Historic judgment in Tabinda Gani gangrape-cum-murder case

Death sentence awarded to all four rapists of teenage student

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

__________

SRINAGAR, April 24: In a significant judgment, unprecedented in the history of judiciary in Jammu and Kashmir, a trial court in Kupwara on Friday pronounced capital punishment on all the four culprits of gangrape and murder of a 14-year-old girl student, Tabinda Gani, nearly eight years after the gruesome incident occurred in northern Kashmir.

District and Sessions Judge Mohammad Ibrahim Wani, who heard the last stage of the arguments and counter-arguments in the last over one year, announced death sentence to the accused Sadiq Mir and Anzar Ahmad Mir of Langet besides Jehangir Ansari of West Bengal and Suresh Kumar of Rajasthan, in a courtroom packed to capacity by lawyers, litigants, common residents and family members and relatives of the victim. He said it was among the “rarest of the rare” cases in which Supreme Court has upheld the award of capital punishment in India.

Tabinda’s father Abdul Gani Shah expressed satisfaction on pronouncement of death sentence on all four of the accused but told reporters that he and his family would feel relieved only after the culprits would be hanged to death. Members of the victim’s family were all in tears when the trial court announced the award, bringing the seven-year-long prosecution and legal battle to its logical conclusion.

Then Superintendent of Police, Handwar, Dr Haseeb Mughal, had got the FIR registered amid massive protests and pursued the investigation with exemplary dedication. All the four accused were arrested and charges against them were established and produced before court in a short time.

The trial court presided over by judges like Abdul Rashid Bhat, Mohammad Nazir Fida, Sheikh Altaf Hussain (twice), Rasheed Ali Dar and lastly Mohammad Ibrahim Wani heard the prosecution and defence for about seven years. The accused were found guilty of the charges levelled against them and the quantum of punishment was reserved twice in the last one week. It finally came out on Friday.

Residents of Handwara, Langet and other areas gathered in large numbers at the victim’s home at Batpora (Langet) to hail the judgment. They shouted slogans in favour of the judiciary and officers of Jammu and Kashmir Police who brought the rapists and killers of the teenage student to justice.

Judicial sources said that the capital punishment was subject to the affirmation by a Division Bench of Jammu and Kashmir High Court. The District Court would refer the matter to the High Court which in turn would issue notices to both, prosecution as well as the defence. Even after affirmation by the High Court, the convicts could approach Supreme Court of India and subsequently file an appeal of mercy before President of India. If rejected, they could be hanged to death but as per the convenience of the Ministry of Home Affairs of Government of India.

Even as two Kashmiris, Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru, have been executed in 1986 and 2013, (both at Delhi’s Tihar Jail), lawyers said that no convict had been hanged to death in Jammu and Kashmir in the last over 50 years. Guru was executed for a crime allegedly committed outside his home State. Bhat as well as Guru were political prisoners in the sense that both of them were active supporters and activists for J&K’s separation from the Union of India.

Cold-blooded murder

According to the residents and the prosecution witnesses, Sadiq and Anzar, who were both residents of Tabinda’s Batpora village, had planned the young girl’s rape in the fields covered with maize plants, with cobler Suresh of Rajasthan and Jehangir of West Bengal. On July 20, 2007, when she was returning to her home, she was captured and whisked away to a fully covered spot where the four youths took turns to commit on her rape. They subsequently committed her cold-blooded murder while slitting her throat and dumping the body nearby.

The rape-cum-murder of the young student sent shockwaves throughout Kashmir valley. Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad directed Police to immediately start investigation and get the culprits identified and arrested. His government announced cash award of Rs 1.00 lakh for anybody who would help the Police in investigation and arrest of the culprits. A Special Investigation Team pursued the matter and challan was soon filed in a judicial court in Kupwara.

Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party President Mehbooba Mufti were among the prominent politicians who hailed the judgment. Senior officials claimed that it could remarkably add to the “respect and credibility” of the State Police.

END

‎Tabinda Justice Delivered:

It has taken 8 long years to deliver justice but the fact is that it is unique in our memories. District & Sessions Judge Kupwara Mohammad Ibrahim Wani on Friday awarded death sentence to all four rapists and killers of the young schoolgirl Tabinda Gani. We appreciate the great work done by the Jammu and Kashmir Police investigators and prosecutors who pursued this case for eight years and finally the brilliant judges for taking this case to its logical conclusion. Appreciate the support of the residents of Langet and Handwara, and rest of Kashmir, to the victim's family.

Masarat Aalam detained under fresh PSA order, shifted to Jammu jail

‘One-week period to pursue legal remedy’ denied to the separatist leader

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

_______

SRINAGAR, April 23: Kashmiri separatist hardliner Masarat Aalam Bhat has been detained under a fresh order, issued by District Magistrate of Budgam under Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act [PSA], and immediately shifted to Jammu’s Kote Bhalwal Jail.

According to knowledgeable sources, Senior Superintendent of Police, Budgam, Fayaz Ahmad Lone, submitted a dossier for Aalam’s detention under PSA to District Magistrate Mir Altaf Ahmad who ordered the Muslim League leader’s arrest at midnight on Wednesday. Early on Thursday, grounds of detention were read out to Aalam and he was despatched to Kote Bhalwal Jail by road.

Sources said that the State Home Department, functioning directly under the control of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, would determine the period of Aalam’s detention in view of the charges levelled against him. Currently, he was under arrest with regard to FIR filed against him, and several others, under different provisions of Ranbir Penal Code and Unlawful Activities [Prevention] Act, for allegedly leading a strong pro-Pakistan rally in reception of the senior Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

Immediately after taking over as Chief Minister on March 1^st, Mufti Sayeed had ordered Aalam’s release from 54-month-long detention as the beginning of his exercise to release all the political prisoners. In days of his release, however, Masarat landed in trouble on account of allegedly organising and leading a rally in which animated participants shouted pro-Pakistan slogans, demanded Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan, and waved Pakistani national flags while passing through the J&K Police Headquarters. Apparently under pressure from several quarters, he was booked under UAPA and subsequently arrested at his residence in Srinagar.

With the arguments in progress on his bail application in a judicial court in Budgam and a possibility of his getting bail on April 25, authorities on Wednesday night decided to detain him under PSA. The PSA detainees can be held without prosecution for a period of two years.

Arrested in 2010 for allegedly organising a violent summer agitation, which left over a hundred civilian demonstrators and arsonist dead and thousand injured, Aalam had not been released even after he was granted bail in over two dozen criminal cases registered against. His detention under PSA was extended or invoked afresh several times in the last four years.

‘Flawed’ detention order

Informed sources said that a battery of Srinagar-based lawyers would immediately not only challenge Aalam’s fresh detention order but also press contempt proceedings against the State government directly in Supreme Court of India. Their contention is that Budgam DM’s order has been enforced by Police without granting the accused a period of one week for seeking legal remedy.

While disposing of Writ Petition No: 2 of 2013, on March 22, 2013, the Supreme Court of India Bench, comprising Justice R.M. Lodha and Justice Chelameswar, had ordered: “However, it is observed that if any fresh detention order is issued by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir with respect to Masarat Aalam Bhat, same shall not come into force for a period of one week from the date of communication of the order to enable him to pursue appropriate legal remedy”.

The Writ Petition had been filed by Aalam’s uncle Farooq Ahmad Bhat to seek dismissal of Srinagar District Magistrate’s Order No: DMS/PSA/39/2012 Dated October 30, 2012, whereunder Aalm had been detained. However, during the proceedings, J&K Government revoked Aalam’s detention while suo moto issuing Home Department’s Order No: Home-389 of 2013 Dated March 18, 2013. Accordingly the petition was disposed of but with a rider that Aalam be granted period of one week before his arrest to pursue legal remedy if the State were to detain on any fresh charges.

As Omar Abdullah’s government did not release him despite bail in all the criminal cases filed against him at different Police Stations, Aalam filed a separate petition in J&K High Court, seeking his release from “illegal confinement” and compensation worth Rs 50 lakh for “illegal detention” after June 14, 2014. The proceedings are in progress in Srinagar. It was during this course that the Government rejected Jammu Police’s and administration’s proposal of detaining PSA for a fresh term, though the main reason was that officials of DC’s office and Home Department had failed to get the action confirmed within stipulated period. The PDP-BJP government finally released Aalam in first week of March 2015.

END

Mufti Sayeed Rides A Tiger

By ceding space to separatists, his government is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

April 21, 2015

THE TIIMES OF INDIA | Editorial Page
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/mufti-sayeed-rides-a-tiger/

 

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

For good reason, namely that they have been competitively apologetic to Kashmir’s Pakistan-supported separatists and neither of them has politically contested the secessionist ideology after Farooq Abdullah’s exit as chief minister, Mufti Sayeed’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Omar Abdullah’s National Conference (NC) are suffering a credibility deficit in their pleading for ‘some space’ for hardliners like Masarat Alam and Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Not once but umpteen times, their political ambitions have lit fires that took months and years to subside.

Ironically, even after assembly elections that recorded the highest turnouts, it is the boycott fringe that is setting the agenda for an elected government.

Until becoming chief minister with 16 PDP MLAs in a House of 87 in 2002, Mufti had never succeeded in entering the assembly after his Congress party withdrew support from Sheikh Abdullah’s government in 1976. Even in its best performance, PDP got 28 seats last year.

It has a clear purpose in being ‘soft’ to separatists as that helps the party sweep polls in south Kashmir’s Jamaat-e-Islami dominated Pulwama and Shopian districts. NC’s copycat tactics is attributed to the junior Abdullah’s lack of self-confidence and disconnect with Kashmiris.

Notwithstanding Mufti’s history of being India’s home minister when security forces committed the worst human rights abuse in 1990, Mufti in 2002 and thereafter succeeded in getting a chunk of the separatists’ vote. This has helped him become chief minister twice.

He brilliantly demonised Farooq and his NC for excesses perpetrated by armed forces and the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the J&K Police. What helped him don the mantle of messiah for a section of the pro-Pakistan population was that Mufti promised revocation of AFSPA, disbanding SOG, punishment to delinquent police officials and involvement of separatists and Pakistan in a dialogue process.

He just had to touch on the scars of the 1979 ‘persecution’ when Sheikh Abdullah’s followers trooped into Jamaat villages, torched properties, devastated orchards and molested women over Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s execution by Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime in Pakistan.

Sheikh’s party and progeny being for them “the first and last evil”, Jamaat in the two districts boycotts elections but lends some support to PDP to beat NC. So it was not for nothing that Mufti publicly acknowledged the separatists’ “help” after taking over as CM.

But his predicament is that there are other separatist constituencies – Geelani’s Sopore and Palhalan, Masarat Alam’s uptown Srinagar, Mirwaiz Umar’s Shehr-e-Khas and Yasin Malik’s Lalchowk – which have not been under his influence or control.

This time around, Mufti’s ambition of extending PDP’s base to the capital’s ultra-radical swathes in exchange for Masarat’s release has boomeranged. Followers of Geelani and Alam spoiled the gameplan with a strong pro-Pakistan show in front of J&K police headquarters, unprecedented in the last several years.

It embarrassed BJP and forced the home ministry to ensure Masarat’s detention and an end to “all anti-national demonstrations”.

With the first civilian fatality in a protest in the last four years, Mufti’s government is now caught between a rock and a hard place. Questions are being raised in New Delhi over the long rope Mufti has retained in buttressing the secessionist constituency since his daughter Rubaiya Sayeed’s abduction in 1989.

Release of five hardcore militants brought a sense of victory to insignificant guerrilla groups who soon after involved entire Kashmir in their “Crush India” campaign. That laid the foundation for endless spells of armed insurgency and separatism.

Again, in 2008, two PDP ministers put the state on fire over allotment of land to a Hindu shrine board, followed by Mufti’s pressure on Ghulam Nabi Azad’s government to rescind the order. It brought down Azad’s government and triggered the state’s worst communal and regional strife at a time when separatists and militants had been rendered virtually irrelevant. Both got a fresh lease of life.

Masarat’s release and the turbulence thereafter came ironically at a time when the Kashmiris had completely marginalised the secessionists with their massive and enthusiastic participation in arguably the state’s fairest assembly elections. The valley was awaiting the much promised flood relief and even a promising tourist season. Even the death of two young students in unprovoked army firing at Chhatergam did not lead to a mass uprising.

Few in Srinagar have been able to comprehend the logic of expanding space for separatists without seeking an assurance that it does not lead to a situation where the government itself would be begging for space from them.

Rather than a seemingly clandestine arrangement, the PDP-BJP coalition could have initiated a transparent dialogue process with the separatists while making it clear that nobody would be permitted to vitiate the atmosphere of peace and tranquility. Perhaps more confidence building could have been done with the symbolism of granting permission to prosecution of scores of the armed forces’ personnel involved in violation of human rights and fake encounters which have been pending with the Centre for years.

Instead the situation has been brought back to square one, creating conditions for a fresh round of pro-Pakistan euphoria in Kashmir.

[The writer is a senior journalist]

END

POLITICS ON MIGRANTS: By now, it is crystal clear that none of the political parties including PDP, BJP, NC, Congress, Hurriyat, JKLF, wants the displaced Kashmiri Pandits back home. Within the community too, they have a section of self-defeatists. Each and every ruling and opposition party, including the incumbent rulers PDP and BJP, is simply making rhetorical statements on the KPs being "part and parcel of the Valley's plural and secular culture and society" and "our brothers". It's clear that the politicians, employed either by New Delhi or Islamabad or both, have no intention of getting the migrants back. They all are making politics on the lines given to them by their masters. As far as the common Kashmiri Muslim is concerned, he is genetically secular. Being a journalist on the ground, who has reported, every single incident and political development since 1990, with complete honesty and without any fear or favour, I can say without any fear of contradiction that not a single Hindu place of worship or temple has been damaged or desecrated by a common Kashmiri Muslim. Not a single KP woman has been ever kidnapped or raped by them. I am not the one who will defend the militants who did not spare anybody. It is a fact that they shot dead or hanged to death 222 KPs which was enough to spread a wave of terror and trauma in the community. It is also a fact that two or three urchins from one or two mosques shouted that deplorable slogan "batav rous ta.....". I never heard that until I read it in HT in a story done perhaps by Mr Anil Maheshwari on an unconfirmed "eyewitness account". But I am a living witness to it that the common Kashmiri Muslim was as helpless as the Kashmiri Pandit. Even today, he is being targeted and shot dead at will. The common masses never took out an anti-KP procession or indulged in devastation of the migrant properties. When JKLF militants allegedly raped and killed a Pandit harbourer's sister in Basant Bagh, Gawkadal, in 1991, over 5,000 Kashmiri Muslims took out a protest march. Even anti-Pakistan and anti-terrorist slogans were shouted. In Ichhigam (Budgam), Muslims constructed a temple for some poor resident Pandit families out of the religious funds which they had collected for the construction of a mosque. The story was reported by Muzamil Jaleel in Indian Express. Nobody on TV is highlighting this positive picture. I won't hide the fact that hundreds of the deserted Pandit houses were robbed of everything by local youngsters and their elders did not stop them. I am witness to it that a group of boys set on fire about a dozen deserted KP houses, one after another in Gogjibagh. For god's sake, don't please dub the Kashmiri Muslims as your "enemies" and "communalists". We must sincerely and realistically appreciate the fear which is continuously existing and haunting the migrants, particularly those who don't regularly visit today's Kashmir. They will never stay or sleep for an hour at their ancestral home, dilapidated, intact, reconstructed or sold off. We can't give them any confidence by saying that "3,000" or "10,000" non-migrant Pandits have been living here with "full dignity and sense of security" since 1990. It is only they---not politicians like Omar Abdullah, Mufti Sayeed, Modi, Rajnath or Rahul Gandhi, or even Geelani, Mirwaiz and Yasin Malik or Engineer Rashid---who can decide where to stay on their return to the Valley. Gradually, they can fan out to their villages or other places and settle there without changing any "demography". We have seen that those settled at Sheikhpora, Baramulla, Tulmulla etc stay in ghettos but they are posted in schools and government offices spread over the entire valley. Let the politicians, including the Pandit groups, stop politics on this nightmarish human tragedy. Let the genuine CIVIL SOCIETY, not the one affiliated to stated political positions, take a sincere initiative.

I further want to make it clear here that Muslims as a community have not treated the KPs' deserted properties or places of worship as "maal i ganeemat". I have investigated the land encroachment cases at Khrewa, Rainawari and other places and found that the encroached temple lands have been secretly sold out by a coterie of Hindu custodians to unscrupulous Muslim neighbours. It is a great nexus in which Muslims are not playing the primary role. A Jammu-based religious trust has made billions out of illegal sales and rent deeds with local businessmen. This business has grown so lucrative that Purohits are contesting cases against one another in different courts to retain their position and "customised authority". It is a fact that some trees were felled and some deserted KP houses grabbed by unscrupulous neighbours but the bolder fact is that most of such properties remained intact for two decades. I also found a coterie of people involved in burning down these houses at the instance of displaced owners so as to draw compensation/ insurance money. Distress sale of KP properties continued, even after J&K Govt outrightly banned it during Farooq Abdullah's regime, as a consequence of nexus between the Pandit owners, middlemen and the Muslim buyers. The modus operandi of "SALE BY ATTORNEY" was invented and misused by the owners of these properties with the involvement of officials in offices of Tehsildars, DCs and Divisional Commissioner. No such deed can happen without the satisfaction of Divisional Commissioner. How does it continue till date? What role was played to curb it by Div Comm SL Bhat, Revenue Secretary Vinod Kaul etc? My point is that an entire community, Muslims or Pandits, can not be painted black and demonised on the basis of a perception created more on hearsay and mischief than on facts and reality. Jalal Ud Din Shah sahab is right that there is a strak generation gap and the post-1990 KP generation doesn't have the sensibility of our centuries old value system. But I beg to add that a degree of decay is also evident in the Generation Next on our side which has little idea of the pre-1990 harmonious culture of Kashmir. We can not generalise things and pass sweeping remarks without self-introspection. We must also admit that a lot of mistrust and suspicion was created by the statements of our separatist politicians when they openly laid conditions that "KPs can come back and stay at their homes if they participate in the processions and anti-India and anti-forces demonstrations". I have received and seen such statements several times. However, the other fact is that some right wing outfits, claiming to represent KPs, spread venom against the majority community en bloc with hugely exaggerated data. Hundreds of the houses and temples, which decayed due to snow and rains over the years and collapsed, were shown as the structures "vandalised, demolished and desecrated by Muslims". In Omar Abdullah’s presence, I clarified all these things at a gathering organised by an amalgam of the KP associations in America and Canada, on the sidelines of our conference in Toronto, Canada, in December 2004. Finally, one request to our KP brethren: Please go and see who got the Temple Bill in Assembly blocked with a letter to Sonia Gandhi? All Muslim MLAs and MLCs were keen to pass that Bill. It is a Hindu of Jammu, not any Muslim. When in 1998, I visited Tulmulla I found everybody trembling on hearing the name of local militants Bambaar Khan and Hameed Gada. They had allegedly killed dozens at the drop of a hat. In another village, Wakoora, militants had gunned down a Pandit medical assistant and his wife, who often took their care and provided to them treatment, alongwith 5 Muslims in broad daylight at local Iddgah. In that horrible environment, I saw one local Muslim of Tulmulla going to Khirbhawani temple regularly to drop a bucket of milk in the spring. It was simply inviting the death. He did it till death. Hakeem Rouf, who lives there, can bear me out.____Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

JKLF calls for shutdown as Yasin Malik threatens fast unto death 

Separatists declare war on BJP’s plan of composite townships for KPs

 

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

________

Jammu, April 8: Narendra Modi government’s plan of settling the Kashmiri Pandit migrants in “composite townships”, for which Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had on Tuesday asked Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to arrange land, has run into rough weather as the Kashmiri separatists have threatened to spoil it with full force.

Minutes after a separatist-turned-mainstream leader and independent MLA Engineer Rashid said in Assembly on Wednesday that the BJP-PDP coalition’s plan of settling the Kashmiri displaced Pandits in composite townships would be fought “tooth and nail”, JKLF Chairman Yasin Malik called for shutdown in Kashmir while threatening “fast unto death strike” if the government proceeded with the programme of rehabilitating the migrants in delineated settlements.

The second time MLA Engineer Rashid, who comes from the slain separatist leader Abdul Gani Lone’s Peoples Conference and pursues a pseudo-separatist agenda in Assembly, agitated the matter aggressively. He said: “Settling Kashmiri Pandits in separate townships will not be allowed to happen as it is detrimental to interest of every community living in Kashmir. The fact of the matter is that majority of Kashmiri Pandits is not interested in settling back in Kashmir as they are happy in enjoying perks, packages  and privileges” .

Rashid said that the PDP patron and Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was “unfortunately acting as a facilitator in the grand plan of the BJP brigade to communalize and polarize situation in Jammu and Kashmir”.

Rashid refused to accept that the Kashmiri Pandits had suffered enormously in the last 25 years of militancy. “It is the Kashmiri Muslims who have suffered a great deal”, he asserted with a threat. “Right-minded people and sane voices will not allow getting Kashmir converted into jungle of fascism and aboriginality of this land will be protected at all costs”.

In Srinagar, JKLF Chairman Yasin Malik stole the show with a hurriedly called news conference. He dismissed the government’s plan of rehabilitating the displaced Pandits in composite townships as a “sinister conspiracy” by the BJP-RSS fold. He alleged that Mufti had been assigned the task of “creating a wedge between different religious identities” in the State. Malik called a complete shutdown in the Valley on Saturday and threatened to go on fast unto death if the government did not withdraw the plan of settling the Kashmiri migrants in protected enclaves.

"We don't want confrontation but we are not going to tolerate attempts aimed at driving a wedge between different communities of the State either. We will not allow creation of this so-called composite township. It would be a state within the state and is fraught with dangerous consequences”, Malik said. He claimed that over 10,000 Pandits had stayed back in the valley in 1990 and they had never been harmed by their Muslim neighbours.

“They are continuously living with full sense of security and comfort”, said the separatist whose guerrilla group JKLF is alleged to have played key role in attacking the members of the minority community and forcing their mass exodus in 1990. Malik claimed that Valley’s tradition of communal harmony was intact.

"It seems RSS now wants to reverse it by creating a wedge between Kashmir's various communities. It is attempting through the BJP to set the Valley on fire. Yeh log nafrat ki aag lagana chahtay hain," militant-turned-politician Malik alleged.

"Are Mufti Sayeed and his RSS and BJP mentors now planning to dismantle these temples, homes, shops and schools and relocate these people to so-called composite townships?”Malik asked. "They are as good state subjects as you and me. They can come and buy properties and rebuild or renovate their houses here. That alone will strengthen Kashmir's composite culture”.

In a related development, Shabir Shah and some other Hurriyat leaders said that the plan of separate townships for Pandits was “akin to declaring war against the majority community of Kashmir". "We will oppose this dangerous conspiracy tooth and nail”, they asserted and called the rehabilitation plan as “replica of the Zionist ploy which Israel has used against the innocent Palestinians as a weapon of war”. Their statement added: “It is the beginning of one more well calculated dangerous conspiracy against the Muslim identity of Kashmir."

END

_________________________

Govt: KPs will be settled only in their native places

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

_______

Jammu, April 8: Grappling with a strongly negative reaction from the Kashmiri separatists, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s government denied on Wednesday evening that the displaced population was being rehabilitated in special settlements at particular places in the Valley.

In a press release, the government spokesman discounted what he called “misconstrued, misconceived and mischievous the impression being created by certain quarters regarding establishment of exclusive habitations for Kashmiri Pandits. He said the society and the Government was committed to “facilitate reintegration of migrant Pandits in their homeland with honour and dignity without compartmentalizing them as an isolated community”.

“As has been already made clear by the Chief Minister, the migrant Pandits are most welcome to return and resettle at the places of their choice, and various initiatives have already been taken by the State Government to bring them back with honour and dignity. The Government is keenly awaiting the return of migrants and they will be resettled at their original places of inhabitation with honour and dignity,” the spokesman said and added that the migrants from all the communities who had no land and properties left in Kashmir, could be accommodated in the composite township, if they desired so.

 

The spokesman said the creation of exclusive enclaves for migrants, as was done at Sheikhpora Budgam, had not worked as most of the Pandits who wanted to return to the Valley preferred to resettle at their ancestral places. “Braving the hazards of turmoil in Kashmir, several Kashmiri Pandit families continue to live harmoniously with their Muslim brethren in various parts of the Valley”, he added.

 

“The Kashmiri Pandits have every right to return to their ancestral land and get reintegrated in the society to revive the age-old tradition of brotherhood and amity,” he said and added that any facility for the purpose would not be “either religion or community-specific”.

END

3 J&K Police men killed like lame ducks in Shopian

‘Militants are taking advantage of demoralisation in Police, armed forces. There’s apprehension of more such attacks’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

_______

Jammu, April 6: Taking advantage of the new ruling dispensation’s political language in Jammu and Kashmir, which is believed to have caused some degree of demoralisation in Police and security forces, suspected militants on Monday gunned down three unarmed Police personnel in Shopian while simultaneously attacking a Sub Inspector of high operational profile in Pattan and a released militant in Tral areas of Kashmir valley. The fresh spell of violence---first in the valley since Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP-BJP government assumed office on March 1st---ran parallel to Chief Minister’s throwing open Asia’s largest tulip garden in Srinagar where he described Kashmir “as peaceful as any other part of the country”.

Months after a series of militant attacks on the day of Pulwama-Shopian belt polling in the Assembly elections, suspected guerrillas spread a wave of terror with three major strikes. Sub Inspector Ghulam Mustafa of Mendhar, who was in the first group of J&K Police that had formed "Task Force", later christened as Special Operations Group (SOG), at the hands of then DGP M.N. Sabherwal in May 1994, was held on gun point from behind in a minibus he boarded at Parimpora, Srinagar, as usual, to reach his office at headquarters of IRP 3rd battalion at Parihaspora, Pattan.

“It appeared that a group of the militants from Sopore had carried out a reconnaissance survey of the routine boarding point of the Police official who has put in 21 years of impressive service in SOG and participated in hundreds of counterinsurgency operations”, said an official. He said that Mustafa was carrying a service pistol with him but was relieved of it on gun point.

Two or three gunmen, according to eyewitnesses, hijacked the Sopore-bound minibus. When it came to a halt due to a traffic jam short of Chhooru bridge, some of the traumatised commuters jumped out of it while screaming. Mustafa too began running away but the gunmen fired on his neck and escaped. He lay in a pool of blood and was rushed to SKIMS where doctors treated him on time. He was later declared out of danger.

In another incident, suspected militants fired a pistol shot on a released militant Rafeeq Ahmad Bhat alias Rafeeq Dada near SBI branch, at Tral. He was rushed to SMHS hospital, Srinagar. He too was treated on time and declared out of danger. Officials, suspecting a local militant of Hizbul Mujahideen responsible for the attack, said that the gunman's intention didn't appear to kill 'Dada'. "He perhaps wanted to only leave him injured", said an official.

3 cops gunned down in Shopian

The day's deadliest attack by suspected militants occurred on a group of three Policemen who were returning from an investigation into a local dispute from Amshipora village, in Shopian. According to the two civilian witnesses accompanying the police party, a group of six heavily armed men in combat dress stopped the policemen and asked them to follow. After walking a short distance, the gunmen emptied a full magazine of AK-47 rifle on the three policemen, killing them on the spot. Police later collected 22 empties with the three bodies from the spot.

The slain personnel were identified as Head Constable Mushtaq Ahmad Wani of Arigam Pulwama, constable Shabir Ahmad of Leh and Constable Nisar Hussain of Achhabal, Sopore.

Officials said that the Union Home Secretary would be visiting J&K later this week to have an on-the-spot assessment of the security scenario.

IGP Kashmir Javaid Mujraba Gillani, alongwith DIG South Kashmir and SPs of Shopian and Kulgam, participated in the wreath-laying ceremony at DPL Shopian. They paid rich tributes to the slain jawans and offered condolences to the bereaved families. Later, DGP K. Rajendra Kumar flew to Srinagar from Jammu. He presided over a meeting which reviewed the security scenario and pledged to fight terrorism with full zeal and zest. DGP said that such dastardly attacks on unarmed Police personnel would not deter Police force from wiping out terrorism and restoring peace to Jammu and Kashmir. He paid tributes to the slain policemen. Arrangements were underway to send Constable Shabir’s body to Leh by the State helicopter.

Reports said that hundreds of people and local police officers attended the two slain constables' funeral rites in Pulwama and Sopore.

Mehbooba condemns attacks; Ministers skip wreath-laying

Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed expressed shock over the three fatal casualties. His daughter and PDP President Mehbooba Mufti strongly condemned the killings and said that such attacks would not yield anything for the assassins. In a statement, former CM and National Conference acting President Omar Abdullah too condemned the terrorist action which left three unarmed policeman dead.

Asked why the militants had abruptly triggered off a wave of terror with today's killings and attacks, senior police officials said that such, and more, terrorist strikes were expected from militants as they had got "emboldened" by the way Police and security forces were being "disowned, discredited, denigrated and demoralised" by the mainstream political leaders of different parties.

"Not a single Minister or senior mainstream leader even attended the wreath-laying of the Police and army soldiers killed in Kathua and Pattan encounters last fortnight", said an officer.

Minister of Information Technology Imran Raza Ansari and IGP Kashmir Javaid Gillani had, however, visited a slain SPO's residence at Cheenabal. None of the five Ministers in Valley that day participated in the wreath-laying ceremonies at Baramulla or headquarters of Army’s 15 Corps in Srinagar.

END