Recent links on J&K:
India Reopens Kashmir’s Schools, but Many Stay Away:
NEW DELHI — The Indian government on Monday began the slow, uncertain process of trying to restore normalcy to the violence-racked region of Kashmir. Authorities reopened schools and universities, even as many students stayed away, some out of protest, others out of fear.
Monday marked the first test of the new political initiative announced by the Indian government over the weekend after more than three months of angry confrontation between stone-throwing protesters and Indian security officers. The demonstrations have left at least 108 people dead and coalesced into an angry rebuke of government policies in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
The package aimed at calming the situation includes economic aid, a call for easing security strictures and a new political dialogue.
Kashmir is a longtime source of dispute between India and Pakistan, with both countries controlling different parts of the region and claiming all of it. The latest unrest in the Indian portion, the state of Jammu and Kashmir, has been fueled by a rising call from students and others for political self-determination.
Since June, most educational institutions have remained closed in Kashmir, whether because of strikes called by separatist leaders or because of strict government curfews that had closed shops and cleared traffic off streets.
Reopening the schools was considered critical, and the state government announced that teachers with work cards and students in school uniforms would be allowed to pass through the myriad security checkpoints in the region’s summer capital of Srinagar. Bus schedules also were announced.
But on Monday there was an uneven response, with government officials estimating that 30 percent to 80 percent of students showed up for class throughout the Kashmir Valley.
Several students interviewed by telephone said they failed to attend because security officers refused to lift the curfew. At the University of Kashmir in Srinagar, Muhammad Ibrahim, 22, arrived at 10 a.m. for his first day back in 14 weeks. Yet he was the only student in his class of 38 who navigated the checkpoints and made it to school.
Showkat Shafi, spokesman for the university, said most classes on the main campus were closed Monday, while the curfew impeded other students from reaching satellite locations throughout the valley. He said students at the off-campus locations were supposed to begin taking examinations on Monday.
“Students are complaining that they are trying to reach examination centers across the valley, but very few have made it,” he said.
Many students also stayed away as a means of protest over their demands that India make good on promises to allow a referendum on self-rule in Kashmir. Some may have been following the separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who belittled the new government package and announced that families should not send their children back to school. Yet it is unclear how much control leaders like Mr. Geelani have over a protest movement fueled largely by college students.
“The government insists that we go to classes because they want to show the international community that things are normal here in Kashmir,” said Saliq Abbas, a postgraduate student at the University of Kashmir, who refused to return to classes. “But things are not normal.”
The impact of the new political package is likely to become clear only after several more weeks. Last Monday, Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram led a parliamentary delegation on a two-day visit to the region and then announced the new policies from New Delhi late on Saturday afternoon.
On Monday, Mr. Chidambaram framed the efforts to reopen the schools in a positive light, noting that most had opened, while also criticizing a few minor reported episodes of stone throwing at school buses that resulted in no injuries.
“How can any right-thinking person pelt stones on school buses?” he asked in a statement.
Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, called on all political groups — including separatists like Mr. Geelani — to support the resumption of education. “Let us keep education neutral to all conflicts,” he said in a statement.
One of the most pressing questions is when, and to what degree, the authorities will ease the security lockdown that many residents in Srinagar describe as “collective punishment.”
Mr. Chidambaram’s package included a directive for state leaders to reassess the security presence and consider scaling back — a step previously promoted by Mr. Abdullah. Many Kashmiris want India to repeal emergency laws that have given broad powers of arrest and immunity to soldiers, paramilitary officers and police officers in many parts of the region.
Kuldeep Khoda, director of the state police, said decisions on security would be made after a meeting of the Unified Command, consisting of civilian leaders and leaders of security and military agencies.
He said the police had maintained a curfew in Srinagar on Monday as a protective measure against the threat of violence against schools or buses presented by Mr. Geelani’s call for a strike. The police did relax the curfew on Sunday to allow residents to rush out to buy food and other provisions.
The recent political attention on Kashmir has coincided with an almost complete absence of violence during the past week. Taj Mohi-ud-Din, a senior minister in the state government, predicted that more students would attend classes in the coming days, as the situation stabilized and parents became more comfortable with sending out their children. He also said that security would be eased in the future, as long as violence did not return.
“It has to be gradual,” he said. “We have to be certain the withdrawal will not affect the security position.”
Hari Kumar contributed reporting from New Delhi.
---------- Post added at 05:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:30 PM ----------
Kashmir's extra-judicial killings:
I heard that there have been some 'fake encounter' killings in Ganderbal [near the summer capital, Srinagar].
It's not that I was not aware of the fact that these things happen, but somehow the number disturbed me.
Apparently the security forces are being held responsible, and they have probably even accepted responsibility.
Some of the people who are part of the security forces are Kashmiris, some of them are even surrendered militants who fought the army at one time. I was appalled, and at the same time very sad.
The question is, why would anybody want to kill a poor carpenter? I mean how harmful can he be? The answer is so obvious that I was at first surprised and then angry at my own naivety.
The answer is the system.
'Tough mercenaries'
The system in the Kashmir valley has become such that "kills" by so-called security forces are associated with medals, monetary benefits, promotions and a host of other perks.
So any organisation getting or registering more "kills" reaps the benefits.
Now, to kill a seasoned militant these days is difficult, because these guys are mercenaries and are tough.
So some elements within the security forces apparently do the next easiest thing: pick up an innocent man from the street and get him killed somewhere else.
And the saddest part about the whole thing is that even Kashmiris themselves are doing this to their own people.
Suddenly everything becomes a blur. It becomes unclear who the real enemy is. I had come to the valley with naive ideas of being able to make a difference, but in reality I can only influence not more than 10 people.
'Dying for a cause'
And then something like this happens, and there are villagers and more villagers protesting on the street, asking for freedom from this kind of oppression.
Obviously they will protest. Anybody would.
Even if there is no solution in sight one cannot just go and pick up people from the street and kill them. And if they do this there will be never be any solution.
I had dear friends who had nothing to do with the Kashmir problem, who were from places far away from here, who were soldiers, who died here believing they were dying for a cause because they were told so.
But now I realise they do not really want to solve the whole issue.
The big game being played here is that of money. Money being pumped in by Pakistan to wage the war and money from India to conquer it.
And as long as there is a war going on in the valley there will be unaccounted money and people to make good use of it.
I realise that we are just pawns in this game of dirty politics. And I suddenly feel small... very small.
---------- Post added at 05:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:33 PM ----------
Grim up north:
OUTSIDE Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar’s house in Shopian, an apple-growing hub in the Kashmir valley, mourners gather. Spying a foreign journalist, they yell “Azadi!” (“Freedom!”
. The battle-cry of Kashmiri separatists makes an incongruous lament for Mr Ahmed’s pregnant wife and teenage sister, who were raped and murdered on May 29th. Yet it is the inevitable one. Six decades after India secured the richest portion of Kashmir, its Muslim inhabitants miss no chance to tell it to leave.
Month-long protests over the crimes in Shopian stress the truth of this. The local police have been widely blamed for the crimes—and certainly they tried to cover them up. The women went missing while walking home from the family orchard. Their battered corpses turned up the next day, semi-clothed, on a riverbank that Mr Ahmed and his relatives had combed shortly before. Nonetheless, the police said the women had drowned in the knee-deep river. They fired tear-gas at a crowd that disputed this. After Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, initially endorsed this lie, mass outrage was assured. The protesters are as liable to cry “Azadi!” as “Hang the culprits!”—though the police accused of these crimes, unlike the 600,000-odd Indian army and paramilitary troops in Kashmir, are almost all Kashmiris.
Mr Abdullah swiftly recanted and set up a commission of inquiry into the killings. Its interim report on June 21st confirmed that the women had been raped and murdered, and found that four senior police officers and a laboratory worker had tampered with the evidence. They have been suspended, and the commission’s final report is due within days. But protests will continue. On June 20th, the main opposition People’s Democratic Party launched a fresh round against the army’s draconian powers in Kashmir.
Some in Delhi find this disorientating. The insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir had recently gone quiet. Last year it still claimed 541 lives. But this was the lowest toll since early in the two-decade-long insurgency. Reduced Pakistani support for the militants is one reason for this, but war-weariness among Kashmiris is another. They may never love Indian rule, but some Indian officials think they are learning to live with it. As further evidence, officials cite the recent general and state elections in Kashmir. Both were unexpectedly peaceful and well-supported.
It is hard to know how significant that is. Today’s anti-India protests—and even bigger ones a year ago—suggest that many, or most, Kashmiris still loathe Indian rule. Yet waning violence at least gives the Congress-led government of Manmohan Singh a chance to woo them. In its previous term, which ended with its re-election last month, its efforts were dismal. A dialogue with separatist leaders that it inherited from its predecessor fizzled. So, for reasons that had more to do with political chaos next door, did the peace process with Pakistan, launched in 2003, that had inspired it. A separate, unloved multiparty process, which the separatists boycotted, produced some sensible ideas for pleasing Kashmiris. But they were largely ignored.
For all that, Congress’s return to power as a more dominant coalition leader has raised a bit of hope that it will do better. America is gently urging this—the new administration is more willing to push for peace in Kashmir than was its predecessor. So far, the evidence is minimally encouraging. On a visit to Srinagar on June 11th the home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, said he wanted Kashmir’s state police to take more responsibility from paramilitary troops. On June 17th Mr Singh suggested he was willing to reopen talks with the separatists. Under house arrest in Srinagar until June 23rd, the chief separatist involved in the earlier round, Umar Farooq, says he would welcome this. But he would surely prefer a more effusive invitation.
India Reopens Kashmir’s Schools, but Many Stay Away:
NEW DELHI — The Indian government on Monday began the slow, uncertain process of trying to restore normalcy to the violence-racked region of Kashmir. Authorities reopened schools and universities, even as many students stayed away, some out of protest, others out of fear.
Monday marked the first test of the new political initiative announced by the Indian government over the weekend after more than three months of angry confrontation between stone-throwing protesters and Indian security officers. The demonstrations have left at least 108 people dead and coalesced into an angry rebuke of government policies in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
The package aimed at calming the situation includes economic aid, a call for easing security strictures and a new political dialogue.
Kashmir is a longtime source of dispute between India and Pakistan, with both countries controlling different parts of the region and claiming all of it. The latest unrest in the Indian portion, the state of Jammu and Kashmir, has been fueled by a rising call from students and others for political self-determination.
Since June, most educational institutions have remained closed in Kashmir, whether because of strikes called by separatist leaders or because of strict government curfews that had closed shops and cleared traffic off streets.
Reopening the schools was considered critical, and the state government announced that teachers with work cards and students in school uniforms would be allowed to pass through the myriad security checkpoints in the region’s summer capital of Srinagar. Bus schedules also were announced.
But on Monday there was an uneven response, with government officials estimating that 30 percent to 80 percent of students showed up for class throughout the Kashmir Valley.
Several students interviewed by telephone said they failed to attend because security officers refused to lift the curfew. At the University of Kashmir in Srinagar, Muhammad Ibrahim, 22, arrived at 10 a.m. for his first day back in 14 weeks. Yet he was the only student in his class of 38 who navigated the checkpoints and made it to school.
Showkat Shafi, spokesman for the university, said most classes on the main campus were closed Monday, while the curfew impeded other students from reaching satellite locations throughout the valley. He said students at the off-campus locations were supposed to begin taking examinations on Monday.
“Students are complaining that they are trying to reach examination centers across the valley, but very few have made it,” he said.
Many students also stayed away as a means of protest over their demands that India make good on promises to allow a referendum on self-rule in Kashmir. Some may have been following the separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who belittled the new government package and announced that families should not send their children back to school. Yet it is unclear how much control leaders like Mr. Geelani have over a protest movement fueled largely by college students.
“The government insists that we go to classes because they want to show the international community that things are normal here in Kashmir,” said Saliq Abbas, a postgraduate student at the University of Kashmir, who refused to return to classes. “But things are not normal.”
The impact of the new political package is likely to become clear only after several more weeks. Last Monday, Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram led a parliamentary delegation on a two-day visit to the region and then announced the new policies from New Delhi late on Saturday afternoon.
On Monday, Mr. Chidambaram framed the efforts to reopen the schools in a positive light, noting that most had opened, while also criticizing a few minor reported episodes of stone throwing at school buses that resulted in no injuries.
“How can any right-thinking person pelt stones on school buses?” he asked in a statement.
Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, called on all political groups — including separatists like Mr. Geelani — to support the resumption of education. “Let us keep education neutral to all conflicts,” he said in a statement.
One of the most pressing questions is when, and to what degree, the authorities will ease the security lockdown that many residents in Srinagar describe as “collective punishment.”
Mr. Chidambaram’s package included a directive for state leaders to reassess the security presence and consider scaling back — a step previously promoted by Mr. Abdullah. Many Kashmiris want India to repeal emergency laws that have given broad powers of arrest and immunity to soldiers, paramilitary officers and police officers in many parts of the region.
Kuldeep Khoda, director of the state police, said decisions on security would be made after a meeting of the Unified Command, consisting of civilian leaders and leaders of security and military agencies.
He said the police had maintained a curfew in Srinagar on Monday as a protective measure against the threat of violence against schools or buses presented by Mr. Geelani’s call for a strike. The police did relax the curfew on Sunday to allow residents to rush out to buy food and other provisions.
The recent political attention on Kashmir has coincided with an almost complete absence of violence during the past week. Taj Mohi-ud-Din, a senior minister in the state government, predicted that more students would attend classes in the coming days, as the situation stabilized and parents became more comfortable with sending out their children. He also said that security would be eased in the future, as long as violence did not return.
“It has to be gradual,” he said. “We have to be certain the withdrawal will not affect the security position.”
Hari Kumar contributed reporting from New Delhi.
---------- Post added at 05:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:30 PM ----------
Kashmir's extra-judicial killings:
I heard that there have been some 'fake encounter' killings in Ganderbal [near the summer capital, Srinagar].
It's not that I was not aware of the fact that these things happen, but somehow the number disturbed me.
Apparently the security forces are being held responsible, and they have probably even accepted responsibility.
Some of the people who are part of the security forces are Kashmiris, some of them are even surrendered militants who fought the army at one time. I was appalled, and at the same time very sad.
The question is, why would anybody want to kill a poor carpenter? I mean how harmful can he be? The answer is so obvious that I was at first surprised and then angry at my own naivety.
The answer is the system.
'Tough mercenaries'
The system in the Kashmir valley has become such that "kills" by so-called security forces are associated with medals, monetary benefits, promotions and a host of other perks.
So any organisation getting or registering more "kills" reaps the benefits.
Now, to kill a seasoned militant these days is difficult, because these guys are mercenaries and are tough.
So some elements within the security forces apparently do the next easiest thing: pick up an innocent man from the street and get him killed somewhere else.
And the saddest part about the whole thing is that even Kashmiris themselves are doing this to their own people.
Suddenly everything becomes a blur. It becomes unclear who the real enemy is. I had come to the valley with naive ideas of being able to make a difference, but in reality I can only influence not more than 10 people.
'Dying for a cause'
And then something like this happens, and there are villagers and more villagers protesting on the street, asking for freedom from this kind of oppression.
Obviously they will protest. Anybody would.
Even if there is no solution in sight one cannot just go and pick up people from the street and kill them. And if they do this there will be never be any solution.
I had dear friends who had nothing to do with the Kashmir problem, who were from places far away from here, who were soldiers, who died here believing they were dying for a cause because they were told so.
But now I realise they do not really want to solve the whole issue.
The big game being played here is that of money. Money being pumped in by Pakistan to wage the war and money from India to conquer it.
And as long as there is a war going on in the valley there will be unaccounted money and people to make good use of it.
I realise that we are just pawns in this game of dirty politics. And I suddenly feel small... very small.
---------- Post added at 05:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:33 PM ----------
Grim up north:
OUTSIDE Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar’s house in Shopian, an apple-growing hub in the Kashmir valley, mourners gather. Spying a foreign journalist, they yell “Azadi!” (“Freedom!”
. The battle-cry of Kashmiri separatists makes an incongruous lament for Mr Ahmed’s pregnant wife and teenage sister, who were raped and murdered on May 29th. Yet it is the inevitable one. Six decades after India secured the richest portion of Kashmir, its Muslim inhabitants miss no chance to tell it to leave.Month-long protests over the crimes in Shopian stress the truth of this. The local police have been widely blamed for the crimes—and certainly they tried to cover them up. The women went missing while walking home from the family orchard. Their battered corpses turned up the next day, semi-clothed, on a riverbank that Mr Ahmed and his relatives had combed shortly before. Nonetheless, the police said the women had drowned in the knee-deep river. They fired tear-gas at a crowd that disputed this. After Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, initially endorsed this lie, mass outrage was assured. The protesters are as liable to cry “Azadi!” as “Hang the culprits!”—though the police accused of these crimes, unlike the 600,000-odd Indian army and paramilitary troops in Kashmir, are almost all Kashmiris.
Mr Abdullah swiftly recanted and set up a commission of inquiry into the killings. Its interim report on June 21st confirmed that the women had been raped and murdered, and found that four senior police officers and a laboratory worker had tampered with the evidence. They have been suspended, and the commission’s final report is due within days. But protests will continue. On June 20th, the main opposition People’s Democratic Party launched a fresh round against the army’s draconian powers in Kashmir.
Some in Delhi find this disorientating. The insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir had recently gone quiet. Last year it still claimed 541 lives. But this was the lowest toll since early in the two-decade-long insurgency. Reduced Pakistani support for the militants is one reason for this, but war-weariness among Kashmiris is another. They may never love Indian rule, but some Indian officials think they are learning to live with it. As further evidence, officials cite the recent general and state elections in Kashmir. Both were unexpectedly peaceful and well-supported.
It is hard to know how significant that is. Today’s anti-India protests—and even bigger ones a year ago—suggest that many, or most, Kashmiris still loathe Indian rule. Yet waning violence at least gives the Congress-led government of Manmohan Singh a chance to woo them. In its previous term, which ended with its re-election last month, its efforts were dismal. A dialogue with separatist leaders that it inherited from its predecessor fizzled. So, for reasons that had more to do with political chaos next door, did the peace process with Pakistan, launched in 2003, that had inspired it. A separate, unloved multiparty process, which the separatists boycotted, produced some sensible ideas for pleasing Kashmiris. But they were largely ignored.
For all that, Congress’s return to power as a more dominant coalition leader has raised a bit of hope that it will do better. America is gently urging this—the new administration is more willing to push for peace in Kashmir than was its predecessor. So far, the evidence is minimally encouraging. On a visit to Srinagar on June 11th the home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, said he wanted Kashmir’s state police to take more responsibility from paramilitary troops. On June 17th Mr Singh suggested he was willing to reopen talks with the separatists. Under house arrest in Srinagar until June 23rd, the chief separatist involved in the earlier round, Umar Farooq, says he would welcome this. But he would surely prefer a more effusive invitation.
