Aheli Moitra
On June 23, 2003, exactly a decade ago, Showkat Ahmed Paul from Lawaypora in Kashmir disappeared while on his way to college. At 22 years of age, Showkat was picked up from Srinagar in a white Sumo and a Mahindra vehicle without number plates. His parents immediately went to the camp he was identified to be in. But their search ran into a decade.
They approached all institutions of justice available to the Kashmiri people. A Special Investigation Team even got Showkat’s abductors (led by Major Pratap of the 2 Rashtriya Rifles in this case) to confirm that Showkat was taken into “illegal custody”. No investigation was ever conducted to find Showkat or acknowledge the bizarre injustice this family went through. No minister, leave alone the prime, uttered anything about terrorising the Kashmiris.
Suddenly in 2013, ten years since his disappearance, Showkat has been made into a Fidayeen. An active militant. A terrorist. A Jammu-based newspaper carried an article on March 24, 2013 in which police have claimed Showkat to be part of a Fidayeen flying squad of a militant group planning to carry out a strike in the civil lines area of Srinagar city. The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, of which Showkat’s parents are members, has called this claim “baseless and false”.
It is an attempt of the state, they say, to murder Showkat by staging an encounter or using extra judicial methods. Once declared an active militant, this is more or less normal procedure in Kashmir. But even without such a declaration, since the conflict began, about 10,000 Kashmiri Muslims have disappeared. Thousands of families have no idea where their children went, if they are dead or alive.
Showkat’s parents are slightly lucky: at least they have news of their son. Though unseen, he could be alive.
Could terrorists succeed?
They absolutely should not, mister prime minister. Yet since and through the 1990s, they have. Hoards of people in Kashmir have been picked up and tortured based on suspicion, often through a false cue. Children witnessed terror as their parents, uncles and grandfathers were mercilessly beaten in their courtyards. Heads were smashed and backbones crushed. Many had their genitalia electrocuted. Others had their vaginas mutilated. Scores were shot dead in forests, their bodies vanished.
The extent of terror instilled in the people through militarisation of Kashmir—spatial and emotional—is acute. In towns like Sopore, for instance, there is an army camp every 2 Km. People throughout Kashmir have been displaced from their lands and their livelihoods destroyed by bulldozers in a hurry to construct more army camps. Their barbed wire fences, at times, run through courtyards. In areas that have been converted into fully armed zones, women are used and abused as a part of life.
Terrorism must not be allowed to succeed. The injustices heaped on Kashmir must, thus, be acknowledged. Showkat must return to his parents. Families of thousands of disappeared persons deserve justice. The demilitarisation of Kashmir, not hydroelectric power, is a must in eliminating terror—this is the first thing that should succeed.
For feedback and ideas, please write to moitramail@yahoo.com
