Report from Indian Occupied Kashmir: Let us have another child. If our Faiz gets killed at least we will have one more to call our own

Monitoring Desk: “Let us have another child. If our Faiz gets killed at least we will have one more to call our own”.

These words are self-explanatory, expressing uncertainties of mothers about wellbeing of their children living in caged Indian Occupied Kashmir.
Every person irrespective of gender and age lives with horror and fear of losing their family members because they know that their fathers, brothers, sons, daughters, wives and even mothers can be abducted, tortured and killed and thrown at roadside by Indian Armed forces.

A Fact Finding Reports conducted by Indian civil society members about Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK) help to understand gravity of atrocities being faced by Kashmiris in IoK.

The titled “Women’s Voice: Fact Finding Report on Kashmir” was documented during 17 to 21 September 2019 by five-membered team comprising of Annie Raja, Kawaljit Kaur, Pankhuri Zaheer from National Federation Indian Women, Poonam Kaushik from Pragatisheel Mahila Sangathan and Syeda Hameed from Muslim Women’s Forum.

Team visited Srinagar, several villages in the districts of Shopian, Pulwama and Bandipora.

Pointers of Fact Finding Report are hereunder:

Shops closed, hotels closed, schools, colleges, institutes and universities closed, streets deserted was the first visual impact as we drove out from the airport.

Punitive environments were felt that blocked breathing freely.

The picture of Kashmir that rises before our eyes is not the populist image; shikara, houseboat, lotus, Dal Lake. It is that of women, Zubeida, Shamima, Khurshida standing at the door of their homes, waiting. Waiting and waiting for their 14, 15, 17 and 19 year old sons. Their last glimpse is embedded in each heart, they dare not give up hope but they know it will be a long wait before they see their tortured bodies or their corpses… if they do. ‘We have been caged’ these words we heard everywhere. Doctors, teachers, students, workers asked us, “What would you do in Delhi if internet services were cut off for 5 minutes?” We had no answer.

Across all villages of the four districts, peoples’ experiences were the same. They all spoke of lights, which had to be turned off around 8PM after Maghreb prayers. In Bandipora, we saw a young girl who made the mistake of keeping a lamp lit to read for her exam on the chance that her school may open soon. Army men angered by this breach of ‘curfew’, jumped the wall to barge in. Father and son, the only males in the house were taken away for questioning. ‘What questions?’, no one dared ask.

The two have been detained since then. ‘We insist that men should go indoors after 6 PM. Man or boy seen after dusk is a huge risk. If absolutely necessary, we women go outside’. These words were spoken by Zarina from a village near Bandipora district headquarters. ‘In a reflex action, my four year old places a finger on her lips when she hears a dog bark after dusk. Barking dogs mean an imminent visit by army. I can’t switch on the phone for light so I can take my little girl to the toilet. Light shows from far and if that happens our men pay with their lives’.

Boys as young as 14 or 15 are taken away, tortured, some for as long as 45 days. Their papers are taken away, families not informed. Old FIR’s are not closed. Phones are snatched; collect it from the army camp they are told. No one in his senses ever went back, even for a slightly expensive phone. A woman recounted how they came for her 22 year old son. But since his hand was in plaster they took away her 14 year old instead. In another village we heard that two men were brutally beaten. No reason. One returned, after 20 days, broken in body and spirit. The other is still in custody. One estimate given to us was 13000 boys lifted during this lockdown. They don’t even spare our rations. During random checking of houses which occurs at all odd hours of the night, the army persons come in and throw out the family. A young man working as SPO told us. ‘We keep a sizeable amount of rice, pulses, edible oil in reserve. Kerosene is mixed in the ration bins, sometimes that, sometimes koyla’.

The living people are inadvertently tortured by the dead. ‘People die without warning or mourning. How will I inform my sisters about their mother’s death?’ Ghulam Ahmed’s voice was choked. ‘They are in Traal, in Pattan. I had to perform her soyem without her children’. The story was the same wherever we went. People had no means of reaching out to loved ones. 43 days were like the silence of death.

Public transportation was zero. People who had private cars took them out only for essential chores. Women stood on roadsides, flagging cars and bikes for rides. People stopped and helped out; helplessness of both sides was their unspoken bond.

At a Lalla Ded Women’s Hospital in Srinagar several young women doctors expressed their absolute frustration at the hurdles that had been placed in their way since the abrogation of Article 370. ‘There are cases where women cannot come in time for deliveries. There are very few ambulances, the few that are running are stopped at pickets on the way. The result? There are several cases of overdue deliveries that produce babies with birth deformities. It is a lifelong affliction, living death for parents”. Conversely, we were told that several women are delivering babies prematurely due to the stress and khauf (fear) in the present condition. “It feels like the government is strangling us and then sadistically asking us to speak at the same time,’ a young woman doctor said as she clutched her throat to show how she felt.

A senior doctor from Bandipora Hospital told us that people come from Kulgam, Kupwara, and other districts. Mental disorders, heart attacks, today there are more cases than he could ever recall. For emergencies junior doctors desperately look for seniors; there is no way of reaching them on phone. If they are out of the premises, they run on the streets shouting, asking, searching in sheer desperation. One orthopaedic doctor from SKIMS was stopped at the army imposed blockade while he was going for duty. He was held for 7 days. Safia in Shopian had cancer surgery. ‘I desperately need a check up in case it has recurred. Baji, I can’t reach my doctor. The only way is to go to the city, but how do I get there? And if I do, will he be there?’ Ayushman Bharat, an internet based scheme, cannot be availed by doctors and patients.

Women in villages stood before us with vacant eyes. ‘How do we know where they are? Our boys who were taken away, snatched away from our homes. Our men go to the police station, they are asked to go to the headquarters. They beg rides from travellers and some manage to get there. On the board are names of ‘stone pelters’ who have been lodged in different jails, Agra, Jodhpur, Ambedkar, Jhajjar.’ A man standing by adds, ‘Baji we are crushed. Only a few of us who can beg and borrow, go hundreds of miles only to be pushed around by hostile jail guards in completely unfamiliar cities.’

At Gurdwaras we met women who said they have always felt secure in Kashmir. ‘Molestation of women in rest of India about which we read is unheard of in Kashmir’. Young women complained they were harassed by army, including removal of their niqab

‘Army pounces on young boys; it seems they hate their very sight. When fathers go to rescue their children they are made to deposit money, anywhere between 20000 to 60000’. So palpable is their hatred for Kashmiri youth that when there is the dreaded knock on the door of a home, an old man is sent to open it. ‘We hope and pray they will spare a buzurg. But their slaps land on all faces, regardless whether they are old or young, or even the very young. In any case, Baji, we keep our doors lightly latched so they open easily with one kick’. The irony of these simply spoken words!

Tehmina from Anantnag recently urged her husband, ‘Let us have another child. If our Faiz gets killed at least we will have one more to call our own. Abdul Haleem was silent. He could see the dead body of his little boy lying on his hands even as she spoke these words. ‘Yeh sun kar, meri ruh kaanp gayi,” he tells us.

A thirty-year-old lawyer from Karna was found dead in his rented accommodation. He was intensely depressed. Condolence notice was issued by Secy Bar Association. Immediately after that he was taken into custody. Why? We spoke to a JK policeman. All of them have been divested of their guns and handed dandas. ‘How do you feel, losing your guns?’ ‘Both good and bad’ came the reply. ‘Why?’ Good because we were always afraid of them being snatched away. Bad because we have no means now to defend ourselves in a shootout. One woman security guard said ‘Indian govt wants to make this a Palestine. This will be fought by the us, Kashmiris’. One young professional told us, ‘We want freedom. We don’t want India, we don’t want Pakistan. We will pay any price for this. Ye Kashmiri khoon hai. Koi bhi qurbani denge’.

Everywhere we went there were two inexorable sentiments. First, desire for Azadi; they want nothing of either India or Pakistan. The humiliation and torture they have suffered for 70 years has reached a point of no return. Abrogation of 370 some say has snapped the last tie they had with India. Even those people who always stood with the Indian State have been rejected by the Govt. ‘So, what is the worth in their eyes, of us, ordinary Kashmiris?’ Since all their leaders have been placed under PSA or under house arrest, the common people have become their own leaders. Their suffering is untold, so is their patience. The second, was the mothers anguished cries (who had seen many children’s corpses with wounds from torture) asking for immediate stop to this brutalisation of innocents. Their children’s lives should not be snuffed out by gun and jackboots.

As we report our experiences and observations of our stay in Kashmir, we end with two conclusions. That the Kashmiri people have in the last 50 days shown an amazing amount of resilience in the face of brutality and blackout by the Indian government and the army. The incidents that were recounted to us sent shivers down our spines and this report only summarises some of them. We salute the courage and resoluteness of the Kashmiri people. Secondly, we reiterate that nothing about the situation is normal. All those claiming that the situation is slowly returning to normalcy are making false claims based on distorted facts.

We Demand:

1. FOR NORMALCY Withdraw the Army and Paramilitary forces with immediate effect
2. FOR CONFIDENCE BUILDING Immediately Cancel all cases/ FIRs and Release all those, especially the youth who are under custody and in jail since the Abrogation of Article 370
3. FOR ENSURING JUSTICE Conduct inquiry on the widespread violence and tortures unleashed by the Army and other security personnel.
4. COMPENSATION to all those families whose loved ones lost lives because of non-availability of transportation and absence of communication.

In Addition:

• Immediately restore all communication lines in Kashmir including internet and mobile networks.
• Restore Article 370 and 35 A.
• All future decisions about the political future of Jammu and Kashmir must be taken through a process of dialogue with the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
• All army personnel must be removed from the civilian areas of Jammu and Kashmir.
• An time bound inquiry committee must be constituted to look into the excesses committed by the army.

Meanwhile, a statement on the situation in Kashmir has been released by a group of over 500 Indians academics and scientists.

The Statement stated as:

We are a group of Indian academics and scientists.

We are writing to express our deep concern about the crisis in Kashmir that has now persisted for over a month, and which was precipitated by the government’s decision to de-operationalize Article 370 of the Constitution and to end Jammu and Kashmir’s full statehood. Since then, the government has restricted communications in Kashmir,  detained opposition leaders and dissidents, and flooded the state with security personnel.

As signatories to this statement, we hold various views on the issue of Article 370 and other substantive questions about the conflict in Kashmir. However, we agree on the following points:

• We are appalled by the government’s decision to restrict telecommunications and the internet in Kashmir for over a month. We understand that landlines have been restored in some parts of Kashmir, but since landline teledensity in Kashmir is below 1% according to the government’s own statistics , this measure has failed to provide substantive relief to Kashmir’s residents. In our own institutions, we have witnessed students suffering because they are unable to maintain contact with their families. Moreover, credible reports suggest that these restrictions have made it difficult for ordinary people in Kashmir to procure  medical and essential supplies   or even for children to attend school.
• We believe the government’s actions in detaining and restricting the communications of  opposition leaders and dissidents in Kashmir are deeply undemocratic. Whatever views one might hold about these individuals, a fundamental norm in a democracy is that the party in power does not have the right to lock up its political opponents when they have not even been accused of any crimes.
• We are disturbed by the multiple reports of human rights violations in Kashmir by Indian security forces. , ,

We would like to express our solidarity with the people of Kashmir and offer our support to those outside Kashmir, who have been cut off from their families and friends as a result of these decisions taken by the government of India.

We remind the government that it is duty-bound to uphold the rights and protect the welfare of all of its citizens. In line with these obligations, we call on the government to immediately restore full communications in Kashmir, lift the security restrictions that are hampering ordinary life, release dissidents and opposition leaders, and conduct transparent and impartial investigations into the allegations of human rights abuses.

List of Signatories (Name and Affiliation)

(The institutional affiliations provided here are only for the purpose of identification and do not indicate the official positions of these organizations.)

Latest Situation of IoK reported in media on September 24, 2019:

According to their data collection from Indian Occupied Kashmir, all small and major sectors of life including business and commerce, education, transport, horticulture and tourism in IOK, particularly the Valley, are virtually defunct with unprecedented communications blockade adding more to the prevailing uncertainty.

Transport sector is among the one that has been affected the worst as 50,000 vehicles stand grounded since 5th of August.

The tourism front has also taken a hit due to the clampdown. All hotels and houseboats are almost empty and as such are running in huge losses.

Amid the lockdown, cordon and search operations are being conducted at various places in IOK with the aim to trace the pro-freedom voices and silence them. In a series of such latest operations in different areas of Kishtwar district, Indian forces arrested at least 3 youth.

Indian officials confirmed that as many as 343 politicians, business leaders and young boys have been booked under the black law, PSA and shifted to jails in India’s UP and Haryana states since the revocation of the special status. However, it is believed that the number of actual people imprisoned outside jails under the PSA is far more than the one stated by the officials.

Indian government has decided to reopen around 50,000 temples, which were reportedly closed down over the years in IOJ&K. In this regard, Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy has said that the government has set up a committee to survey the temples closed or destroyed and idols defaced.

Senior Cong leader Ghulam Nabi Azad speaking to reporters in Jammu, today, termed the situation in the Kashmir valley as very bad. He also said there is no mark of freedom of speech in J&K.