope, have to account for—among other things—the brutal killings of Kashmiri Pandits in the early years of the uprising, culminating in the exodus of almost the entire community from the Kashmir Valley.

What will free Kashmir be like? Will the hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits living in exile be allowed to return, paid reparations for their losses?   

As the crowd continued to swell, I listened carefully to the slogans, because rhetoric often clarifies things and holds the key to all kinds of understanding. I'd heard many of them before, a few years ago, at a militant's funeral. A new one, obviously coined after the blockade, was Kashmir ki mandi! Rawalpindi! (It doesn't lend itself to translation, but it means—Kashmir's marketplace? Rawalpindi!) Another was Khooni lakir tod do, aar paar jod do (Break down the blood-soaked Line of Control, let Kashmir be united again). There were plenty of insults and humiliation for India: Ay jabiron ay zalimon, Kashmir hamara chhod do (Oh oppressors, Oh wicked ones, Get out of our Kashmir). Jis Kashmir ko khoon se seencha, woh Kashmir hamara hai (The Kashmir we have irrigated with our blood, that Kashmir is ours!).

The slogan that cut through me like a knife and clean broke my heart was this one: Nanga bhookha Hindustan, jaan se pyaara Pakistan (Naked, starving India, More precious than life itself—Pakistan). Why was it so galling, so painful to listen to this? I tried to work it out and settled on three reasons. First, because we all know that the first part of the slogan is the embarrassing and unadorned truth about India, the emerging superpower. Second, because all Indians who are not nanga or bhookha are—and have been—complicit in complex and historical ways with the cruel cultural and economic systems that make Indian society so cruel, so vulgarly unequal.

Former Prime Minister Jammu and Kashmir favored armed uprising in 1953: Report

http://writerasia.blogspot.com/2011/04/former-prime-minister-jammu-and-kashmir.htmlSrinagar, Apr 23: Legendary Kashmiri leader Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah had urged people of Kashmir to fight India on the lines of Algerian militants, reveals fresh collection, reports leading paper Rissing Kashmir.

of Sheikh’s speeches compiled by a local author here. According to the report Sheikh in a speech delivered on Martyrs’ Day, 13 July 1953, had said, “These martyrs have prepared us for bigger sacrifices to achieve our freedom and our right of self-determination. If required, our youth would not desist from fighting a liberation war on the lines of Algerian people.”

Shabnam Qayoom, a Kashmiri writer, has compiled the report in response to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s wish to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Kashmir that would probe into incidents of violence and murder which occurred since 1990. Interestingly the 64-page report is dedicated to Omar Abdullah. A short note at the outset says, “Whom we found different than his father and grandfather and who wishes to heal Kashmiris’ wounds, and who has no qualms in the expression of truth.”  Qayoom claims that his compilation would help Omar in his efforts to find out the truth behind the happenings of past two decades.  The author has put together twenty-nine speech extracts and statements given out by Sheikh Abdullah during his party meetings, interviews to local and foreign journalists and religious gatherings at Hazratbal.

“…The 1947 accession with India was imposed on us because government of India had declined to help us (against Pak raiders) unless we acceded (to the Union of India)…This accession could be considered final only after referred to people for their ratification,” the report quotes Sheikh as said during a working committee meet of National Conference on 4 June 1953. During an interaction with then Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru’s advisor Dr Subramanian in Kud Jail on 17 October 1955, Sheikh is quoted as having said, “I remember those horrible consequences which were brought out by our decision to seek military assistance from India. I don’t mind saying that we brought you here for our security but you stayed put as our occupiers. How can I forget, you breached my trust as well as your base in Kashmir.”

According to the excerpt of the same interaction “…I regret my mistake of coming in the way of merger with Pakistan. I had fears that they won’t treat me well, but I was wrong. Now I feel backstabbed, I no longer trust Indian rulers, we have different ways now.”
In a significant speech at Martyrs’ Graveyard in Old City on 13 July 1953, Sheikh, according to Qayoom’s report, had dared both India and Pakistan that people of J&K would never become minions of one or the other country and predicted that people of Kashmir would follow Algerians to take up gun. “We are indebted to our martyrs for achieving freedom and we are ready to offer any kind of sacrifice achieve our freedom and right of self-determination.”

According to the speech extract, Sheikh further said that India’s ruling elite was not sincere and “freedom cannot be begged, for this you need to adopt other means also”.

The author’s opinion is appended to the report in three parts comprising “Why boys pick up stones,”, “Why youth go missing” and “Two years of present government”.

Tracing the origins of anger among youth to the rigging in elections of 1987, the author argues, “Farooq Abdullah should not have got upset over the winning of Muslim groups. Their winning would have led to a power tussle and they would have broken apart over the issue of Chief Minister’s chair or portfolios. After all those who cannot stand united after two decades of bloody movement, how could they agree on a join power structure? That would have brought Farooq back to the center stage after fall of the MUF government.”

The report Tehqeeq aur Talash was released on the sidelines of a literary function held in Dak Bungalow Islamabad (Anantnag) on April 20. Journalists, top Police and civil officials besides social activists were present in the gathering.

1987 elections forced Kashmiris to take arms : BJP

Jammu, Apr 23: In a noteworthy statement, a senior state BJP leader Saturday said the rigged elections of 1987 forced United Jihad Council (UJC) chief Muhammad Yousuf Shah alias Syed Salah-ud-Din to take to arms, reports Greater Kashmir.

“Faulty administrative functioning in the state and rigged assembly elections of 1987 forced the UJC chief Syed Salah-ud-Din to pick up the gun,” former union minister of state for defence and BJP legislature party leader, Chaman Lal Gupta told reporters here today.

“If we go into the history of Jammu and Kashmir, former minister Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din Shah, who was losing 1987 assembly elections with a huge margin, was declared winner on the directions of the then government. Everybody knows that Syed Salah-ud-Din who was at that time in mainstream and had contested the said election was forced to pick up the gun alongwith his colleagues following mass rigging of that election by the government,” Gupta said.

Gupta made these remarks in the backdrop of action against him by the party high-command for cross-voting in the recent Legislative Council polls which he said were also `rigged’.

“This is also the matter of probe that whether our seven MLAs have betrayed the party or not. There should be probe as how seven MLAs cross-voted. Mera Yeh Maanana Hai Ki Yahan Par Bahut Kuch Hota Hai (Anything is possible in Jammu and Kashmir,” he remarked.

Gupta said a bigger conspiracy was being hatched by “external and internal forces” aimed at taking Jammu and Kashmir to the pre-1953 position.

“Some external forces in collusion with internal forces are bent upon to take the state to the pre-1953 position by implementing the recommendations of Interlocutors. These external forces couldn’t succeed unless they get the logical support of internal forces (insiders),” the BJP leader said.

He said all-out efforts were being made to implement the recommendations of the Interlocutors who have recommended pre-1953 status for Jammu and Kashmir. “These elements are bent upon denting BJP’s image as they know that it is the only party which could oppose all such manipulations and fight against these forces,” he said, adding “All such developments and attempts will harm the interests of Jammu.”
He alleged that attempts were also being made to uproot BJP from Jammu and Kashmir.

Gupta, who is among the seven MLAs suspended of the party high command for cross-voting in April 13 LC polls, also questioned the suspension, saying the central leadership should make public the parameters and criteria for singling out seven MLAs while sparing other four in cross-voting fiasco.

On Friday, two suspended MLAs of the party, Baldev Raj Sharma and Lal Chand had also questioned the central leadership’s action and had asked the party high command to show the evidence and criteria on the basis of which seven MLAs were suspended.

Gupta termed the cross-voting fiasco as “unprecedented tragedy” and “unforgivable”, saying the incident is “highly condemnable” and it never happened in the history of the BJP.

He, however, denied that he has “betrayed” the party and remarked, “Time and again I have proved my loyalty. It was highly painful moment of my life when I was included among those seven MLAs who were suspended for cross-voting. I want to fully deny it as I have never betrayed the party and whatever party high command directed me, I followed that with full zeal and honesty.”

“I want to know as to what parameters they have used to single-out the seven MLAs while sparing the other four. The criterion should be made public and the decision should be judicious so that public come to know who the real culprits were,” he demanded.

Meanwhile, in virtual revolt against the party action, another BJP MLA, Prof Gharu Ram, has requested the Speaker Muhammad Akbar Lone to “treat his resignation withdrawn” as and when forwarded to him by the BJP high command.

Joining other five suspended MLAs, Gharu Ram shot a letter to the Speaker, requesting him to turn down his resignation if the BJP high command forwards it to him.

Sources said that he also reposed faith in the leadership of Chaman Lal Gutpa, saying he was their leader in the Legislative Assembly.

On Thursday, five BJP legislators had met the Speaker and gave in writing that the resignation letters which they gave to the party high command should be considered withdrawn.