Indian Army in Kashmir

J&K Militant Connected With Killing of 2 Bihar Labourers Killed in Shootout

Kashmir zone Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar said the slain militant was a “hybrid type” and identified as Javed Ah Wani of Kulgam district.

Srinagar: One militant was killed in a brief shootout in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, police said.

A police spokesperson said militants fired upon an area domination patrol of the Army and police at Cherdari in Baramulla district.

“The security forces retaliated, resulting in the death of one ultra,” the spokesperson said, adding that a pistol, magazine and one hand grenade were found on his body.

Also Read: Centre Orders Immediate Withdrawal of 10,000 CAPF Troops From J&K

Kashmir zone Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar said the slain militant was a “hybrid type” and identified as Javed Ah Wani of Kulgam district.

“He (Wani) had assisted terrorist Gulzar (who was killed on October 20) in killing two labourers from Bihar at Wanpoh earlier this month,” the Inspector General of Police (IGP) said.

Kumar claimed that Wani was on a mission to target a shopkeeper in Baramulla.

(PTI)

A Year After Abrogation of Article 370 and 35A, the Outcomes Are Barely Understood

The real measure of the progressive effectiveness of overall security is the success gained against networks through which separatism and terror remained alive and which actually ran and perhaps are partially even now running J&K.

On the first anniversary of the effective abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A and the administrative reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir – truly landmark political decisions – year-end stock taking is being done with a fine tooth-comb. What has been gained and what lost? The domains in which claims and counter claims are being made include development, infrastructure, grassroots democracy, anti-corruption measures, tourism, creation of jobs, relative freedom, quality of life and perhaps a few more. This was expected, especially when the decision was strongly supported in Parliament with a two thirds majority in Parliament but also had considerable political opposition outside it.

To welcome with such transactional responses the anniversary of an important, irreversible political decision which actually altered the contours of national security in no small way does little justice to the magnitude of the change. I am, therefore, refraining from a bean count of reforms. All I will do here is to take stock of how the situation handling post Aug 5, 2019 – a work in progress – has impacted the security environment. Security here has a larger connotation than the normal perception of merely counting terrorists killed or infiltrated. It refers more to the ability of adversaries to interfere in our internal affairs and the effective integration of J&K into the Union of India, the very purpose of this long-delayed decision.

The Aug 5, 2019 decisions were bold and pathbreaking because there was a crying need for them for many years, definitely the last three decades since the proxy war began in J&K. The centre of gravity of the Pakistani sponsored proxy war was always identified as the ‘people of J&K’, many of whom openly expounded the ‘idea of Azadi’ (independence). The concept of Azadi was based upon the notion that J&K was different to the rest of India, being a Muslim majority state and historically not aligned with the mainland. Pakistan’s game plan was flexible; full secession of J&K to it, or sequential through the route of Azadi. The idea of Azadi created the sentiment of exclusivity which mainstream politicians in J&K further exploited to create the demand for autonomy. Both Articles 370 and 35A contributed to the creation of these sentiments which were fully exploited by anti-national elements and Pakistan.

Watch: One Year Since Article 370 Was Read Down, New Political Trends in J&K

Successive governments were hesitant about annulling the provisions especially once the passionate anger of Kashmiri sub-nationalism hit the streets. The entire system in J&K functioned outside Indian laws and many of the benefits enjoyed by the rest of the country were unavailable to so many deserving people who remained outside the ambit of empowerment, especially in the Jammu division. The voice of this important sub-region remained politically and socially muted. The powerful and dominant Kashmiri sub-nationalism was vulnerable to the machinations of external influence from Pakistan, which exploited every sentiment to run a proxy war for 30 years. The decisions of Aug 5, 2019 struck the root to neutralise that.

It’s an expression of naiveté that instead of attempting to comprehend the level to which the eco-system of separatism and terrorism is being progressively marginalised by these decisions, observers do a bean count of welfare projects and development in the very first year to determine success; there will be enough opportunities for stock taking of these in years that follow. When long pending decisions, postponed due to lack of comprehension of the aid they provided to anti-national events are finally taken, setting out the path towards their exploitation for the national good may produce several hiccups during the first steps. Course correction should of course be a norm but not wholesale condemnation of the ongoing efforts and effects, many of which may not be in consonance with perception of normality.

The presence of terrorists in large numbers has prevented effective governance for many years. Going against my own yardstick of normality, I only briefly resort to quoting figures. With a 40% reduction in local recruitment, only 26 confirmed terrorists infiltrated from PoK and intelligence-based operations averaging almost one a day, the numbers game is fully under control. The frequency of operations is not indicative of deterioration of the situation but reflective of positives such as flow of intelligence and inability of terrorists finding safe houses. The majority of these operations have not confronted stone throwing mobs which could earlier be rustled up in minutes. That should be a yardstick of progress towards conflict resolution.

However, the real measure of the progressive effectiveness of overall security is the success gained against networks which actually ran and perhaps are partially even now running J&K. There was no notion of understanding that clandestine finances, media, religious leaders, politicians, government servants and businessmen, all combined to create a system of networks through which separatism and terror remained alive. The targeting of this commenced in 2017, after the events of 2016. Those events had starkly brought home to the establishment the potential that existed of the revival of terror and negative sentiments through these networks each time the army and the police managed to gain full initiative. The networks had better intelligence than the police, full legal support, financial backing and enough sway to get mobs to wherever they wished. In the last one year, all this has been largely neutered although there is yet scope for revival. A permanent end to this will allow more scope for an integrative process to take effective shape. Commencement of a well-conceived information campaign to offset Pakistani propaganda, neuter the idea of Azadi and bring home the benefits of being a part of the Indian Union should now be a natural next step when 4G networks get functional.

Also read: Corruption Was Supposed to Vanish in J&K Post August 5. But It’s Alive and Well.

Material benefits of good governance will flow in their time. What we should be concerned about is the future of politics in the Union Territory, the meeting of minds of the people of Jammu and Kashmir regions, the creation of conditions for the return of the Kashmiri Pandits with dignity and honour, and promotion of the aspirations of the youth. When conditions improve in the domain of physical security, automatically freedoms will progressively restore and people will have more to aspire for. However, the process towards that will be a difficult path due to J&K’s geostrategic location which gives rise to geopolitical trends against India’s interests.

Collusion between Pakistan and China, always in the making, is now a reality in the strategic domain. For sure, the display of decisiveness over Articles 370 and 35A – seen in Islamabad and Beijing as reflecting India’s enhanced strategic confidence – has contributed to the current border tension. The same strategic confidence will come in handy to pursue reforms with a sense of purpose as the ground turbulence subsides. In a year stricken by an extreme winter and the COVID-19 pandemic, the path towards eventual delivery of normality which will usher in growth and development has just been laid.

Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain is a former General Officer Commanding of the Indian Army’s 15 Corps (Srinagar), 21 Corps & Military Secretary. He is currently Member, National Disaster Management Authority

Shared Trauma Underpins Sikh-Muslim Solidarity in Kashmir

The state should remember that its repression will only deepen solidarities amongst persecuted minorities and also Hindus who recognise the perversion of their faith.

On January 19, many Indians mourned what is considered to be the darkest episode in Kashmir’s history: the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in 1990 after they became the targets of heightened militancy in the region.

A decade after their exodus, Kashmir’s Sikh minority feared that they were the new targets of militants when unidentified gunmen killed thirty-five Sikh men on March 20, 2000, in a small hamlet named Chithi Singhpora in the Anantnag district.

Shocked at this turn of events, many in Kashmir feared a second exodus, this time of Kashmir’s Sikh community. But almost two decades later, a majority of the community continues to live in the Valley. Kashmiri Sikhs, who have now been in the region for over three generations, live in harmony with their Muslim counterparts, despite pervasive violence from both militants and the state.

I spent a year in Kashmir in 2018 as part of my PhD dissertation trying to understand why the Sikhs, a micro-minority like the Pandits, stayed. I interviewed over 70 Sikh families and 30 Muslim families.

What I learned was as eye-opening as it was unexpected.

When the calm returned and new facts emerged, the Indian state’s narrative surrounding Chithi Singhpora’s killers, which it alleged were militants from Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen trained in Pakistan, started to fall apart. Inconsistencies in the investigation and the revelation that the alleged militants on whom the blame was pinned were actually locals from a village called Panchalthan (killed in the Pathribal encounter five days later), made people believe that this was the ‘deep state’ at work.

Who perpetrated the Chithi Singhpora massacre might never be known, but for both Muslims and Sikhs in Kashmir, it was a reminder of their precarious position as minorities in the Indian Union. As 60-year old Nanak Singh, the only survivor of the Chithi Singhpora massacre articulated, “we are scapegoats”.

Also read: Chattisingpora: A Massacre, Its Lone Survivor and Its Aftermath

Over time, with hopes of any fair inquiry fading, Sikh anger against the Muslims dissipated and the difficult work of reconciliation began. Rather than leading to a mass exodus like that of the Kashmiri Pandits, both the Sikh and Muslim communities recognised the communal intent of the massacre and worked hard to prevent the weaponisation of this tragedy.

While reconciliation is never a process that is complete, it has led to the emergence of important solidarities between the two communities. Tested as they are by the difficult circumstances in the Valley, their persistence makes it possible for Sikhs to continue living in Kashmir.

Despite violence, most of my respondents made it clear that they faced no religious persecution from Muslims in Kashmir. I asked Geet Kaur*, who lost her husband in the massacre, whether she feared another massacre. She smiled at me before replying and said, “(E) kende ne asi kyun mariye apne Sikh bhravan nu? Aaj kitni militancy chal rahi hai, kade ni sadde naal kuch kitta. Kade police waliyan nu maarde ne ta Sikh hai ya Muslim hai nahin dekhde (They ask, why should we kill our Sikh brothers? Even in this heightened militancy, they haven’t let any harm come upon us. When they (the mujahideen) kill the police, they don’t see whether he is Muslim or Sikh)”.

Recounting the events of Chithi Singhpora, Kirpal, a 20-year-old prominent Sikh activist, told The Wire, “Jad Chithi Singhpora hoya si, saare leader sadde agge aake maafi mangde si (When Chitti Singhpora happened, all the [Muslim] leaders asked for our forgiveness)”.

In contrast, he said, India’s leaders showed little empathy when over 3,000 Sikhs were killed in the 1984 pogrom in Delhi and other cities following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Amanpreet, a 20-year-old student and Sikh activist, reiterated this sentiment and noted that if anything happened to the Sikhs here, the entire political leadership “will come within minutes and apologise”.

Not only is there mutual respect for the ‘other’ but there is the explicit recognition and practice of religious pluralism on the ground – what sociologist T.K. Oommen calls ‘consensual equilibrium’. One example of this is the relaxation on mobility restrictions that Kashmir’s local administration often makes to accommodate the practice of Sikh religious events. Yet another is the convivial acceptance of not eating together because of the different techniques of meat preparation in Sikh and Muslim customs.

Also read: Punjab’s History Explains its Support for the Rights of Kashmiris Today

For Kashmir’s Sikhs and Muslims, there is little trust in, and no willingness to depend on a state that they believe has failed them on numerous counts. The Sikhs feel deeply hurt that little has been done to deliver justice for victims of Chithi Singhpora and Delhi, as do the Muslims for the routine state excesses that have gone unpunished.

By building cross-community solidarities, both find, as sociologist Shruti Devgan writes, legitimacy for their own suffering in the experiences of the other.

As minority communities that have faced violence at the hands of the Indian state, and at different points of time, have fought for their independence from India, both Sikhs and Muslims in Kashmir harbour a shared understanding of the dangers that minorities face in an increasingly polarised India.

Many of my respondents commonly expressed empathy with Kashmiri Muslims during interviews and explained this by saying, “Assi ta sab dekheya hai (we have witnessed all this before)”, while drawing connections to Punjab’s own independence movement.

The shared sense of persecution saw Sikhs come out in support of Kashmiri Muslims the day after the Pulwama attack in February 2019, helping Kashmiris find their way back to safety; they were also among the loudest constituencies protesting the mistreatment meted out to Kashmiri Muslims in the rest of the country after Kashmir’s special status was scrapped.

In these times of divisiveness, the examples of Sikh-Muslim solidarities in Kashmir should serve as an important lesson for India’s current administration.

Despite trying hard to reign in protests that erupted after the Citizenship Amendment Act was signed into law, both through force and misinformation, the Modi government has been struggling to contain the fallout.

Over the last few days, Indians of all denominations have come out on the streets in support of their Muslim counterparts, contesting the Prime Minister’s suggestion that those who create violence can be identified by their clothes, and defying the administration’s attempts to paint these protests as ‘Muslim only’.

Also read: What about the Kashmiri Pandits? – Thirty Years Later, Make the Question Count

At Shaheen Bagh, the government’s attempts to add communal hues to the protest are actively being been countered. Hundreds of people at Shaheen Bagh commemorated the Pandit exodus with a two-minute silence. Prominent Pandit activist M.K. Raina, who was invited to speak at the protest site, remarked that the show of solidarity by Shaheen Bagh reflected a shared understanding of the pain that persecuted minorities have experienced in India. Just days before, a Sikh jatha performed kirtan, Hindus performed yagna, Muslims read from the Quran and Christians from the Bible.

For the many who continue to protest at Shaheen Bagh, it is not merely the site of India’s modern-day satyagraha, it is a space for shared commemoration. Of the injustice that Sikhs remember from years of state brutality in Punjab. The forgotten promises made to Pandits to repatriate them to their homeland. The demonisation that Muslims face every day in the nation they chose allegiance to after its painful partition. The caste violence that continues to dehumanise Dalits.

In coming together against the attack on India’s constitutionally enshrined secularism, the protestors at Shaheen Bagh are challenging the state’s hegemonic narratives surrounding the CAA and articulating resistance to any one monolithic idea of India, by draping the tricolour and singing Faiz in one voice, while still openly expressing their respective faiths and identities.

Far from being a deterrent, the state should remember that its repression will only deepen solidarities not only among persecuted minorities, but also among Hindus who recognise the perversion of their faith, and students who don’t want to inherit a bigoted country.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

Data for this article has been retrieved from interviews conducted by the author between March-October 2018 in the Kashmir Valley, as part of her dissertation research.

Khushdeep Kaur Malhotra is a fifth-year PhD candidate in Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University.

Chattisingpora: A Massacre, Its Lone Survivor and Its Aftermath

Twenty years later, victims recount the massacre of the Sikh community in Kashmir’s Anantnag district, and how it was followed by a spiral of cruelty instead of justice.

The final memory that Nanak Singh has of his teenage son is a bloodied hand fondling his face, while both of them lay bullet-ridden near the village Gurudwara.

On a cloudy evening of March 20, 2000, Chattisingpora, a hilltop hamlet in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district, became the site of a massacre that claimed the lives of 36 men and children of the region’s minority Sikh community.

“We were ordered to come out of our houses and line up near the village’s two Gurudwaras by gunmen wearing camouflage,” Nanak Singh told The Wire. He is a retired government employee, now in his 50s. Soon, he said, the gunmen began to empty their rifles at the terrified and clueless civilians.“The firing continued for ten minutes and after the first round, they reloaded their guns and shot at the bodies on the ground so as to leave no survivors. It is a miracle that only one bullet hit me in the hip.”

Nanak was the only survivor of the carnage. His son, Gurmeet Singh, and his brother were among those killed.

For over half an hour after the gunmen left, no one dared to come out of their houses.

While Nanak howled in pain and thirst, his cousin Sartaj Singh, himself shot in the chest, helped carry him home. “Sartaj’s life could have been saved if there was any first aid,” Nanak says. “He was one of the bravest men in the village.”

Villagers walk past one of the sites of killings. Credit: Saqib Mir

Nanak was later taken to a district hospital in Anantnag town, and thereafter shifted to Srinagar’s Army Base hospital.

“I have had three surgeries in my hip and it has now been completely replaced,” Nanak said. “Most certainly, the motive behind this attack was to scare the Kashmiri Sikhs into migrating, like the Kashmiri Pandits had. But I was born in Chattisingpora and I will die here.”

Also Read: Custodial Death of School Principal, a Jama’at Activist, Triggers Kashmir Protests

While the identity of the perpetrators remains unknown two decades later, Nanak suspects the state’s hand behind it. “The nature of the official investigation seems entirely fishy to me,” Nanak told The Wire. “The US president Bill Clinton was visiting India during that time, and it could have been a part of an attempt to portray Kashmir’s militancy as deeply communal.”

At least five children, aged between 15 and 16, were killed that night. One of them was Ajit Pal Singh, a 16-year-old student.

“In a few years after my brother’s killing, unable to come in terms with his death, my mother also passed away,” Harpreet Kaur, Ajit’s sister, told The Wire. “My elder brother Gurdeep Singh was also killed during the same night. He left behind an eight-month old daughter and a pregnant wife.”

The sites where the men and children were shot dead have been preserved by the villagers. Credit: Saqib Mir

The gunmen left behind a trail of broken families. Thirty women were widowed that night. One of them is Narinder Kaur, whose husband, Gurbakh Singh, and brother- in-law, Uttam Singh, were killed. “The entire street near the Gurudwara had turned into a river of crimson,” Narinder recalls. She is fatigued by endlessly recounting her story. “Nothing ever happens afterwards. Nobody has been brought to justice.”

Gurbakh also left behind two daughters. “I raised them through utmost hardship and tried to give them the best education possible,” Narinder said. One is now a dentist.

Also read: Do We Really Care for Kashmir or Just the Idea of It as a Part of India?

The village had preserved the two memorial sites where the massacre took place. The walls are pockmarked with bullet holes, each hole circled with yellow paint. The sites evoke the immense grief of the past twenty years; touching them, one is transported back to a moment of gunfire, shrieks and blood.

Until recently, one of the Gurudwaras also held a framed display of pictures of all the shaheeds, the martyrs, as they are known in the village. The Gurudwara recently burnt down in an accidental fire, and the photographs seem to have melted away.

Until recently, a glass frame held the photographs of all those were killed during this incident. Credit: Saqib Mir

The legacy of the massacre extends beyond the village. On March 25, days after the massacre, the Indian army claimed to have eliminated five “foreign militants” responsible for Chattisingpora. It was later revealed that all five men were locals and civilians who had been abducted from their homes. Their bodies, charred beyond recognition, were later exhumed from the forests of Pathribal in Anantnag district.

Also Read: In Photos | Kashmir Is Scarred by Another Year of Rage and Grief

In 2012, the Supreme Court ordered the army to court-martial the personnel accused of the fake encounter, but the proceedings were halted in their early stages, on the pretext of a lack of evidence.

The CBI, after a three-year investigation, charge-sheeted five army personnel in connection with the Pathribal fake encounter, but the case was later dismissed by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. In 2016, the families of the Pathribal victims approached the Supreme Court with a joint petition. Two decades, justice eludes them still.

On April 3, 2000, the ripples of Chattisingpora were also felt in the nearby Brakpora village. Eight civilians protesting the Pathribal killings were killed by a joint patrol of J&K police’s dreaded Special Operations Group and the CRPF.

A commission headed by the former high-court judge S.R. Pandian conducted an inquiry, concluding that the incident was “nothing short of an unwarranted brutal attack amounting to murder, attempt to murder and causing grievous and simple hurt, without any justification and authority.”

Despite this final, damning indictment, like in Chattisingpora and Pathribal, no criminal prosecutions were carried out – and the train of tragedies slips further into the past.

Umar Lateef Misgar reports and writes a regular column for The New Arab on politics and human rights issues in Kashmir. His work has previously appeared in the South China Morning Post, Dawn, The Independent, Ozy.com, ABC Australia amongst others.

Assam Professor Detained for Facebook Post Criticising Army’s Role in Kashmir

Papri Z. Banerjee was also suspended by her college and has been receiving rape and death threats.

New Delhi: A Guwahati-based professor of a private college was suspended from her job and thereafter detained by Assam police for questioning due to a Facebook post she made on the February 14 Pulwama terror attack.

On February 15, Papri Z. Banerjee, an assistant professor at the English department of a private institute – Icon Commerce College, Guwahati – on Facebook denounced the news of “45 brave young men killed” and called the attack an act of “cowardice of the highest order” that “would break the heart of any Indian”. She also said the security forces “rape their (Kashmiri) women”, “Maim and kill their children”, “slaughter their men” and “media constantly demonises them”. She asked, “And you expect no retaliation?”

Banerjee said, “The terrorism may be Islamic but Karma is very Indic, very Sanatana Dharma concept.”

On February 16, she told local news media that after her post was shared by Canada-based political activist Tarek Fateh, it went viral and she began receiving abuses from right wing trolls. Thereafter, a large number of twitter users began to tag Assam police to take action against her.

On February 16, she posted on Facebook that she was receiving rape, lynching and death threats because of the post. She requested the Assam police to take note of the names she had mentioned in her complaint. “If any harm were to come over me…they would be solely responsible,” she added.

Meanwhile, Assam police, responding to a tweet seeking action against her, said, “Thank you for bringing this to our notice. This is being looked into and appropriate action will be initiated.”

Screenshots of Assam police’s tweets and Papri Z. Banerjee’s Facebook post.

Though Banerjee removed the post later, the college authorities, on February 16, summoned her on the issue and later suspended her “with immediate effect” for making objectionable remarks on the Indian army.

She told a local news website that though her suspension letter was meant to be a private document, she was shocked to see that it was made public by the college authorities. “My friends called to say that they read it on social media.”

An IANS report said, “After her post went viral, right-wing Twitter handles shared the screenshot and tagged her college forcing them to suspend the professor.”

The Chandmari police station, taking suo moto cognisance of the matter, detained her for a few hours on February 16 to question her on the motive behind it. She was later released.

Speaking to local mediapersons, she, however, said that she “disagreed but didn’t disrespect our security forces”, adding, “I am depressed over the terror attack as any other Indian.”

According to sources, Banerjee, in a letter to her family, said she was “tired of facing constant abuse on social media” for her post and causing her family to also face the brunt of it. She has apparently decided to leave her home.

One Year On, Indian Army’s ‘Human Shield’ Still Awaits Justice

“The past one year has been like hell for us,” says Farooq Ahmad Dar’s ailing mother, adding “they have turned my son into a vegetable.”

Chill Brass, Budgam: Last year, on the morning of April 9, Farooq Ahmad Dar – a 27-year-old shawl weaver from Chill Brass village in central Kashmir’s Budgam district – had just cast his vote and was on his way to a neighbouring village to condole a relative’s death when he was asked to get off his Bajaj Pulsar bike. He had no idea that he’d be stopped midway by the army, tied in front of an army jeep, and then paraded for several hours through neighbouring villages.

Beaten up, his pheran torn, hands tied behind his back with ropes, Dar was forced to sit on the bonnet of the jeep by army personnel led by Major Leetul Gogoi of Indian Army’s 53 Rashtriya Rifles from Beerwah, Budgam camp. His bike was pushed aside, skidding off the hilly road. The army men then wrote “some warning message’’ on a piece of white paper, he recalls, which was pasted on his chest and tied with ropes around his ribs.

He was then driven through several villages for about six painful hours as he sat terrified and held the bonnet tightly. Between brief halts, his photos were taken. The whole act was meant to scare away potential protesters ahead who could clash with the patrolling army party, he says. The polling day of by-elections held last year recorded one of the lowest voter turnouts (7%) in Kashmir’s electoral history.

After sitting for a couple of hours on the jeep’s bonnet and driven around on the bumpy and curvy village roads in Budgam, the pain became unbearable for Dar. He’d given up hopes of coming out alive. He thought that day would be his last.

Later, a brief video of him tied in front of the army vehicle and passing by a village road emerged online, triggering widespread outrage. A warning message could also be heard in the short video clip that went viral on social media. A message blared from inside the army vehicle: “Aisa haal hoga pathhar walon ka, yeh haal hoga” (Those who pelt stones will meet the same fate).

About a year later, sitting in a small room of his three-room mud house, which was locked for more than six months following the incident, Dar still can’t come to terms with the fact that he survived that day. He also finds it hard to believe that he’s lived a year since the incident.

Dar considers himself – as he puts it – a year-old now. “I feel like April 9 is my new date of birth,” he says, sitting in his cramped room with some multi-coloured threads used for weaving shawls hanging on the wall. “Eight civilians were killed here that day,” he says, adding, “I could have been the 9th one… It’s a miracle that I’m alive today.”

Haunted by the incident which affected him both physically and psychologically, Dar is struggling to resume his normal life, but he is still unable to pick up the threads of his life before the incident took place. Only in the last few months has he been able to slowly get back to shawl weaving.

“It’s hard and painful to live with what was done to me,” he says. “I miss my earlier self… my life before that incident…,” he says.

Colourful threads hang on the wall of Dar’s cramped room. He says his earnings from weaving shawls has dipped as the pain in his left arm hasn’t subsided. Credit: Majid Maqbool

Before that morning, Dar lived a modest, quiet life, earning about Rs 3,000 a month, weaving shawls at home. Despite the meagre earnings, he says he was happy living with his old mother, earning enough to feed his small family of two.

After the incident, as his health began to fail, he spent months struggling to get proper sleep. The pain in his left arm refuses to subside and has troubled him for several months last year. He is unable to work at a stretch for more than a few hours.

Dar says now he barely earns Rs 1,000 a month, as he can’t work longer hours. He can’t sit still for long, feels restless and is unable to focus much on work.

“I’m still in pain,” he says, showing strips of prescribed medicines in his pheran pocket which he is supposed to take twice a day. “My body is swollen and I take medicine for heart ailment as well,” he adds.

Even now, whenever Dar sees an army vehicle on the road or going past his house, the April 9 incident flashes in front of his eyes. He says he sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night sweating, as he often gets nightmares. “I can’t sleep the way I used to before the incident”, he adds.

Following the incident, Dar’s medical examination at the Government Psychiatric Diseases Hospital in Srinagar had revealed that he’d developed “psychological problems including acute stress disorder.”

Until December last year, along with his ailing mother, Dar stayed away from his house, spending months at his brother and sister’s place in a neighbouring village. He was scared that something would happen to him again.

It pains him now when people say that he’s received compensation of Rs 10 lakh, recommended by the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), in its earlier report to the state government. “I didn’t get any compensation, but some people here say that I’ve taken Rs 10 lakh,” he says, adding that he’s offended by this talk. “I’ve not even taken Rs 10.”

Three months after the incident, Dar managed to get back his bike from the local police station. His Samsung smartphone, which was taken away from him that morning before he was tied in front of the army vehicle, is still in the army’s possession.

Despite being a voter and also having voted that morning, Dar says no one from the government – official, minister or local MLA – has bothered to visit his home after the incident hit the headlines and his ordeal became known. No NGO came forward to extend help either or provide legal support to fight the case, he points out, except for his relatives and people from his village who came forward to sympathise with him. The SHRC took up his case though, having recently handled it over to the high court after the state government turned down its recommendation to compensate Dar.

“There is no scheme or policy in vogue in the state that covers payment of compensation in a matter like the present case. Also, the commission is handicapped in going into the conduct of the army,” the government said in its report to SHRC.

Had that few seconds-long video somehow not surfaced online, Dar says no one would have believed him – and no one would have known what was done to him. “Initially, they even tried to say that the video was not from Kashmir. But the reality soon came out in that video for all people to see,” he says.

Fazi Begum, Dar’s mother, is a heart patient. She laments that her son can’t work properly as his health has since deteriorated. She is thankful though that he survived that day. Now she doesn’t let him go out of her sight for long. She is always worried about him, especially when he leaves home. “My heart is weak. I can’t see him in pain,” she says, adding that “his tummy and face are swelling.”

The mother and son have preserved the front page of a local daily a day after his ordeal hit the headlines, with his photo captioned ‘HUMAN SHIELD’. Credit: Majid Maqbool.

“The past one year has been like hell for us,” she goes on, her eyes brimming with tears while looking at her son, adding “they have turned my son into a vegetable…”

Before the incident, she’d begun to look for a suitable match for Dar, her third and youngest son, hoping that he’d marry soon. But the incident also affected his marriage prospects. “Now some families come to inquire here and after seeing his condition and that of our house, I never hear back from them,” she says, disappointed over the delay in his marriage. “Allah knows when he will be married now…”

More than the compensation, Dar wants justice, which he is still awaiting. The next hearing of his case is on April 4.

He says the army men led by Major Gogoi who tied him in front of the army jeep should be booked for the inhuman act and the subsequent pain inflicted on him and his mother. “But instead of bringing them to book, you saw how the Indian media projected that army major as a hero,” he says in disbelief. “There can’t be a bigger joke than that.”

Dar says the unforgettable incident will stay with him – and haunt him – for the rest of his life. “Every single day I relive the horrors of that day,” he says, pulling down a large printout of his photo which he has hung on a wall in his room. Cut out from the front page of a local daily a day after his ordeal hit the headlines, the photo shows him helplessly tied in front of the army jeep. Below his picture is written in capital letters: “HUMAN SHIELD.”

“If there is still no justice,” Dar says after a brief pause, gathering his thoughts while holding the photo in his hands, “then there is nothing left…”

Majid Maqbool is a journalist and editor based in Srinagar, Kashmir.