Why Er Rashid alone seeks action against suspended CMO

Continued silence on Pulwama rape has exposed NC’s, PDP’s double standards

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Mar 23: One has essentially got to be a resident Kashmiri to understand why all and sundry of politics in the Valley were up in arms over the alleged rape-cum-murder of two young woman in Shopian and why the poor Independent MLA from Langet is lonely in condemning a senior doctor’s rape on a hapless young woman at his clinic in Pulwama. Four Policemen, who were widely perceived to have either committed rape and murder on Asiya Jan and Neelofar Jan of Shopian or mutilated the evidences to shield the “real culprits”, were officials of the state government. Chief Medical Officer of Pulwama, who has been captured on video while committing rape on a young woman at his illegally operating clinic in the adjoining Pulwama district, is also an employee of the state government. So, why an uproar over the rape done in Shopian and total silence on the other exposed in Pulwama?

There is one difference between the two. The ‘victims’ were found dead in Shopian and the victim in Pulwama will have to die a many times everyday as long as she lives. There is yet another difference: That of Shopian was based more on perception than on material scientific evidence and that of Pulwama stands recorded on a video which has been watched by most of the Kashmiri politicians and mediapersons but not disputed by any one of them. While the politicians---from Hurriyat to National Conference---have been tightlipped on the horrible incident in Pulwama, media has underplayed it to the extent of a dry filler.

Isn’t then the third difference between the two episodes most meaningful: SP Javed Matoo and Dy SP Rohit Basgotra have killed militants while working in Special Operations Group (SOG) of J&K Police and the South Kashmir doctors---gynecologist Dr Nighat Shaheen and CMO Dr Ghulam Qadir Sofi in particular---have had the honour of confirming rape and murder of the Shopian females and thus getting the Police officers in the dock. It is easy to imagine what the situation would have been today in Kashmir if the rapist would have been from Police or any other counter-insurgent group. It would have been simply ‘Ragda 2010’ and Omar Abdullah’s government would have fallen in the last three days.

Thus a hundred rapes, recorded on camera, shall have to be ignored if done by someone who has done the great service of raping the dignity of India’s soldiers in Kashmir! The constraint is understandable not only for the Valley’s separatist camp that has been at war with India for 20 years but also for the mainstream Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which has been desperately trying to steal Hurriyat’s domain for New Delhi since 1999. It is also understandable for the National Conference-led coalition government of Mr Omar Abdullah who has taken over not only the charge of the new Chief Minister but also every bit of the PDP agenda to the extent that the present dispensation appears to be simply an extension of the Mufti-led regime of 2002-05.

Because of this inheritance, Omar has outsmarted PDP in Shopian. Mufti had spent only Rs 9 Lakh of the poor taxpayers’ money on Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s release from Ranchi Jail, his helicopter flight and the treatment at a hospital in Mumbai. Omar has gone a step further by spending Rs 13 Lakh on hiring the services of the country’s leading lawyers only to ensure that none of the Police officials arrested in Shopian gets bail from any court of law. Thus both have got to be tightlipped on the rape in Pulwama that involves a doctor already rewarded by the government for his “honesty and integrity”. Those who must be waiting for cancellation of Dr Sofi’s registration by the competent authority at Directorate of Health Services Kashmir may be living in a fool’s paradise. Departmental inquiry is bound to end up as an eyewash as the current session of Legislature in Jammu has not sent any note of alarm to Srinagar.

The unmoved motion against the CMO has already failed in 1:88 for MLA Langet Engineer Rashid has been the one-odd peoples’ representative disturbed by the rape in Pulwama. Congress may not be essentially permissive of the guilt committed by India-bashers but it has no cause of action as the incident has taken place in Kashmir, not in Jammu or Ladakh. BJP’s what-to-us is equally comprehensible as the victim has the disqualification of being a Muslim and the additional disqualification of being a Kashmiri.

This perhaps explains why those indicted by Jan Commission and our own separatist-friendly SIT are rounded up in seconds and those held guilty by CBI are continuously working as government advocates and government doctors.

END