Abdur Rehman Padder, the carpenter from islamabad was killed in a fake encounter, his body mutilated and buried. He was dubbed as another foreign militant and the security men who killed him were rewarded. But, his family had a missing bread winner who had left his wife , five kids and an old father behind. Their search resulted in unveiling the truth. He had been killed in cold blood to earn rewards by the Jammu and Kashmir police' Special operations group (SOG). Police in their investigation of the case, traced his missing cell phone in the possession of the SOG cops. The cops were arrested and two senior police officers who had instructed them to carry out the killing have been temporarily attached to the Inspector General's office.
The government has ordered a time bound judicial probe. It reminds me of the pathribal case in which five men were killed brutally and dubbed as foreign militants in 2000. It has been proven that the army was involved in the murder but nobody has been indicted yet. Hundreds more are missing. Every now and then we keep hearing about the elimination of foreign militants by security forces and the subsequent rewards. How many of them were kashmiris killed in similar circumstances? Will anyone ever know about the result of the hundreds of investigations that have been announced in the past? Will anyone ever find out about the fate of the tens of thousands of missing people? The head of the state says that the missing people have crossed the line of control to get trained in the other kashmir. This may be true, but he hasn't proven it to us. Could it be all of them are already dead, may be, and that is the popular belief. Wouldn't it be helpful to set up a commission to look into these missing people and for once report the findings in specific time period. Personally I doubt it is going to happen. It is very difficult to believe that in this age it would have been too difficult for these missing people to contact their family no matter where they are. They could still indicate that they are alive if they were.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Kashmir Bloggers
Kashmir Bloggers is a blog to present a glimpse of the current situation in Kashmir. For those of you who are not aware of Kashmir, it is a himalayan state divided between India , Pakistan and China. The Pakistani side is called Azad kashmir by Pakistanis and the people living on that side of Kashmir and the same region is called Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) by India.
The Indian part of the state is officially called the Jammu and Kashmir State (J&K), with three major regions: Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh. The J&K state is called Indian Occupied Kashmir(IOK) by Pakistan .
The J&K state is separated from the other two parts by a dividing line called the Line of Control(LOC). India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir and it has remained a disputed region since 1947. In 1989, an armed struggle started in the kashmir valley and in parts of the Jammu region for independence from India. Ever since, there has been large scale destruction of life and property, particularly in the Kashmir valley. Tens of thousands of kashmiris have died since the inception of this struggle.
This blog will mainly focus on Kashmir valley, the center of the current conflict. The posts would not only include political thoughts but also religious and social expressions.
The Indian part of the state is officially called the Jammu and Kashmir State (J&K), with three major regions: Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh. The J&K state is called Indian Occupied Kashmir(IOK) by Pakistan .
The J&K state is separated from the other two parts by a dividing line called the Line of Control(LOC). India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir and it has remained a disputed region since 1947. In 1989, an armed struggle started in the kashmir valley and in parts of the Jammu region for independence from India. Ever since, there has been large scale destruction of life and property, particularly in the Kashmir valley. Tens of thousands of kashmiris have died since the inception of this struggle.
This blog will mainly focus on Kashmir valley, the center of the current conflict. The posts would not only include political thoughts but also religious and social expressions.
Ghost Prisoners
Recently I read a book called "Ghost Planes" by Stephen Grey [1]. It is a book about the true story of the CIA torture program. I was shocked to read about the torture that so many people around the world went through as a result of this rendition program. It is ugly. But here, I am not going into the details of the book. The reason I mentioned it is because it made me think. It made me think about those thousands of young kashmiri men who went missing in the last seventeen years.
These kashmiri men who disappeared have nothing to do with the CIA rendition program. Their crime: Being kashmiris who want to secede from India. Some of them might have been militants fighting for the independence from India, others just ordinary citizens who happen to live in the wrong place at the wrong time.
World was shocked to hear about one Mehar Arar [1], the canadian software engineer, sent to Syria during his transit at a US airport on way to Canada, where he was tortured for a year. Eventually he was released and Kashmir has lost thousands of Mehar Arar's never to return again and nobody is shocked. They left behind, half-widows, aging parents and orphan kids. They are seeking answers to their questions: Are the wives of these disappeared men, widows? Have these elderly parents lost their son? Are their kids, orphans? Nobody has an answer or may be people who know don't want to say it.
Many of these young men were innocent people. My question is even if all of them were militants, does the international or any ethical law permit their disappearance? Isn't it the moral responsibility of the Indian government to answer what happened to these young kashmiris.
Mohammad Nayeem
[1] Grey, Stephen. Ghost Plane, The true story of the CIA torture program. St. Martin's press, New York. 2006.
These kashmiri men who disappeared have nothing to do with the CIA rendition program. Their crime: Being kashmiris who want to secede from India. Some of them might have been militants fighting for the independence from India, others just ordinary citizens who happen to live in the wrong place at the wrong time.
World was shocked to hear about one Mehar Arar [1], the canadian software engineer, sent to Syria during his transit at a US airport on way to Canada, where he was tortured for a year. Eventually he was released and Kashmir has lost thousands of Mehar Arar's never to return again and nobody is shocked. They left behind, half-widows, aging parents and orphan kids. They are seeking answers to their questions: Are the wives of these disappeared men, widows? Have these elderly parents lost their son? Are their kids, orphans? Nobody has an answer or may be people who know don't want to say it.
Many of these young men were innocent people. My question is even if all of them were militants, does the international or any ethical law permit their disappearance? Isn't it the moral responsibility of the Indian government to answer what happened to these young kashmiris.
Mohammad Nayeem
[1] Grey, Stephen. Ghost Plane, The true story of the CIA torture program. St. Martin's press, New York. 2006.
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