The Kashmir border is porous. It is not unusual for human beings or animals to stray into Indian territory.
by Amjed Jaaved
For the past severa; days, India has been carrying on an “encounter” in Poonch forests. Despite the use of drones, India could not know the strength of the “militants” or weapons with them. The Indian army took out a prisoner Zia Mustafa to help them identify the location of militants’ hideouts. Zia, son of Abdul Kareem, is a resident of Burmag Kalan, Tehsil Rawalakot (Azad Kashmir). According to India’s version, he was caught in crossfire between Indian forces and “militants”. According to Indian media 13 other Kashmiri civilians were killed in similar "cross-fires".
The story does not sound credible. According to his family, living on the border, he lost his way and crossed over into the Indian side of occupied Kashmir. At the time of his arrest, he was alone and unarmed.
Unanswered questions
The Kashmir border is porous. It is not unusual for human beings or animals to stray into Indian territory. The Pak army returns people or cattle to their natives. The hapless guy had been languishing in jail for over 17 years. How could he be in communication with “militants’? Earlier he had been shifted from the Kashmir jail to Indian jails to prevent him from “indoctrinating other prisoners in the jail”. The state attorney had pleaded “intelligence inputs indicate that militant outfits are indoctrinating the minds of other inmates lodged in the prisons”.
He was arrested from Anantnag in March 2013. The trial court could not produce a single witness or a shred of evidence against him. As such the case was dismissed. The govt appealed but the High Court Srinagar dismissed the case for want of evidence. Thereafter, the prosecution appealed to the Supreme Court, vide Criminal Appeal 39899/2018. The case was time-barred because of laches. But, the court condoned the delay and admitted the case for hearing.
Killing of Mustafa reflects the exasperation of the Indian army. For over 16 days they have been engaged in “encounter” against militants. Despite use of drones and artillery they could not exhibit dead bodies of militants or report about their number to the media. The ongoing Poonch encounter has marked similarity to the sarp vinash (kill the snake) encounter staged in 2003. The encounter was termed sach vinash (destroy the truth) by critics.
In an article in India’s prestigious Frontline magazine, Pravin Swami exposes tell-tale falsehoods in claims about victory of the operation/encounter. These include inconsistent dates of the FIRs, arms and ammunition recovered, and number of militants. Swami writes:’
Operation Sarp Vinash *was launched on 21 Apr 2003, by a force level of two brigades, covering an area of 150 square kilometres". It does not specifically state when the Operation ended, but notes that it "resulted in the elimination of 65 terrorists". Major-General Hardev Lidder, the head of the Rajouri-based counter-terrorist Romeo Force, had affirmed exactly this figure at the press conference on May 24. Attached to the fact sheet is a list of 20 first information reports (FIRs), registered with police stations after each encounter. At a first, very casual glance, it would seem that the Army has a case.
It does not. Many of the FIRs that the Military Intelligence Directorate has listed do not belong to the period when it claims Operation Sarp Vinash took place. Five of the FIRs, all filed with the Surankote police station, are dated April 2, April 2-3, April 3, April 17 and April 19, and refer to encounters that took place before the Military Intelligence Directorate itself claims Operation Sarp Vinash started. Remove these from the list in the fact sheet, and the Sarp Vinash tally of terrorists immediately drops to 50. Five other FIRs refer to encounters in Banota, Kallar, Niayon ka Khet and Hari Safeda, again in the Surankote area, which took place after Gen. Lidder's claim. Indeed, the Hari Safeda encounter took place on June 14, after the Frontline expose on the Operation had become public. Cut the number of terrorists killed in these encounters from the fact sheet claim, and the figure falls by another 20, to just 30. Even this pitiful figure - less than half of the total that is now claimed by the Army - is open to dispute. The fact sheet, for example, claims that three terrorists were killed in Gagriyal, near Chrar-e-Sharif, on the night of May 6-7. Informed sources told Frontline that all three were ethnic-Kashmiri terrorists and not foreign nationals who were claimed to have been holed up in Hil Kaka.
Only five machine guns and a single mortar were recovered during Operation Sarp Vinash, hardly of a scale with the "war-like" fortifications everyone from Gen. Lidder to Chief of the Army Staff General Nirmal C. Vij claimed had existed on Hil Kaka. By the admission of the fact sheet itself, troops did not recover even a single rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a basic weapon widely used in the Jammu and Kashmir militancy. Worst of all, the number of Kalashnikov rifles the Army claims to have found, 40, sits very poorly with the 65 terrorists it claims to have killed’.
Concluding remarks
Since 2000, over 80 major fake encounters have been reported in occupied Kashmir in which more than 160 innocent Kashmiris were killed. Human-rights organisations have reported over 3000 nameless graves in India in which countless innocent Kashmiris have been buried. Recently, an Indian army captain Bhoopender Singh staged an encounter “in which three Pakistani militants were killed”. Their families protested that they were not militants picked up by the captain from their homes. A DNA examination of the exhumed deadbodies proved the families’ claim. The captain staged the encounter to “earn” a reward of Rs. 20 million and promotion. When porters are not handy, Indian army considers picking up Kashmiri prisoners and shooting them dead in fake encounters.The writer is a freelance contributor. He is author of "Kashmir: The Myth of Accession".
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