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Lifted from Katmandu, Srinagar trader untraced since Aug 2000

Dehumanized politicians like Omar, Mehbooba, Mirwaiz and Gilani, do least care for ordinary Kashmiris: Traumatized mother Zubeda

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 23: Zubeda of Safakadal, a downtown interior in Srinagar, has left no stone unturned to trace her eldest son, Ghulam Mohammad Sofi (46), in the last 12 years. But her sighs and sobs before the who’s who of Jammu and Kashmir politicians have lost in futility. Traumatized by the continued disappearance of her son, she views all of them---from Dr Farooq Abdullah to Mufti Mohammad Sayeed; from Omar Abdullah to Mehbooba Mufti; from Syed Ali Shah Geelani to Mirwaiz Umar Farooq; and, from Professor Gani to Yasin Malik---as “dehumanized politicians”.

“Their politics and activities are limited to their personal agenda of making money and building fortunes for their own sons and daughters”, 65-year-old housewife Zubeda complained to Early Times. She claimed that all of the state’s “self-styled leaders” remained unmoved and many of them even posed to be concerned but none of them provided her an iota of support in regaining her son. A voluminous folder of documents she carries in an extreme state of distress speaks how she ran from pillar to post in search of Ghulam Mohammad but none of the individuals and institutions helped her get a look of her son for over a decade.

During her untold tribulation, Zubeda not only filed habeas corpus petition in Supreme Court of Nepal but also knocked at the doors of National Human Rights Commission. Separatist politicians like Geelani told her it was none of their business to call for shutdown over the Kashmiris disappeared in countries other than India. Mirwaiz and Malik assured her “falsely” that they were striving hard to find her son. Mehbooba obliged her by writing a chit to the IG CID during PDP-led coalition government, Dr Ashok Bhan. Omar Abdullah, then Minister of State for External Affairs, told her that he would get Mohammad traced “in 10 days” but he did not keep his word even after becoming Jammu and Kashmir’s “Chief Minister” 10 years later.

Then Deputy Chief Minister, Mangat Ram Sharma, according to her, was the only politician who took pains in searching her son and wrote forceful letters to then union Minister for External Affairs, L K Advani, and AICC chief, Sonia Gandhi. All of them told her that they would contact people from Delhi to Katmandu and return her son to the agonized family. That, however, happened never.

Sonia Gandhi gave her a patient hearing and asked one of her aides to write down her facts and pull up all concerned. Zubeda was asked to return to 10-Janpath after 10 days. “When I visited there again on the due date, I was curtly sent back with the reply that Madam was not present at home. Later, I learned that she was very much there. Nobody bothered to keep his or her word”. Her meetings with incumbent union Home Minister, P Chidambaram, proved no less futile.

Parallel to her shuttling between the offices and residences of politicians and Government officials, Zubeda was cheated by touts at Delhi’s Tihar Jail. Two men assured her there that they would arrange her meeting with Ghulam Mohammad if she coughed up an amount of Rs one lakh. “I didn’t have enough cash. I disposed off two of my gold bangles and arranged the money. They took the cash and vanished”, she narrated. She was, nevertheless, all praise for the jail superintendent who got all the deteues paraded in an open orchard to the best of her satisfaction. “Ghulam Mohammad was not among them”.

During the thorny course of her unyielding search for the son, Zubeda’s husband has died. Two of her sons are still looking after their shrinking business---two shops selling Kashmir handicrafts and one more leather goods. Third of the siblings has left both Nepal and India and settled at Boston in USA, where, she said, he was working with a company. In 1995, Zubeda has shifted her residence to Gulbarga Colony in Barzulla area of Srinagar and the only male member in her family is her young domestic help. Alongwith her second son’s young wife, she has been shuttling between Srinagar, Delhi and Katmandu.

Officials in J&K Police refused to make comment on a case of ‘involuntary disappearance’ that had occurred in a foreign country. They still insisted that neither CID nor the local Police Station of Safakadal had anything adverse in their records about any member of the Sofi family of Shahkadal (Watalkadal) in Nawakadal area. Ghulam Mohammad’s story of “custodial disappearance”, as narrated by members of his family, has appeared not only in Urdu and English dailies in Srinagar but also leading newspapers and magazines, including ‘Nation Weekly’ in Katmandu.

Zubeda swore by the Holy Scripture that neither Ghulam Mohammad nor any other member of her family had any kind of connection with militancy or state agencies. According to her, Ghulam Mohammad had lived entire of his life in Mumbai and Katmandu while first working with the leading Kashmir handicrafts export firm, Cottage Industries Exposition (CIE) and later establishing his own business in Nepal. “He came just two or three times from 1975 to 2000 to Kashmir and stayed here briefly on occasion of a relative’s death or marriage. He would return quickly as he felt suffocated in the turbulent valley”, she asserted.

 According to Zubeda, Ghulam Mohammad, who lived in Katmandu alongwith wife Rosy, one young daughter and a son, besides three more brothers, was picked up by men of Nepalese Police (media believes they were from National Investigation Department) when he was enjoying a treat with a friend’s family on the festival of Gai Jatra on August 16^th, 2000. His younger brother, Wazir Ahmad, was picked up for another place and detained for 10 days. They were asked questions: why two of Kashmiri speaking militants had visited their shop and taken a tea. “It is a fact that two Kashmiri strangers, possibly militants, had appeared on Ghulam Mohammad’s shop and asked him about his father, who, according to them, knew their grandfather”, Zubeda admitted. She claimed that the duo neither made any shopping nor traded anything.

“I and my husband rushed to Nepal and after listening to details from Wazir and Mohammad’s friends, approached senior Police officials. “Everybody, from Home Minister Koirala to DGP, IGP and DIG remained tightlipped. Some of them later maintained that Mohammad had been handed over to the Indian High Commission. “Embassy officials told us repeatedly that they had passed Mohammad to the Indian Police. They advised us to contact Delhi Police. We even went to Supreme Court in Nepal. Judge expressed his helplessness and said that he would order a police raid if the family identified any person or place. We said how can we”, Zubeda revealed.

Back in Delhi, she shuttled between different offices, ministries and departments. Among others, she met then MP from Srinagar and union MoS for External Affairs, Omar Abdullah. “He assured me that he would recover my son within 10 days. Ten years on, he is still untraced through Omar Sahab is now Chief Minister”, she said. “All of them, including Advani, Jaswant Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel, Ram Vilas Paswan, Farooq Abdullah, Mufti Sayeed cheated us. They told me lies and did not make a feeble attempt to trace my son”, Zubeda sobbed.

“I approached Geelani Sahab and requested him to highlight the disappearance of my son through a shutdown. He told us that he was not for enforcing strikes on the disappearance of Kashmiris in countries other than India. I begged before Mirwaiz Umar and Yasin Malik. They were equally inhuman, told me lies. Mirwaiz even came to Nepal for a conference. He assured me that he would take up the matter with the Nepalese, Indian and Pakistani authorities. He did never”, Zubeda narrated, bitterly. “They are concerned only about influential people, not the poor, ordinary Kashmiris”, she observed about the state’s mainstream and separatist politicians. “Most of them told me they would look into my complaint and recover my son within 10 days. They never kept their word”, she added.

Die-hard Zubeda approached NHRC with a petition on 24-07-2001. It was admitted on 18-09-2001 and case No: 135/9/2001-02 was registered. On 26-09-2001, NHRC issued a notice, asking senior officials of the respondent state to appear in person with a detailed report with three months. They neither appeared nor submitted a report in the last 11 years. “Even my son is a murderer, don’t I have a right to see his face, talk to him in jail”, Zubeda exclaimed in a fit of emotion, tears trickling down her cheeks. She complained that neither Amnesty International nor International Committee on Red Cross (ICRC) helped her find the missing son.

Meanwhile, Ghulam Mohammad’s daughter Mariam has reached her Class 12^th and son is a student of Class 10^th in a Katmandu school. They were just kids when Police wiped out shelter, shortly after a royal family member gunned down a dozen of his family at the nearby Palace.

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Dead body of ‘Sikh engineer’ exhumed for DNA testing

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 21: An unidentified dead body, that had been fished out from river Jhelum at Chursoo, Awantipore, earlier this week and was later suspected to be that of a missing Executive Engineer, was exhumed today for DNA fingerprinting under orders of District Magistrate of Pulwama. Exhumation was conducted by thee teams of doctors and forensic experts under the supervision of an executive magistrate besides two Police officers.

Informed sources told Early times that relatives of the missing engineer, Jagdeep Singh Bali (58), who had disappeared in mysterious circumstances on February 18^th from his residence in Magarmal Bagh locality of Srinagar, had approached Deputy Commissioner of Pulwama, Shafat Noor Barlas, on Thursday with the petition that the unidentified body buried at Awantipore on Wednesday last, be exhumed for proper identification and DNA testing. The District Magistrate conceded and ordered exhumation of the body by medical and forensic experts.

Director Health Services Kashmir, Dr Saleem-ur-Rehman, constituted a team of three doctors for this purpose. Acting on orders of the District Magistrate and SP Awantipore, Principal of Government Medical College Srinagar constituted another team of the forensic experts from Department of Forensic Medicine. Yet another team of experts came from Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) of the state Home Department.

Under the supervision of SP Awantipore, Mohammad Irshad, and SDPO Shaheed Gunj, Imtiyaz Ahmad Parray (IPS), exhumation was carried out in the afternoon today near Awantipore. Relatives of the missing engineer, including his son and one of the two daughters and wife, were reportedly present on the spot.

SDPO Shaheed Gunj, Imtiyaz Ahmad Parray, told Early Times that the teams of medical and forensic experts exhumed the body and collected necessary tissue and other samples for DNA fingerprinting. Since the family members and relatives of the missing engineer failed to conclusively identify the body as that of Jagdeep Singh Bali, the samples would be sent to an FSL outside J&K for DNA testing. Blood samples of the missing engineer’s family members were being collected for matching.

Mr Bali’s cousin, Dr A P Singh, as well as Police officials said that the body was decomposed to a large extent. Some more decomposition seemed to have set in since the burial earlier this week.

Jagdeep Singh Bali is currently posted as Executive Engineer in Monitoring Cell of PHE Department in Srinagar. The matter of his mysterious disappearance had been raked by some MLAs in recent session of Assembly. Minister of PHE, Taj Mohiuddin, had told the House that a missing report had been filed with Police Station Shergarhi and Police were searching for Mr Bali.

It was on Wednesday last that after two months, an unidentified body was spotted and recovered from The Jhelum near Chursoo, Awantipore. Presumed to be that of a Muslim, it could not be identified. Photographs of the deceased were still provided to the missing engineer’s relatives who suspected that it could be that of Mr Bali. His relatives told this newspaper that they were sure that it was that of the missing engineer but agreed that a conclusive opinion could be framed only after the post mortem and the DNA reports were available.

Two of the engineer’s relatives said that hair of the body seemed to be shaven off at certain spots and the clothes recovered were not those of Mr Bali. They said that other organs indicated that it was that of Mr Bali. According to them, body should have been preserved and embalmed in a mortuary but Police got it buried back with the argument that all mortuaries in Kashmir were packed to capacity. Police officials maintained that the body could be returned to the family only after it was scientifically established that it was that of Mr Bali.

SDPO Imtiyaz said that Police were already investigating Mr Bali’s disappearance. He said that after ascertaining cause of death, identification of the body and its hand over to the Sikh family, if it was Mr Bali’s, would be conducted later this month. He said that Police would accordingly carry out the investigation.

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With removal of CRPF bunker, ASI gunned down in Srinagar

Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, JKIF claim responsibility of the broad daylight cop killing

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 20: Even as Omar Abdullah government was busy in removing a 20-year-old CRPF bunker at Lalchowk and celebrating the “victory”, unidentified gunmen shot dead an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police (ASI) in broad daylight near Safakadal in the capital city today. With many in the town expecting mainstream politicians to lay the blame on security forces, two militant outfits---Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen and J&K Islamic Front (JKIF)--- claimed responsibility of the ASI’s killing.

Superintendent of Police, North, in Srinagar city, Shaukat Sarwar, told Early times that an unidentified gunman, widely believed to be a Kashmiri militant, fired four pistol shots in point blank range on the back of ASI Sukhpal Singh, posted at Police Division Bagyas under jurisdiction of Police Station Safakadal, when he was regulating heavy rush of vehicular traffic at Darishkadal, Safakadal, at 9.40 a.m. All four of the gunshots got pumped into the ASI’s body and he fell in a pool of blood.

Even as the ASI was on duty alongwith two more of his colleagues, the shootout led to a stampede. By the time, the critically wounded ASI was evacuated and admitted to the nearby SMHS Hospital, he had suffered extensive blood loss. Within half-an-hour, doctors declared him dead. His body was carried to District Police Lines (DPL) Srinagar where a wreath-laying ceremony took place. Minister of State for Home, Nasir Aslam Wani, IGP Kashmir, S M Sahai, besides senior officers of Police and paramilitary forces paid floral tributes to the slain ASI.

Sources said that dead body of the 50-year-old ASI, who is survived by his parents, wife and children, was later carried all the way to his residential village of Chatusa, Rafiabad, in Baramulla district for funeral rites.

Broad daylight killing of the Police official happened after months of calm and beginning of a bustling tourist season. Last time, such kind of an incident had occurred at Telbal Adda in Hazratbal area when suspected militants had shot dead Constable Sajjad Ahmad of IRP 19^th Bn.

Today’s firing happened within hours of the removal of a 20-year-old CRPF bunker at the business hub of Lalchowk. As Ministers and Police officials were still busy in issuing statements of “victory” and claiming credit for making the capital city free of bunkers and paramilitary forces, suspected militants struck on the ASI at Safakadal.

Even as most of the residents appeared to be indifferent to both---removal of bunker as well as killing of the ASI---quite a number in politics, media and other institutions were not readily inclined to accept today’s shootout as a militants’ handiwork. Journalists were even trying more to contact NC’s leader Dr Mustafa Kamal more than the senior Police officials for comments as they expected the ruling party’s MLA to blame security forces for the “mischief”. In recent past, mainstream politicians like Dr Kamal have been holding security forces responsible for certain guerrilla actions allegedly for the purpose of justifying their continued presence and J&K Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

However, setting aside many of the speculations, two militant outfits, one after another, claimed responsibility for the ASI’s killing. KNS reported that Jamiatul Mujahideen’s spokesman, Jameel Ahmad, and J&K Islamic Front’s Sheikh Jamsheed claimed over telephone separately that militants of their respective organisations had gunned down the ASI.

SP of Special Operations Group (SOG) Srinagar, Tahir Sajjad Bhat, said that Police were working on different inputs to identify and arrest the killer. He said that no raids had been conducted and nobody had been arrested till late tonight. He said that Police interacted with some passers-by and by-standers but none of them was in a position to give any description of the incident or the gunman.

SP North, Shaukat Sarwar, said that Police had received certain clues with regard to identification of the killer and his organisation and hideouts. He said that Police would launch an operation to arrest the killer anytime from tonight. He too asserted that no arrests had taken place. However, residents of Safakadal alleged that Police arrested an auto-driver, namely Imtiyaz Ahmad Burza, of their neighbourhood. They met officials and demanded Burza’s release with the claim that he was innocent and had no knowledge about the killer or involvement in the killing.

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CS needs to end monopoly in Civil Secretariat

GAD, Law, other key departments need to be refurbished

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 17: ‘Mafia raj’ at Civil Secretariat seemed to be threatened with the appointment of a no-nonsense IAS officer, Madhav Lal, as Chief Secretary in Jammu and Kashmir in February 2011. A full year on, status quo is ruling the roost as it did for years, notwithstanding tantrums of successive Chief Ministers who vowed to demonopolise the services and the departments.

Madhav Lal’s entry happened at a time when contempt to rules, norms, Cabinet orders and the government policies had become order of the day. Outgoing Chief Secretary, S S Kapur, had arranged re-employment or service extension of as many as 87 retired officials in Omar Abdullah government. He was publicly accused of promoting re-employments for the purpose of engineering his own post-retirement rehabilitation as Chairman of State Accountability Commission, State Information Commission or State Vigilance Commission. He retired unceremoniously when media raised a clamour and had to return home disappointed.

Among other evils, Kapur had failed to stop relatives of nearly a dozen Ministers to sneak into their Personal Sections as OSDs, Private Secretaries, Special Assistants and Public Relations Officers. It was during his tenure that bureaucracy sat over sanction to prosecution of influential KAS, IAS and other officers who had been implicated in corruption related matters amid tall claims at the highest offices in the state. None of them was touched, even as courts refused to grant them anticipatory bails.

It was again in Kapur’s tenure that old fossils of bureaucracy stuck to their musical chairs firmly in key departments at Civil Secretariat, even after holding a post for years and decades. One of the senior KAS officers created a record of having joined the General Administration Department in 1984 as Under Secretary and retiring in the same department, without a single transfer order in 26 years, as Special Secretary in 2010. He was among 90-odd “indispensables” decorated with a re-employment. Favouritism and nepotism in induction of officials into KAS had already grown as a cancer in successive governments.

Madhav Lal seemed to be asserting when he removed one of such backdoor entrants and shifted him to an insignificant posting in Poonch. Within weeks, the official, with the support of his mentors, managed to return to a posting in Jammu. Chief Secretary put his foot down and sent him back to Poonch. But, he has yet to submit his report on the controversial appointment and KAS induction of the same official to Speaker of Legislative Assembly who desired a quick action.

The rot remains to be arrested in the field of inducting favourites in the so-called Technical Quota of KAS. Chief Secretary’s assertions had generated a ray of hope among the dutiful in bureaucracy as he looked bitterly critical of a particular KAS officer’s induction into IAS, leading to massive heartburn in the services.

Ruffling feathers among the masses in general and the services in particular, Government disclosed in recent session of legislature that that as many as 147 retired officials had been granted re-employment and extension in service in the last three years. It became clear that poor Kapur had been humbled in the controversial post-retirement rehabilitations by the new bureaucratic dispensation. One of the beneficiaries has been declared as “indispensable” and granted re-employment against the highest monthly remuneration of Rs 88,000 just days after he was implicated in a corruption-related matter by State Vigilance Organization. Not one of the Minister’s relatives has moved out of their Personal Section.

In brazen violation of the government policy, selective officials have been served dozens of transfer orders in the last three years. Others are conveniently stuck to their lucrative and prestigious postings for years and decades. GAD, that is responsible for managing the KAS and IAS services, has become the worst casualty alongwith Department of Law and few other departments.

Recent appointment of the topper of KAS batch-1984, Sheikh Mushtaq Ahmad, has been widely appreciated across all bureaucratic and political cross-sections. Those having served in the department previously for years and lobbying hard to return to the key GAD have not been obliged, rightly. But, pulls and pressures are still underway to win ‘prize postings’ for a number of controversial KAS and IAS officers, known for pursuing their personal agenda.

Department of Law, nevertheless, continues to be the fiefdom of ‘old fossils’. Even after their induction into IAS, bureaucrats have remained untouched and unchanged. This has led to lobbyism and ‘mafia raj’ in the senior administrative services. Ministers and bureaucrats, who have been loudly saying that nobody was indispensable, have perpetuated an ignominious status qua in this key department. The policy framed by Law Department and adopted by the Cabinet says that officials should hold a posting for a minimum of two years and maximum of three years.

Even after veterans like late Ghulam Mohammad Thakur served effectively as Law Secretary and later rose to more coveted positions in GAD and Public Service Commission, many of the previous regimes did boldly break the mafia raj in Law Department.

Late Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah got then District and Sessions Judge, Ghulam Hassan Nehvi, in 1976-77 and appointed him as Law Secretary. Later, another District & Sessions Judge, O P Sharma, also served a tenure as Law Secretary.

Years later, Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah got yet another District and Sessions Judge, namely Mohammad Yasin Kawoosa, and appointed him as Law Secretary despite availability of officials in 1987-88. Messers Sharma and Kawoosa later served as judges in J&K High Court. Even Governor Jagmohan got a local District and Sessions judge, Ghulam Ahmad Lone, who functioned as Law Secretary in the worst of time in 1991-92.

Services and governance analysts hold the opinion that judges drawn from judiciary perform in an independent and objective manner as they happen to be neither members of any bureaucratic or political lobby nor function under fear of transfer. They insist that Government would have achieved great credibility for its institutions and the all-important Law Department if an independent judge would have been got on deputation to frame legal opinions and play a leadership role in parliamentary and judicial services development. They would have been under no bag and baggage to engineer backdoor entry of their sons as their successors in Law Department. Wags call it “SRO-43” at Madhav Lal’s Secretariat.

END

‘Army raped informant woman, delayed action till 5 foreigners were killed’

American book on Al-Faran hostages provides fresh fuel to Kashmiri separatists

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 16: Rendered politically bankrupt in the aftermath of street clashes of the year 2010 and suffering a major setback in Ghulam Nabi Fai’s conviction by an American court, Kashmiri separatists are likely to get a fresh lease of life in a book written on the mysterious kidnapping of six Western tourists in 1995. Compiled by two American authors, the 500-page non-fiction, titled “The Meadow”, claims that the Indian intelligence and security agencies not only delayed action---till five of the foreigners were killed---but also sexually assaulted a woman who had reported to them sighting of a German hostage.

“The Meadow” claims to be based on years of research and hundreds of interviews by authors, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, who worked in South Asia during the kidnappings and for years after. It uses a combination of named and unnamed sources, journals and official files and transcripts to build its case---against the Indian establishment.


On July 4^th, 1995, an unknown guerrilla group calling itself ‘Al-Faran’ claimed kidnapping of six tourists in Lidder valley, near Pahalgam, in south-east Kashmir. Keith Mangan and Paul Wells of Britain; two Americans, John Childs of Simsbury, Connecticut, and Donald Hutchings of Spokane, Washington; a German, Dirk Hasert; and a Norwegian, Hans Christian Ostrø, had disappeared mysteriously while enjoying picnic.


A note released by the kidnappers a day after the kidnappings said: 'Accept our demands or face dire consequences. We are fighting against anti-Islamic forces. Western countries are anti-Islam, and America is the biggest enemy of Islam’. Childs was presumably let off, to convey to the world that the hostages were alive and in captivity of the militants. Ostrø was beheaded and his body was found near Saleh village in Aeshmuqam forest range on August 13^th.


The kidnappers demanded release of the jailed Pakistani militant, Maulana Masood Azhar, and 20 other prisoners. Several national and international organisations issued appeals to Al-Faran to release the tourists. Representatives of the embassies of the victims' countries also visited Kashmir frequently to seek their release, without success.
In December 1995, the kidnappers left a note that they were no longer holding the men hostage. They claimed that the hostages had got killed when the Indian troops engaged their kidnappers in a gunbattle.


As months of search, subsequently joined also by Scotland Yard and FBI, yielding nothing, one of the detained masons, Nazir Ahmad of Dabran, revealed to his interrogators in May 1996 that Mangan, Wells, Hutchings, and Hasert had been gunned down and buried by the kidnappers near Mati Gawran village in Kokernag. According to his statement, Harkatul Ansar’s local commander Javed Dabrani and Hameed Turki got killed in an encounter between the Indian Army and militants in close vicinity of their hideout on December 13th, 1995. He claimed that immediately after the death of the commanders, HUA militants gunned down all the four hostages and got them buried. Nazir led then IGP Kashmir, P S Gill, and other Police officers to the area but failed to identify the ‘spot of burial’.


Published after 16 years, “The Meadow” alleges that the Indian officials’ actions were part of a larger plan to present Pakistan, and the Pakistan-backed insurgency in Kashmir, in as harsh a light as possible to the world. Ultimately, the men were killed by a second group, funded and controlled by the Indian government, the book alleges. It claims that a local woman approached an Army officer with the information that she had sighted the German hostage, Dirk Hasert. But, rather than moving out to recover the hostages, he sexually assaulted the woman and covered up things for weeks until all the hostages got killed, claims the book.


“All the time New Delhi said it was trying to crack Al Faran, a group within intelligence and the STF (Special Task Force, an Indian Police division) was letting them dangle, happy to let the militants portray themselves as savage criminals,” a Police investigator, who worked on the case, is claimed to have told the authors. He remains unidentified.


The book contains purportedly the blow-by-blow descriptions of the negotiations for the hostages’ release between an inspector and the kidnappers, which seemed to be nearly completed several times, only to be blown apart when the agreed terms of the negotiations were leaked to newspapers, including the Hindustan Times, infuriating the kidnappers. At times when the Indian government claimed the kidnappers and their hostages were untraceable, the book says, they were being watched and photographed by an Indian Army helicopter.


A member of the Crime Branch team who worked on the case describes the “dawning realization that their desire to solve the crime was at odds with the goals of some senior figures in the military and the intelligence services, who could have saved the hostages but chose not to.”


The book points fingers at the central government. An official of the Security Wing of J&K Police then working with Governor K V Krishna Rao’s Advisor Security, who has been identified in the book as Altaf Ahmad is quoted to have told the authors: “Right from the beginning the strings were being pulled from New Delhi. Those of us dealing with the hostage-taking on the ground in Srinigar were not in control.”


India’s top officials aren’t the only ones “The Meadow” lays blame on. Woven into the nearly 500-page book are a number of blunders and miscalculations allegedly made by Indian and foreign officials: the area in Kashmir was not cleared of backpackers after the first kidnappings because of Amarnath pilgrimage in the area; a woman’s sighting of German Dirk Hasert’s kidnapping was not reported immediately because the Indian Army officer the woman approached sexually assaulted her and the Army was trying to hush that assault up; instead of allowing escaped hostage John Childs to lead police to the kidnappers, as he wanted to, American officials whisked him out of the country.


Officials in Srinagar, Jammu and New Delhi are unlikely to swallow what has been written in the book published in USA. Then IGP of CID in J&K Government, Rajinder Tikoo, had headed a team of Police officials who claimed to be interacting with the kidnappers for several days over radio from Shankar Acharya hilltop in Srinagar. Radio intercepts of the conversation, never contested by authorities, later appeared in India Today magazine. Even as the officials, and many of the journalists who covered the kidnapping drama, insist that the hostages were never spotted, traced or photographed till they were suspected to have been done to death in Kokernag,


Valley’s separatist circles and groups claiming to be working for human rights could, on the other hand, set off a fresh hullabaloo over contents of the book, particularly the allegations of rape and the government agencies stage managing  a theatre to discredit Pakistan, Kashmiri militants and the separatists.


END

Mercy Corps Program Director deported to USA

All foreign NGOs put under security scanner in J&K on MHA’s notice

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 11: Kashmir Program Director of the American non-profit organisation, Mercy Corps, Usman Rahim, has been deported to USA after working on different projects in coordination with the state and the central governments for nearly eight years. With this dramatic development, authorities have put all the foreign NGOs under a high security scanner.

According to authoritative sources, customs and immigration authorities on Indira Gandhi International Airport stopped 42-year-old Usman Rahim who was returning to New Delhi in a flight from Dubai on March 9^th. With an entry on his American Passport, Mr Usman was sent back to USA via Dubai. If these highly placed official sources are to be believed, the immigration authorities recorded on Mr Usman’s passport that his activities in India had been “not consistent with the visa granted to him” from time to time.

Usman’s wife, Nafeesa, who is a British national, has been left alone in Srinagar. Sources said that nobody from the government asked her either to leave the country or stay back in Srinagar. Efforts to contact her for comments failed.

A senior Police official of the rank of IGP confirmed to Early Times that Mr Usman has been “sent back” from IGI Airport on March 9^th. “That has been done by the Government of India and they have not shared any details or reasons of his deportation with us”, said the Police official. He believed that authorities in the Central government would not have sent Usman Rahim back until there were compelling reasons or adverse information about his activities. He maintained that the American national had never figured in any negative list of J&K Government while working for a Portland-based NGO in the Valley in the last nearly eight years.

Yet another official, associated with security, revealed that immediately after Usman Rahim’s deportation, all the foreign NGOs operating in J&K, including the foreign nationals staying in the state for more than three years, had been put under surveillance on the notice of union Ministry of Home Affairs. He said that reports were being verified which suggested that Usman was deported after a Central intelligence agency observed that a number of foreigners, particularly Americans, working with different NGOs in Pakistan and Afghanistan, had visited Kashmir and stayed with Usman.

This is for the first time that a foreign NGO operator has been sent back and prevented physically from proceeding to Kashmir. More significant has been complete silence on the deportation of the American national by both, Government of India as well as the American Embassy in New Delhi. Interestingly, Mr Usman has been viewed as “persona non grata” after eight years of his continuous working in Kashmir. His projects in agriculture, environment and employment sector have been promoted by the state and the central governments over the years. It was Usman Rahim who got American singer Terra Noami to Srinagar two years back and organized a mega concert for her with facilitation of the state government at SKICC. She also picturized a couple of songs on global warming and ecology at Gulmarg and other places.

Usman had first appeared in Srinagar during the post-earthquake relief operations in 2005. In the last seven years, his NGO Mercy Corps worked extensively in rural areas, including border areas. According to well-placed official sources, he had remained continuously in touch with the state as well as the Central governments and had established an extensive network of unemployed youth. He worked prominently to promote Omar Abdullah government’s flagship employment programme, SKEWPY, in coordination with Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI).

According to these sources, Usman had “over a hundred times” met Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, a number of his Cabinet Ministers, including Abdul Rahim Rather, Nasir Aslam Wani and Ghulam Hassan Mir, Governor N N Vohra, a number of officials of the union Ministry of Home Affairs, including two Home Secretaries and Joint Secretary (J&K) Mr K Skandan. Unconfirmed reports insisted that he had also met union Home Minister P Chidambaram. In Srinagar, he was known for his intimate liaison with senior Government officials including top Police officials, civil society groups and mediapersons.

Prior to his joining Mercy Corps and operating developmental programmes in Kashmir, Usman had remained closely associated in USA with the JKLF Chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik, who reportedly got him into contact with businessman Mansoor Ijaz. It was Usman who introduced Malik in different wings of UN as also several Universities and thinktanks in USA over a decade ago. However, during his staying in Valley, he had apparently distanced himself from Malik and other separatist leaders.

Even as the grapevine of Usman’s figuring as a “CIA agent” has been thickening in Srinagar with every passing day, authorities as well as Mercy Corps have remained tightlipped over his deportation.

END