On Sunday another link was added to the bloody chain, called contemporary Kashmir. The paramilitary troops and police emptied the magazines of their guns on a group of people carrying bier of Muhammad Rafiq Bangroo of Danamazar, Safakadal, who after being beaten ruthlessly by CRP fianlly breathed his last on Saturday night. The body of slain youth was being carried by the family members and other mourners for burial in the Martyrs’ graveyard at Eidgah. In the firing by troops another teenager Javid Ahmed Malla fell to bullets. The gruesome incident was reminiscent of many other such shocking and grisly incidents including that of 21 May 1990, when volleys of bullets were sprayed on mourners carrying the Molvi Muhammad Farooq’s dead body. Twenty years on the pattern of killing innocent people has remained unchanged; the men in uniform have been killing people more particularly the youth for ‘a sport’ with impunity. The killings of Rafiq and Javid are not isolated incidents but make a part of the chain of killings that saw many youth dead in past six months. The latest in this regard is the horrifying killing of Tuffail Mattoo, who was hit by a tear smoke shell.   The police tried to cover up this cold-blooded murder by concocting stories first that he had been hit by a stone and later on by describing it a mysterious death.  Notwithstanding pictures of the killed youth testifying his death was due to tear smoke shell the police authorities tried to shield the culprits by weaving all kinds of stories. The autopsy reports not only rubbished the concocted stories of the authorities but also exposed the administration on how it was trying to hoodwink public opinion for protecting delinquent cops.
During all these past six months the administration after every killing, instead of working out a comprehensive policy for reigning in the men in uniform bringing more accountability, has been responding in panic. The knee-jerk policy of shifting or transferring officers is no answer to the killings of youth. If administration really wants to see human rights respected in the state it will have to move beyond its ‘lip service policy’.  The State Government and the Opposition in the legislature, without politicking and with all seriousness, must impress upon not for just amending but fully withdrawing the AFSPA. Since this law makes it almost impossible to initiate an action against the troops, killings go unchecked.  
The state government in isolation of an avowed support by the Government of India and the agencies operating in the state will not succeed in reigning in troops even if it sincerely means. During past twenty years the military and paramilitary forces have evolved an   adversarial mindset towards people in the State.  It is not the mindset of the central forces in the state that only needs to be changed but there is need for rigorous debriefing of the state police also. The State administration pursuing a myopic policy by creating militias and “task forces’ for short term gains not only disturbed the discipline within its own forces but created islands of authority and superstructures of terror within the police stations.  It has been these superstructures of violence within the police stations and camps of the paramilitary forces that have been contributing immensely to the situation like the one that has now erupted. To see human rights respected the government will have to demolish all such superstructures of naked force. The Government need to be reminded that the presence of massive bunkers within the civilian localities have been a cause of many tragedies. Knowing fully well   that the bunkers inside densely populated areas have been a catalyst for the phenomenon of stone pelting, the authorities better had a rethink over it.  By governments own reckoning of urban militancy having totally ended in the state there is no justification for having bunkers and camps of paramilitary troops and SOGs within cities and towns.  While pleading for revocation of AFSPA the Government should immediately demolish superstructures of aggression within camps, also removing bunkers from populated areas.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:00:00 IST