Most people you talk to find the Kulgam allegation incongruous, if not altogether incredible.Yet, no one will say so.One allegation is all it takes to put the state and security establishment on the backfoot and leave the population apprehensive. Imagine if the lady had been raped and murdered and the corpse found. It could happen the next time.
One may be accused of insensitivity to a gender crime by calling it an “incident” when a section of people seem convinced that it was “abduction and rape”, over two days, a heinous crime. Government,Army, police, separatists and politicians have all made statements.Let us examine the facts that are certainly known about the incident.   
 A 29 year old married lady goes to a police station, along with her two brothers-in-law,and complains that she had been abducted by two persons in combat uniform, kept in custody and raped for two days before being sent back.The men carried weapons and radio sets,according to her.She has also identified the place where she was kept in custody.The protests immediately erupted.Bandh call was given without delay.Chief Minister issued a statement on his twitter.The cognizance of the alleged rape had been taken.The efforts to prevent further eruption began. 
A video of the lady which contained a different version of the incident went into circulation. Army held a press conference, not to clarify matters, but to assure action if the incident was true. Press carried everyone’s statements, albeit nuanced enough to remind one of Antonio who “came to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” Separatists are the only ones who are entirely convinced that an abduction and rape of the most heinous kind has occurred and that Army men are involved in the crime. So the protests would continue unless the guilty are tried in “an open court and punished.” Separatists have become the accused, investigators and the judge. Any voice against their version and verdict would be anti-Kashmir and dishonourable.What is the state expected to do? What is the Army expected to do?Many in the police, Army, press and administration have serious doubts
about the veracity of the story. But in the prevailing atmosphere,raising a doubt over it would be blasphemous. You cannot ask why for two days the lady was not reported as missing? You cannot ask why the difference in her two versions where in video she claims to have been abducted in the evening while the current version is of the morning.You cannot ask who is Shabbir she named in her video story and claimed that he did nothing to her.You cannot ask how an Army can be unaware of two of its men absconding with weapons and radio for two days. You cannot ask why the Army, which acted promptly over a minor scuffle in Pahalgam and punished the individual promptly, would want to protect two renegades in its ranks and risk a flare up of the kind seen every year from 2008 to 2010. You cannot ask why the police would antagonize
its own people, among whom it lives, to protect two Army men.You cannot ask publicly what everyone on the street is privately asking. Someone did ask, it seems.The response was there in the newspapers today. The separatists rebuked the doubts about two Army men missing for 48 hours without notice. They said the persons could have been taking turns to visit the location where the lady was held, which is not too far away from the Army camp. “With a wrong assumption, I can prove any wrong result,” said Bertrand Russel. Dale Carnegie put it differently, “you can never win an argument.” Everyone is trying to win an argument here with no common understanding of underlying assumptions.Most people have a stake in peace. Some, however, need disturbance for their relevance. It has
been a summer of peace and a  bountiful tourist season so far in Kashmir after three years of agitation.Someone is planning the time to start an agitation that would not draw adverse popular reaction for reasons of economics. Attempts have been made to excite popular sentiments over Dogra Certificate and PSA, to no avail. An incident of this kind was only expected. Thankfully, the lady is alive.She can be questioned to get to the bottom of the case.But a section of people here, are not going to let a season pass peacefully. Next,there may be a rape and murder to force an agitation to show the world that Kashmir is not peaceful. The people and press ought to be unequivocal in their distaste for such stage managed triggers, if only to save the life of that faceless ‘bait for trigger’.
Lt. Col. Vishwanath (Rtd)
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Lastupdate on : Sun, 24 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
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