Revision as of 18:14, 27 October 2016

The dispute

Pakistan-occupied Kashmir: In brief; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, August 15, 2016

The Times of India, Aug 15 2016

How India, Pakistan describe parts of J&K under Pak control

What India calls PakistanOccupied Kashmir (POK) is part of the former princely state of J&K -areas under Islamabad since Oct 22 1947, after Pakistan-backed tribal militia invaded and Hari Singh acceded to India. Islamabad divided this region into GilgitBaltistan (G-B) and the areas south of it, including Mirpur and Muzaffarabad.

How is POK in the Mirpur sector administered?

Before 1970, the MirpurMuzaffarabad sector had different administrative arrangements. In 1970, voting rights were introduced, a presidential system adopted.This worked for four years.Then, through legislation, a socalled parliamentary system was brought. This, with amendments, is in place. Since 1975, the region has elected a `prime minister'. It also has a 6-member council chaired by the Pakistan PM. Three are ex-officio; five nominated by the Pak PM. In theory, the council's assigned functions like defence, security, foreign affairs, currency, to Islamabad. Experts often question the pretenseautonomy in these places.

What about G-B?

Pakistan considers the regions disputed territory; G-B's status was vague until recently. To protect its claim in global fora that it supports freedom of the people in this region that it occupies, Islamabad couldn't declare G-B as its territory.For long, this region had no specified status in Pakistan's constitution. Through the “G-B Order, 2009“, a governance model similar to that in the Mirpur-Muzaffarabad sector was set up. The region is a defacto Pakistan province, but doesn't participate in electoral politics.

The Indian experts' view

India's IDSA says administration of POK only nominally under “elected“ govts. Real power is with Islamabad; army presence is overwhelming. When Islamabad ceded large tracts of POK territory to China, it undermined the pretense of the region's autonomy. The area has seen demographic changes, with Pakhtuns encouraged to settle here.

1990: Role of government servants in the separatist movement

When Naeem Akhtar and 4 others were dismissed for being ‘threat to India’s security, sovereignty and integrity’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz, _Published in STATE TIMES, Oct 21, 2016

With the volcanic eruption of armed insurgency, coupled with a separatist political movement, the administrative machinery was falling brick by brick January through March in 1990. Hundreds of thousands—and once a full million—of the Kashmiris used to march to the United Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan at Sonwar, demanding separation from India and implementation of the UN resolutions on Plebiscite.

Suddenly the separatist movement received a shot in the arm when [six] senior IAS officers, including the stalwarts Hindal Haider Tayyabji, Ashok Jaitly, M.L, Kaul and Mohammad Shafi Pandit, signed and issued an appeal to the UN [Indpaedia believes that it was addressed to the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir and was also signed by Sheikh Ghulam Rasool and Sushma Chaudhary] to intervene and stop human rights abuse by security forces in the Valley. Historic political developments took place when Vishwanath Pratap Singh was Prime Minister, Mufti Mohammad Union Home Minister and Jammu and Kashmir was under Governor’s, followed by President’s rule, in 1990. Many of Kashmir’s bureaucrats besides civil and Police officers became part and parcel of the secessionist movement.

Deputy Commissioner Excise Naeem Akhtar’s official residence at Government Quarter No: J-22 became the postal address of the movement as almost all the separatist politicians had been detained and lodged in different jails outside the Valley. Trade unions merged into a coordination committee which chose former Chief Engineer of Power Development Department Abdul Hamid Matoo as its President and Muzaffar Ahmad Khan as General Secretary.

Senior KAS officers like Muzaffar Ahmad Khan, then RTO Kashmir and General Manager with J&K Bank, Abdul Rashid Mubarki, additional Secretary Khizar Mohammad Wani and other prominent faces of the Kashmir Administrative Service came to be seen as the “real representatives of the Kashmir cause and sentiment”.

In months of the IAS officers’ memorandum, around 250 J&K officers, many of them between the ranks of Deputy Secretary to Commissioner-Secretary, issued another passionate appeal to the ‘Citizens of the World’. Believed to have been drafted by Akhtar in his Queen’s English, it called for Plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir under the UN resolution — euphemism for Kashmir’s secession from India and accession to Pakistan. The Kashmiris named it ‘Azadi’. It created ripples in India and abroad.

Governor Girish Chander Saxena declared five senior and influential officers — Abdul Hamid Matoo, Naeem Akhar, A.R. Mubarki, Abdul Salam Bhat and Muzaffar Ahmad Khan — as threat to the State’s security, sovereignty and integrity and ordered their dismissal from service. Within an hour, the dismissed officers and their colleagues, holding key positions in the Government, held a meeting at Akhtar’s official residence in Jawahar Nagar. The coordination committee called for an indefinite strike, making a host of demands. Not one was conceded by Saxena’s government.

The 72-day-long employees’ strike, that started on September 15, 1990, crippled the services in Kashmir. On behalf of Governor Saxena, Advisor (Home) Mehmood Ahmad Zaki (who later retired as GOC of Srinagar-based 15 Corps of Army) and Additional Chief Secretary Home Mehmood-ur-Rehman called on senior IAS officer Sheikh Ghulam Rasool (then Financial Commissioner Revenue, who was emerging as potential contender for the coveted position of Chief Secretary) and asked him to use his good offices to resolve the crisis.

There was no breakthrough till VP Singh’s regime ended and Chander Shekhar took over as Prime Minister on November 10. Governor Saxena and Chief Secretary R.K. Takkar did strongly refuse to revoke the five officers’ dismissal and their reinstatement.

President of the coordination committee Matoo had earlier played a key role in persuading the legendary Policeman and retired Director General of Police Ghulam Hassan Shah against accepting Jagmohan’s offer of appointment as Advisor to Governor. Shah did not join Jagmohan’s government even as the order of his appointment was reportedly issued after seeking his consent. Matoo’s daughter was married to Shah’s son.

One day in October, days before the annual Durbar Move, Sheikh Ghulam Rasool called over 50 officers to his Sonwar residence and urged them to bring home to Matoo, Naeem and others that shutting down entire services and systems could lead to miseries of the common people and poor employees, making it hard for them to sustain the agitation. Even the pharmacies and ration depots had not been exempted from the strike.

It was decided in the meeting that three officers — Ghulam Abbas (DC Srinagar), Aijaz Ahmad Malik (PCCF) and Ghulam Ahmad Lone (Law Secretary) — would meet the employees coordination committee members at Matoo’s residence near Al-Farooq Masjid in Jawahar Nagar.

On their return from Matoo’s house, the three senior officers narrated to Sheikh Ghulam Rasool that the coordination committee members were “extremely discourteous and rude”. “Sir, they treated us as traitors of the Kashmir cause and agents of the Government of India. They alleged that we are hobnobbing with Governor to fail the freedom struggle. Naeem said what nonsense of ration are you talking about. Kashmiris want freedom”, one of the them told Rasool.

“Sir we made it clear to them that Abbas Sahab is here in his personal capacity, not as DC Srinagar, so are two of us. We conveyed to them Zaki Sahab’s and Rehman Sahab’s assurance that they would be reinstated immediately after they call off the strike. But they didn’t relent. They addressed us as if they were the Governors and Chief Ministers and we were the class 4th employees”, another officer told Rasool.

Commissioner Secretary ARI & Training Nazir Ahmad Kamili told Rasool that he and some other officers had also received threats on phone. “They posed as militants but we are sure they were our own colleagues trying to intimidate us”, Kamili said.

The matter didn’t end there. Matoo and his team in their speeches at Srinagar Municipality and other places alleged that some officers were out on the mission of failing the employees’ strike and the freedom struggle. Then only functional newspaper, late Mohammad Yousuf Qadri’s Afaaq, carried a story on such whispers. It was decided in Rasool’s meeting with the officers that three officers would go to editor of Afaaq and publish a statement about their failure to convince the coordination committee members on suspending the strike. “If all of them want to carry on, we will say that we too are with it”, said Sheikh and others.

A group of three officers was deputed to Qadri Sahab. They boarded the red-cross marked vehicle of Director Health Services and handed over their “clarification” to the editor’s son, Jeelani Qadiri, at his office near Abi Guzar. Jeelani agreed to publish but told the officers that he would need his father’s approval as it was a “sensitive matter”. Soon the trio arrived at the editor’s home in Balgarden.

Director Health Services Dr Muzaffar-uz-Zamaan Drabu, who lived in Karan Nagar neighbourhood, went in to meet Qadiri Sahab who obliged the officer. While he was still with Qadiri Sahab, some residents gathered around the vehicle and asked its driver about the officers meeting the editor. As he narrated everything with naiveté and honesty, the small group of residents began saying loudly that someone should make an announcement on the mosque’s PAS that the “traitors” were meeting Qadri Sahab. Someone was heard saying that they should set the vehicle on fire and beat up the “traitors”. Law Secretary Lone, who was inside the vehicle, turned pale.

However, as the motley gathering of the residents witnessed Dr Drabu emerging out of the editor’s home, they saluted him. He made it clear to them that none of the officers was working against the interests of the Kashmiris or the employees’ strike.

Immediately after VP Singh’s and Mufti Sayeed’s government at the Centre ended and Chander Shekhar took over as Prime Minister, senior National Conference leaders Dr Farooq Abdullah and Prof Saifuddin Soz persuaded him to withdraw the dismissal of the five Kashmiri officers as a “goodwill gesture”. They assured the new PM that it could initiate a process of resolving the crisis by understanding and dialogue. On November 26 the employees’ strike was called off as Saxena, on PM’s instruction, revoked the dismissal orders.

Among the reinstated officers and bureaucrats, Abdul Salam Bhat later functioned as DC in Udhampur and Srinagar, Muzaffar Khan headed several departments including Handicrafts and Estates before his retirement. Naeem Akhtar functioned as Secretary Tourism before holding a tenure as Secretary to Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed. For some time, when R.K. Jerath was on leave, Akhatr also held charge of the key portfolio of General Administration Department. Ultimately, in 2013 he became PDP’s Member in Legislative Council and in 2015 Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed inducted him as Minister of Education. He retained his berth and portfolio in Mehbooba Mufti’s Cabinet in 2016.

2014-July 2016: Lions in hibernation wake up, Burhan becomes icon

By Ahmed Ali Fayyaz, The Times of India, Jul 30 2016

Mehbooba Mufti's inheritance of loss: How Burhan Wani grew to iconic status in the Valley

Burhan Wani, the 23-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen militant cutting his teeth with India's glamorous social media, achieved what only the charismatic Sheikh Abdullah had to his credit in Kashmir's history ­ a sizeable swarm of people at his funeral prayers, anything between the army's drone figure of 15,000 and some journalists' 2,00,000. Over a million had joined the Sheikh's in 1982 ­ by far the largest. Many of the 48 youths killed in the clashes triggered by the July 8 encounter died on the day of the funeral.

Funerals of even the iconic militants and separatists have been invariably ignored as their charm faded out the same day .Some pulled a thousand, someone even five or ten thousand. In 20 years, Kashmir has witnessed two massive funerals: around 20,000 attended Mustafa Khan's during Farooq Abdullah's regime in Tangmarg and around 30,000 Badshah Khan's in Kulgam when Mufti Sayeed was chief minister.

It didn't take Kashmiris long to forget even top separatist leaders Abdul Gani Lone and Sheikh Abdul Aziz ­ one shot dead by gunmen in Srinagar in 2002 and another killed in security forces' firing in Baramulla in 2008. Masarat Alam, unparalleled protagonist of the 2010 street turbulence faded into oblivion within days of his arrest. More significantly, nobody died for high profile separatist Afzal Guru whose execution in 2013 was “murder of an innocent“ for the average Kashmiri.

So what made Burhan a legend whose death triggered a chain of clashes and left around 50 people dead, hundreds injured and a bustling tourist season that has already suffered losses of hundreds of crores of rupees punctured?

Mufti M. Saeed After the Sheikh's dismissal in 1953 and his successor Farooq Abdullah's in 1984, no J&K politician has embarrassed New Delhi beyond a point. Mufti alone, who cultivated Congress and floated his own PDP to neutralise Sheikh's National Conference (NC), took liberties. His detractors insist he had Delhi's “licence“ that eventually made him the only Muslim home minister.

His brief tenure as Union home minister witnessed a fringe insurgency explode with the release of JKLF militants in exchange for his kidnapped daughter Rubaiya in 1989, followed by Kashmiri Pandits' mass migration in 1990. His outcry over the Ghulam Nabi Azad government's allotment of land to a Hindu shrine board divided people irretrievably on regional and communal lines in 2008, when secessionism had ebbed and the Valley was blooming with tranquillity .

With a mission to demolish Abdullah's NC, Mufti and daughter Mehbooba left no stone unturned to discredit and demonise `India' ­ its body politic, democracy , systems and institutions. With both UPA's and NDA's unfettered permission, he laid the `road to Rawalpindi'. It won him a chunk of votes and helped him become chief minister twice, but at a price Delhi will have to pay for ages.

For over a decade Mufti and his party only whetted the sense of victimhood and betrayal in the Valley which, in the process, grew rabidly anti-Indian ­ some of them ferociously Islamist.Omar Abdullah's deficits of domicile, language and culture forced him to toe Mufti's line and both, in competition, began discrediting “Indians“.

At the end of the day , nobody in Kashmir respects or loves India. Anybody perceived to be soft on India runs huge risks, such as those meted out to the residents of Kokernag after the July 8 encounter. Their houses were torched and orchards destroyed. The government remained a mute spectator.

The irony is that Kashmir was pushed back to the abyss when complaints of rape, custodial killings and fake encounters against the security forces had dipped to the lowest level of 25 years and India's best held assembly elections had happened in J&K in 2014.Nobody knew Burhan who was then three years into militancy.

But Mufti didn't wait much to ride the tiger. He freed Masarat and permitted him to hold a massive pro-Pakistan demonstration in front of J&K police headquarters. It woke up all the lions in hibernation. Within days a young school dropout emerged as an icon of jihad for Kashmir's Generation Next.

Meanwhile, Mufti's ally continued to stoke fires. A frenzied group of cow vigilantes killed a Kashmiri Muslim trucker in Udhampur. BJP leaders and friends filed petitions to terminate the state's flag and special position. The tinderbox needed just a matchstick that came in handy with Burhan's death.

The writer is a senior journalist

Polarised views, polarised thinking and rumours

1994/ Innocent tailor; 2016/ The girl who was not molested

[Ahmed Ali Fayyaz, In Kashmir’s polarised polity, it’s all down to who you believe in the battle of narratives, April 21, 2016, The Times of India]

When, in 1994, a sizeable crowd dragged a youthful tailor out of his home in the congested Nawab Bazar neighbourhood in downtown Srinagar and stoned him to death for the ‘rape’ of a three-and-a-half-year-old girl, an investigation by Kashmir Times established that the accused had not even touched the tiny tot. It was probably the first Taliban-type execution in Kashmir. The tailor’s body was thrown into the Jhelum.

This does not suggest that every rumour or outcry in the Valley is unfounded. It does, however, underscore the need of a credible investigation into the street allegation of a 16-year-old girl student’s molestation by a soldier in Handwara. Unfortunately, neither the media today nor any magistrate – police itself has become a party after releasing the girl’s video – retains credibility.

If an enquiry finds the soldier guilty, it will vindicate the pro-separatist civil society. Army will dismiss it as ‘a conspiracy to deprecate the security forces’. Contrarily, if an enquiry gives a clean chit to the anonymous soldier civil society, including mainstream politicians thriving on pseudo-separatist tirades, would call it ‘a fudged one to protect the forces and denigrate the Kashmiris’. The accusation, though debunked by the girl in disputed conditions, has already claimed five civilian lives in Kupwara district.

The world witnessed how an outcry of ‘rape and murder’ of two young women in Shopian set the Valley on fire in 2009. Even CBI – whose investigations in the infamous Pathribal fake encounter and Srinagar sex scam had been widely appreciated – failed to find takers for its conclusion in this case. It established that neither rape nor murder had happened. Exhumation of the unmarried girl’s body, followed by a thorough examination by a team of doctors and forensic experts from AIIMS and FSL, found her hymen and septum intact. But by then, Shopian had taken its toll.

Police have not been able to investigate even 2% of the over 60,000 militancy-related FIRs filed in the last 25 years. Allegations of sexual abuse and rape against non-state actors have often gone unnoticed, unreported and unquestioned. When the father of 2009 IAS topper Shah Faesal counselled a non-Kashmiri guerrilla against shaking his hand forcibly with a neighbour’s daughter, it proved to be the last day of the poor teacher’s life.

Security forces too enjoyed considerable impunity as few of them were punished over a delinquency or crime. From Kunan-Poshpora (1991) to Handwara (2016), the army has faced allegations of rape and molestation scores of times. Enjoying immunity under AFSPA, it has not been held accountable. Even the first – and till date the last – investigation by the Press Council of India (in the Kunan-Poshpora case) was not acceptable to civil society in the Valley as it exonerated the army and was conducted by a journalist known for his linkage to the then army chief’s father.

As the army provided institutional support to the accused even in cases like Pathribal, the Valley’s intelligentsia and civil society which was already tilted towards the separatists and militants, found it convenient to compromise neutrality and professionalism. When over 20 non-Kashmiri students were injured in the police lathi charge at NIT Srinagar, neither the agencies nor newspapers in Srinagar carried a line of reporting till it exploded in New Delhi.

People have little hesitation to admit that many of the journalists, human rights activists, judges and lawyers, even police officers, are obsessively inclined to one side and selectively pick up on matters that have potential to malign the Indian state, its systems, institutions and icons.

Now the battle lines are drawn. Rumour and perception have taken precedence over news. In the battle of narratives, which gets intensified by New Delhi’s licence to competitive separatism and an unbridled social media, the Valley would support the Handwara ‘victim’ only if she complains against the soldier. And the rest of India will be on her side only if she omits the soldier and proceeds against the two Kashmiri youths who created the scene.

Unscrupulous players have turned the teenager into a political football to strengthen their narrative. Nobody seems to care for her safety, dignity and future.

Aug- Oct 2016: 20 educational institutes destroyed

Saleem Pandit, Taliban-type offensive against schools in J&K, Oct 27 2016 : The Times of India

20 Institutes Wrecked In Last 3 Mths [Aug- Oct 2016]

Almost like Taliban's offensive against education in Pakistan and Afghanistan, terror groups in Kashmir are destroying schools and ensuring their continued shutdown. According to official figures, seventeen government schools and three private schools have been wrecked in the last three months of unrest.

The schools in Valley have remained shut since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8. Officials said that around two million students have been prevented from going to schools across the Kashmir Valley . The students of border areas like Gurez, Tangdhar and Uri in Kashmir, and Jammu and Ladakh regions have been attending schools without disruption though. Separatist influence is limited to the Valley.

Pakistan-sponsored stone-pelting brigades set two more government schools on fire on Tuesday , one at Noorbagh area of Srinagar city and a higher secondary at Aishmuqam in Anantnag district.The closure of schools and colleges has also been enforced by the diktats issued by the separatist conglomerate Hurriyat and militant outfits.

Lashkar-e-Taiba issued a warning to J&K education minister Naeem Akhtar on September 27 for trying to resume schools and colleges in the Valley. Lashkar spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi quoted LeT operation chief Mehmood Shah and said, “...Kashmiris are educated enough to decide what is good or bad for them. If Naeem Akhtar does not budge, we will initiate action against him.“ Later, in an open letter, Akhtar asked pro-Pakistan separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani to allow educational institutions to run. But his plea had no effect on separatists or terror groups.

Hundreds of parents have sent their wards to Jammu and Delhi for studies after they lost three months of schooling.