‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ killings turn apple-town into a ghost town

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, May 27:  Indiscriminate firing from AK-47 rifles on five civilians associated with the mobile telephony operations on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday has abruptly turned Sopore---the apple rich township in northern Kashmir that was bustling with business until beginning of this month---into a ghost town. Everything from the Government offices and banks to the street vendors and private businesses, shuts before the sunset even as the threat of an unknown guerrilla group ‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ has brought uncertainty to the livelihood of thousands of the Kashmiri youths working for the private telecommunication companies.

Twenty-six-year-old Rafeeq Bhat of Handwara died on the spot in the first shootout at his BSNL franchise office-cum-showroom at Shah Faisal Market. The owner, along with another employee, sustained injuries. On previous Saturday, unidentified ‘militants’ had started the operation of making entire mobile phone services dysfunctional in Sopore with a grenade attack on the premises of a tower operator at Kralteng. It, however, didn’t explode.

In the third attack, 55-year-old Ghulam Hassan Dar was shot dead when gunmen pumped 16 AK-47 bullets into his body at Dooru, on the outskirts of Sopore on Tuesday. Dar had an Airtel tower at his home and a services recharge outlet. According to the residents, six “militants” had appeared at his home last week and asked him to close down his mobile phone operation and business. He defied the diktat.

In the fourth consecutive attack on Wednesday, gunmen fired upon Imtiyaz Ahmad Sofi alias Nadru close to his home at Saad Mohalla of Pattan. Nadru operates three signal towers of Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone at his premises. With gunshots in his thigh, he was evacuated and rushed to Bone and Joint Hospital at Barzulla in Srinagar.

“Every day an attack betrays incompetence and indifference of the State government. It also indicates total helplessness of the ordinary citizens. Everybody feels insecure. Nobody dares to move out after sunset as the fear of the gunmen has gripped Sopore after 5 years. Now, the gunmen are calling the shots and killing their targets at will. Nobody from the government or the ruling coalition has uttered a word of concern or condemnation. Even the separatist leaders are dumbfounded, though Syed Ali Shah Geelani has dismissed these attacks as terrorist actions. Yasin Malik has asked Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salah-ud-din to hold a probe. None of them has come forward with a word of reassurance to the residents of Sopore. None of them has called for a protest shutdown”, Said one Ghulam Mohammad Lone who has a tower at his home and has closed it down.

Not one of the people one talks to in Sopore is ready to say a word on record. “This is all off the record. Don’t please publish my name”, they plead invariably. “After floods and other natural calamities, this is a serious threat to Kashmir’s economy. It will render thousands of the Kashmiri youths jobless”, said Tanvir Ahmad who works as an engineer with one of the companies. “Our company has already shifted its master control switching facility to Jammu. Now it has got another excuse handy to shift its operations and terminate our jobs”, he added.

It is probably for the first time that the gunmen, widely believed to be the cadres of a formidable militant group but suspected by Geelani and other separatists as the “counter-terror cadres” mentioned by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, are translating their threat into action.

In the posters issued on the banner of ‘Lashkar-e-Islami’, commander Saifullah had, earlier this month, made it very much clear that the people who would show defiance to the diktat would be killed after the deadline of seven days “inside their homes”. He had described “telecommunication” as “one of India’s dirtiest conspiracies done in collaboration with the Western countries to weaken the jihadist movement”. “Because of this telecommunication, many of our able commanders were got arrested or martyred. Our movement and jihadist outfits have suffered great reverses because of it”, Saifullah said in the text.

Threatening death to the defaulters, the poster said that by their defiance the delinquents would “simply invite death”. “If you don’t shut down all these towers, supply and battery systems and recharge facilities, we will kill you after seven days inside your homes”.  After the four attacks, Aircel’s operations in Sopore have stopped completely while as towers are functioning but recharge handling has stopped in Baramulla and Pattan. Residents complained of “weak signals” and total disruption of Internet data services in Baramulla. They said that the operations of other service providers---Airtel, Idea, Vodafone and BSNL---had also suffered badly.

Aircel’s Kashmir Business Manager B.K. Kaul insisted that he had “no knowledge of the total closure of operations in Baramulla and Sopore. “I will check for the latest and get back to you”, Mr Kaul told State Times but he didn’t keep his word.

Notwithstanding the fact that Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Hizbul Mujahideen have disassociated themselves from the incidents of the last five days, besides the separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s outright condemnation, none of the separatist leaders or groups has called for a shutdown. “If they equivocally attribute these actions to Parrikar’s terrorists, what prevents them from issuing a call? Previously, they have put Kashmir on fire with such calls at the drop of a hat”, one Ghulam Hassan of Sopore pointed out. “Only the conduct of our separatist leaders makes it clear that it is all the handiwork of their militants”, he asserted.

Caught in an unenviable situation, Geelani on Wednesday evening reiterated that the offensive against telecom operators in Sopore and Baramulla was “terrorism” aimed at “defaming our movement”. He asserted that there should be an investigation as India, according to him, could exploit these attacks to stigmatize the separatist struggle.

Geelani said that the persons or the agencies involved in these types of incidents are not only the enemies of the humanity but they are also working against the freedom struggle of the Kashmiri nation and this act is purely a terrorist act. “The picture about the killers is unclear yet but the recent statement of the Indian defense minister Mr. Manohar Parrikar that ‘target killings and terrorism is the solution of the militancy in Kashmir’ gives birth to many questions and doubts and in this perspective we can’t rule-out the another angle of these actions that it may be the deliberate attempt to put the terrorist tag on the freedom struggle of Kashmiris”, he said.

Geelani described telecommunication as “a life line in the modern era and the life looks impossible without this system”. “It is no crime to work in this sector and it can’t be the base to kill anybody”. He said that the target killing of the employees and people related to the telecom companies in Sopore is “beyond the intellect and we fail to understand that who people and what objectives are behind these attacks?” He added: “Mujahideen organizations should also investigate these incidents at their own level and find out the real culprits and objectives hidden behind these attacks”.

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