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 A
small village that gave Kashmir’s counterinsurgency an alternative name
wants to change its name now - hoping they would not be identified as
Nawabadis. Ibrahim Wani and Farooq Ahmad report on the Nawabadi Mohalla and its haunting baggage.
Nawabadi
Mohalla may pass off as just another small village in the Sonwari belt
of north Kashmir, but for its street lights that make it stand apart.
Those familiar with the village, don’t dare to take it for any other
village, anyways.
Nawabadi has entered Kashmir’s lexicon as a
word that strikes terror. There were many villages in Kashmir that
became hotbeds of counterinsurgency in mid 1990’s but Nawabadi was one
name that stuck.
A village of some three hundred people, two and
a half kilometres from Safapora, Nawabadi residents now want to change
its name to Mirabad. They no longer want to identify with its past.
A
few kilomteres from father of counterinsurgency Kuka Parrey’s Hajin
village, Nawabadi Mohalla gave Ikhwan some of its most dreaded men. Many
remember the village as the birthplace of ruthless renegades, like
Fayaz Mir alias Fayaz Nawabadi, notorious for extortion, rape,
politically motivated killings. For the state security apparatus, that
patronised them, these men were important to break the back of militancy
in the Sonawari-Ganderbal belt and by extension whole of Kashmir. So
they did. Hardly anyone was spared.
Perhaps because many of the
first renegades came from Nawabadi village, the name in local parlance
became a synonym for all the counterinsurgents or police informers. An
alternative name for Ikhwan, the largest renegade group.
Nawbid
was actually used in the area to refer to the residents of the Nawabadi
Mohalla. So anyone from the area was a Nawbud. After the switching of
Ikhwan to counter insurgency, apart from the ruthless renegades who
emerged from Nawabadi Mohalla, the village provided a haven for all
counter-insurgents. Even though only a few from the village carried out
the dirty work, almost all residents were Ikhwan sympathisers.
Nawabdis
trace their shift of allegiance to the killing of a JKLF militant from
the village by Hizbul Mujahideen in inter faction rivalry in 1993.
Manzoor
Ahmad was the first postgraduate from the village. He did his MA in
Urdu from Kashmir University. Later he joined Jammu Kashmir Students
Liberation Front and crossed the LoC for arms training. After this he
joined Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front as Deputy District Commander. This
was around the time when animosities between Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and
JKLF were building up.
While on his way back from Sopore
Manzoor was picked up by Hizbul Mujahideen. “They accused him of being
an Indian agent,” say the residents, “but at that time it was widely
known that Manzoor was a man of character. It was actually that Ahsan
Dar wanted him to join HM.”
When news of Manzoor’s abduction
spread in the area, desperate attempts started to secure his release.
“The negotiations were carried out at the highest level; almost all the
known militants and separatist leaders were involved.
The
residents were promised his release. “But he was not released. We kept
on searching for him. We formed search parties and would search for him
throughout the area,” says Kawaam Din. But the search yielded no result.
At this time Fayaz, Manzoor’s cousin was in jail.
“Even Syed
Ali Shah Geelani searched for him in his car. He told us that he had
spent 13000 rupees searching for him,” he says, “Moulvi Abbas Ansari and
Saleem Geelani also mediated but to no avail.”
Demands for
Manzoor’s release were building up. People were protesting. The Hajin
bazaar remained shut down for 25 days at a stretch.
Then,
residents say, a HM rebel Shams-u-Din informed the villagers that
Manzoor had been killed on the second day of his abduction, and lay
buried in Hari-Taar, on the banks of Jehlum near Sopore.
 “We
rushed to the spot. Some militants from HM were guarding the spot, and
they fired on the crowd. People from the surrounding areas like
Shah-Gund joined in and we retrieved the body,” adds Kawaam. The
eruption of emotions and sentiments was spontaneous.
“It was an
angry crowd, which sees nothing in rage. On the way from Hari-Taar to
Nawabadi Mohalla, around 14 houses belonging to Jamat-e-Islami (JeI)
members or sympathisers were burned,” adds Kamaal. “It was a day which
this region can not forget. It was a day of pain.”
After this the
rift between JKLF and HM-JeI deepened. A civil war sort of situation
ensued where people from both sides were being assassinated. The
Nawabadis became fiercely anti-HM and anti-Jamaat. “In all this all the
militant organisations united against HM, and opened a united front
against them,” he says.
Peer Ziya-ud-Din of Asham, a JKLF
sympathiser and father of Nazir Ahmad Geelani of JKLF was also gunned
down by HM. This added oil to the fire. Around 500-600 people would die
in this infighting, many among them were civilians.
It was around
this time that 28 militants surrendered, and under the leadership of
Kuka Parray formed the renegade Ikhwan. Fayaz, now released, joined the
Ikwan, and with the wounds of Manzoor’s loss still fresh, many Nawabadis
followed him into the fold. “When we had seen the body of Manzoor, we
could see nothing else. He had come out for the cause. We had followed
in his footsteps, but Jamaat and Hizbul mujahideen ruined it. They
targeted everyone who was not their supporter. We could tolerate it no
further,” says an ex-counter insurgent.
Fayaz was merciless. He
soon gained notoriety and was gifted the post of commander-in-chief of
the Ikhwan. Kuka Parray reigned as the supremo. Thus started the reign
of terror. After that it was “catch and kill,” accepts Kawaam.
Though
the actual gun wielding Nawabdis did not number more than 10, all the
counter insurgents in Valley - estimated to be between 1,000-1,200- came
to be known by the name.
The shifting allegiances of Nawabadis
created animosities with adjoining villages. Residents recall that after
Manzoor’s death the adjoining villages in Safapora and Bandipora
enforced a boycott of the village.
“The shopkeepers won’t provide us amenities. We were not given medicines even for around six months,” says a Nawabadi resident.
Mohammad
Sidiq, father of Fayaz Nawabadi says the boycott forced them to loot
any trucks that passed the village. “But we would pay them,” he said in
the same breath.
In coming years, the response from the Nawabadis was often brutal. Fayaz Nawabadi walked the streets like a king.
“Even policemen had to look down while walking past him,” says a resident of Ganderbal.
He
was the most notorious export of Nawabadi Mohallah to the rest of
Kashmir. The Commander-in-Chief of Kuka Parray’s Ikhwan, he is said to
have killed hundreds of people. “If his eyes fell on something he liked,
it had to be his,” the resident adds. One day his eyes fell on a new
scooter parked in the Safapora market. The scooter belonged to Waseem, a
21 year old.
“Waseem would not just let go of his new scooter
when the Nawabadis asked him to give it to them,” says the resident.
Fayaz then walked up to him, and held him by his throat. He then pumped
bullets into him. Waseem fell to ground. When a shopkeeper raised his
voice, he too met the same fate. One more onlooker also fell to the
ground. “Three innocent people died that day,” adds the resident. With
three dead bodies on the streets Fayaz issued his threat, “People of
Safapora, whosever goes against us will meet a similar fate,” he says.
 Fayaz
would be accompanied by his trusted lieutenants, Abdul Hamid Mir alias
Nikka Bhai, Mohammad Afzal Mir alias Commander Adil, Ghulam Nabi Mir
alias Kaka among others, all Nawabadis. They reign of terror engulfed
Sonawari, Safapora, Ganderbal areas. Hardly anyone was spared, but the
families of militants and Jamat-e-Islami supporters were especially
targeted. It started a wave of migration from the area to the urban
areas. Many people even left the state. “No one was safe,” says the
resident. The killings continued.
Saif-u-Din Bhat, a 60-years-old
teacher from Safapora was killed because his brother was associated
with HM. Another teacher Abdul Karim Bhat was killed because of links
with Jamat-e-Islami. A bank employee, Mohammad Afzal of Yongoora Chak
also fell to bullets, for unknown reasons. The number is estimated to be
above 300. Some locals say the number of the people killed was much
higher than 300. “Many deaths were never reported. Many of these will
never be known,” the resident adds.
Nawabadis once went to the
house of a Jamaat-e-Islami sympathiser in Banyari village. The man was
not there. “The routine would have been to harass the family and leave,”
says Yasir, a resident of the area. But on this day death was in the
air. “One of the Nawabadi commanders caught hold of a six month old son
of the man,” he says. Then hell broke loose. “He flung the child into
the air, and the Nawabadi party started firing.” The infant came down in
smithereens. “I can not forget that day,” says Yasir, “there are no
words to express this cruelty.”
Tales of the atrocities abound.
“One more case still resonates in the minds and hearts of people. It
always gives me pain,” says Yasir as he recalls. “There was a girl in
Asham, a beautiful girl, Nazima, the daughter of one Ghulam Mohammad
Lone. And then their eyes fell on her,” he says.
Nazima was
kidnapped and raped. “For days together no one knew of her,” he recalls.
Then details related to her emerged. It was Fayaz actually who had
sought her. When she had resisted she was raped, by many Nawabadis, says
Yasir. They raped her for days. She became pregnant. After a few months
she was let go.
In the meantime, Ashraf Nawabidi, Fayaz’s brother started pursuing Nazima’s sister. She too was kidnapped.
“The
family would not have protested if they would have known what was to
come next,” says Yasir. The Nawabadis converged on the Asham market.
Nazima was dragged out on the street. Fayaz oversaw everything. “What
transpired next is engraved in the psyche of the people there forever,”
says Yasir.
The eight month pregnant woman was held forcibly.
Then her clothes were torn. After this she was paraded naked. “Fayaz
pulled the trigger, and shot her in the abdomen first. He kept on
shooting and shouting - see the result,” recalls Yasir. Nazima died on
the spot. Her sister is still with Ashraf.
Even after an incident
of this sort, no one raised a voice. That was the peak of Nawabadi
terror. “But nothing is permanent. Whatever goes up, has to come down,”
says Yasir. Most of the Nawabadis met cruel deaths. Kaka was shot dead
in 1994, Nikka Bhai was killed in 1995, Afzal in 1996. The kingpin,
Fayaz after surviving 18 attempts on life finally met his fate on Feb
17, 2000. He was blown up in an IED blast in Sumbal, just a few
kilometres away from where he had shot Nazima. According to locals the
intensity of the blast was such that his body parts could be seen
hanging from the power supply wires. Many people believe that he was
killed by his own people - the Ikhwanis.
 Fayaz
Nawabadi is considered a martyr and a hero in his village. So are the
other Nawabadis killed in these years. Their graveyard reads
Mazar-e-Shohada. Fayaz’s grave is decorated and fenced. It lies on way
to the shrine of a saint in the mohalla, called Sayeed Sahib. A stone
throw’s distance from the graveyard is a model school. His house has a
12 foot high wall topped by barbed wire. He is survived by two wives and
four children.
“Similar is the case for many others too,” says
Afzal, a government employee who was assigned a task in the area. For
him too the visit was painful. His best friend had been killed by Fayaz.
“I tried to skip the area, but I had to do my job,” he says.
While
walking through the village he saw a man walking behind him. Initially
he became suspicious. Then when he finally gathered the courage to ask
the person as to why he was following him, he came to know that he had
no job or work to do. The reply startled him. The man had identified
himself as an ex-counter insurgent, some of the few who had survived. He
did not venture out of the village, out the fear.
“Even though
almost all the notorious Nawabadis were killed, the people of the
surrounding areas can not forget the mayhem inflicted by them,” says
Afzal, who happened to meet a relative of Waseem on return from the
mohalla. Their response was, “There is no question of forgiveness. Even
if they repent it, nothing is going to change. There can be no
forgiveness.”
Ejaz from Safapora echoes similar sentiments. “We
cannot forget what Nawabadis have done to us. They are traitors. There
is no question of having any sort of relation with them. They are still
like that only,” he says.
However, the residents of the Nawabdi Mohallah insist they want to stay aloof of politics.
“We
want to be away from politics,” says Mohammad Kamaal Mir, a resident of
Nawabadi Mohalla, “We have already suffered a lot. Now we want to be
away from all this. We also have same aspirations like all other
Kashmiris, and our children like others too also cheer for the Pakistani
cricket team. But we are silent spectators. We will not repeat our
mistakes again now.”
The residents of the area are self confessed
supporters of National Conference. “It is we who made Akbar Lone
successful in Sumbal,” says Kawaam Din. He further adds, “Akbar Lone is
the most honest politician in all of Kashmir, and he is an ideal for all
the politicians.” They credit him for most of the development work in
the village, including the street lights and the tube wells.
“We
were even approached by the opposition parties with an offer of 40,000
rupees to vote for them, which we out rightly rejected,” say Kawaam.
According to him recently when they had gone to meet Akbar Lone, he gave
their issues precedence over all the other works on hand. “He even sent
prayers on Fayaz and recalled how he had saved him when once Kuka
Parray had grabbed his collar to beat him.”
“It is us who voted
against Kuka Parray. We made him fall. He did no development work here,”
says Sidiq Mir, father of Fayaz. He describes Kuka Parray as a fool who
was made the king. “If he would have been in Srinagar he would have
been taken to a mental hospital,” he remarks.
 Narrating
an incident when he had rebuked Kuka Parray for letting his brother go
on a looting spree all over the area, Sidiq says, “I told him that his
brother was like a wild bull that was going wild throughout the area and
causing damage and action should be taken against him.” Later Kuka
Parray according to him called him privately and told him that he should
not have said this in front of everyone.
When Fayaz’s father, an
employee of the cattle farm operated by SKAUST in the vicinity was
about to retire, he was put under suspension. So his pension was
automatically stopped. He attributes the development to Kuka Parray. At
this time, Fayaz was among his main men. The issue was finally resolved
when some politicians close to both the sides intervened.
Mehraj,
a resident of Ganderbal was a child when the Nawabadis were at the peak
of their power. He remembers a day when Nawabadis converged on his
village, and cut down all the willow and poplar trees on the government
land. “They sold it to their own friends at the cheapest possible
rates,” he says adding that the fear was such that no government
official either resisted or complained of the incident. Such was the
case with all of the area. “They even cut trees in the Jarokha Bagh,”
says Yasin another resident of the area, “Loot was a common thing with
Nawabadis those days.”
Yasir says, “Any vehicle which plied from
the area was looted. People would think twice before passing through the
area dominated by renegades.” Sidiq accepts. “The people from the
surrounding areas on the directives of militants had imposed a blockade
on us. So we had no option left but to loot for survival.” But according
to Gulzar from Sumbal, “Nawabadis have always had a bad image in the
area. They were involved in thefts and robberies before they became
associated with counter-insurgency. After that they would carry out
their activities openly. Extortion became their main business.”
With
Fayaz’s death, Nawabadi mohalla’s power waned. The village elders
approached other surrounding areas, with a message of reconciliation.
But they have met little success. The scars ran deep.
When the
Northern Command chief visited the area, post counter-insurgency,
Nawabadis too were invited. “I stood up and asked them that what had the
Government of India done for us,” says Kawaam. “I asked them what had
they paid the families of the soldiers who had been martyred in Kargil,
and in relation to them we were paid nothing. I told them that India has
not paid us a penny.”
Despite fighting a bloody war for the
state, Nawbadis say they were neglected. Many of them, say, all they got
from their haunting past were dead bodies.
“If I had been in some
position then, and could think the way I do today, I would not have let
these things to happen,” says Kamaal.
 However, Kamaal maintains they do not face any social ostracism today, and are well heard in corridors of power.
“We
have good relations with people of other village, even among from
people of Jamaat. We are invited in their functions,” says Kamaal.
But still the villagers want to get rid of the baggage their village name carries.
They
expect Mirabad to conceal their identity, and bring them back into the
fold of the society. Travelling around with a identity card bearing the
name of the village may not be wise option always, they admit.
“Nawabadi
has now become associated with us. It is a sort of stigma. Wherever we
go, people see us in a particular image. With the name change we hope
things may get better,” say the Nawabadis.
The story of Nawabadi
Mohalla is the story of a village which switched sides en-masse. It
tasted power, and wealth, until the downfall started. Now it is trying
hard to merge back with the society it stood against. But neither the
society, nor the village seems to have made its mind fully.
More details (http://www.kashmirlife.net) |
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