Kashmir – Paradise turned Hell By Latheef Farook

“Indian brutalities meant that India may have lost Kashmir”, Said Late Minister Rajiv Gandhi. 
India  despatched troops and occupied Kashmir on 27 October 1947. Kashmiris observe 27 October as BLACK DAY.

Kashmir which continues to bleed today under Indian atrocities has  often been described as “Emerald set in Pearls”, “Jewel of Asia “ and “ Heaven on Earth”.

These enchanting beauties provoked the famous Persian poet Urfi Shiraz to say that” if roasted fowl is brought to Kashmir not only shall it come to life, but shall be on its wings again”. In his first visit to Kashmir, the founder of Mogul Empire, Emperor Zahiruddin Bahar said” if there is a paradise on earth, it is here”.

Such is the indescribable beauty of the snow clad mountains of Kashmir with all its delightful flower beds, luscious green forests, lakes and canals.

Kashmiri Muslims like Palestinians in and around Jerusalem before the advent of Zionist Jews, have been one of the most gentle and peaceful people in this planet. However they were an oppressed and exploited lot by foreign dynasties which rued them one after the other.

The British Empire which brought Kashmir under its control sold Kashmir to Raja Gulab Singh, a Hindu warlord of Dogra family in Jammu for Rs 7.5 million under the illegal and immoral 1846 Treaty of Amritsar.

Kashmiri Muslims opposed the sinister sale which placed them under a forced Hindu ruler. 

Kashmiris rose up. Their uprising was brutally crushed by the Maharaja with the support of the British. More than 200,000 Kashmiri Muslims were killed and around 300,000 fled to the Pakistani side of Kashmir.

Maharaja’s favorite past pastime was persecuting Muslims including skinning them alive. Unable to put up with Maharaja’s  sadistic anti Muslim policies his  Prime Minister Albion Bannerji, a Bengali Christian, resigned .In a public  statement he stated that Maharaja treated Muslims like dump driven cattle ,press was nonexistent and the economic conditions were appalling”.

This situation continued until 1947 when during the partition of the Subcontinent the Hindu maharaja, once again fraudulently ceded Kashmir to India without consulting the Kashmiri people who fiercely resisted this move.

However years of political frustrations, political maneuverings of New Delhi, rigging of elections in 1987, and later in 1996,   economic problems and poverty combined with many other factors led to 1989 uprising which has become the crucial point in Kashmir Muslims freedom struggle

New Delhi responded by unleashing violence to silence the Kashmiri Muslims.

Indian armed forces, mostly Hindus with  often hate filled mindset towards Muslims, were given free hand under numerous Indian draconian laws to arbitrarily arrest, indefinitely detain under inhuman conditions, brutally torture and kill Kashmiri Muslims whose only crime was their demand for freedom and justice.

Raping women have been an integral part of the atrocities committed by the Indian armed forces since early 1990. Here are some of the comments by leading human rights organizations and independent columnist.

“Central and state authorities have done little to stop the widespread practice of rape by Indian armed forces in Kashmir. Indeed, when confronted with the evidence of rape, time and again the authorities have attempted to impugn the integrity of the witnesses, discredit the testimony of physicians or simply deny the charges everything except order a full inquiry and prosecute those responsible for rape". (Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, May 09, 1993) 

"Since January 1990, rape by Indian occupation forces has become more frequent. Rape most often occurs during crackdowns, cordon and search operations during which men are held for identification in parks or schoolyards while security forces search their homes. In raping them, the security forces are attempting to punish and humiliate the entire community." ('Pain in Kashmir: A Crime of War' issued jointly by Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, May 09, 1993) 

"By banning TV cameras and prohibiting the presence in Kashmir of the International Red Cross and of human rights organization, the Indian authorities have tried to keep Kashmir out of the news."(`Kashmiri crisis at the flash point', The Washington Times, by columnist Cord Meyer, April 23, 1993)

"(On February 23, 1991), at least 23 women were reportedly raped in their homes at gunpoint (at Kunan Poshpora in Kashmir). Some are said to have been gang-raped, others to have been raped in front of their children … The youngest victim was a girl of 13 named Misra, the oldest victim, name Jana, was aged 80".(Amnesty International, March 1992)

"The most common torture methods are severe beatings, sometimes while the victim is hung upside down, and electric shocks. People have also been crushed with heavy rollers, burned, stabbed with sharp instruments, and had objects such as chilies or thick sticks forced into their rectums. Sexual mutilation has been reported".
(Amnesty International, March 1992)

"The worst outrages by the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) have been frequent gang rapes of all women in Muslim villages, followed by the execution of the men". 
(Eric Margolis, The Ottawa Citizen, December 8, 1991)

"While army troops dragged men from their homes for questioning in the border town of Kunan Pushpura, scores of women say they were raped by soldiers….a pregnant Kashmiri woman, who was raped and kicked, gave birth to a son with a broken arm."
(Melinda Liuin, Newsweek, June 24, 1991)
[Anthony Wood and Ron MaCullagh of the Sunday Observer (June 02, 1992) estimated that over 500 Indian army men were involved in this orgy of rape and plunder in Kunan Pushpura.]

"The security forces have entered hospitals, beaten patients, hit doctors, entered operating theaters and smashed instruments. Ambulances have been attacked, curfew passes are confiscated."(Asia Watch, May 1991) 

"Subjugated, humiliated, tortured and killed by the 650,000-strong Indian army, the people of Kashmir have been living through sheer hell for more than a year, the result of an increasingly brutal campaign of state repression. India hides behind its carefully-crafted image of "non-violence" and presents itself in international forums as a model of democracy and Pluralism. Yet, it is unable to stand up the scrutiny of even its admirers. All journalists, especially television crews, were expelled from the Valley. With no intrusive cameras to record the brutalities of the Indian forces, the world has been kept largely in the dark." (The Toronto Star, January 25, 1991)

"Young girls were now being raped systematically by entire (Indian) army units rather than by a single soldier as before. Girls are taken to soldier's camps and held naked in their tents for days on end. Many never return home….Women are strung up naked from trees and their breast lacerated with knives, as the (Indian) soldiers tell them that their breast will never give milk again to a newborn militant. Women are raped in front of their husbands and children, or paraded naked through villages and beaten on the breasts." 
(The Independent, September 18, 1990)

Highlighting the atrocities the Weekend Guardian of London reported on 4 August 1991 that” after a visit to Kashmir in 1991, late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi said at a press conference in New Delhi that” the brutalities of the Indian army and the Central Reserve Police meant that India may have lost Kashmir”.

More than two decades after the 1989 uprising today the government in New Delhi, whether Congress or not, is not bothered about   Kashmir as they do not want to antagonize the Rashtriya Swayama Sevak Sangh, RSS, led Hindu fanatics who wanted to turn Indian into a Hindu raj by means of violence .They vow to keep Kashmir within India but allow to bleed and rot.

The Brahmin controlled mainstream Indian media has no time for the sufferings of Kashmiri Muslims. An Indian civil rights group, People’s Union for Democratic Rights, PUDR, stated that; gagging of the media is nothing new in Kashmir, and by and large it goes unreported in Indian media. In fact India’s media watchdogs have acquired notoriety in consistently acquising in the throttling of freedom of expression and assembly through their silence, where Kashmir is concerned.

Pakistan, the other party to the dispute on Kashmir, has its own problems with corrupted politicians collaborating with United States to kill their own citizens. In fact during the period of President Asif Ali Sardari’s, better known for corruption and  crime and  rode to power on the sympathy votes of his slain wife Benazir Bhutto, Kashmir  issue was almost in  cold storage .

However Kashmir again started gaining limelight after Prime Minister Nawas Shariff’s recent election victory .He has also discussed Kashmir with US President Barack Obama though nothing substantial will come out of m this meeting.

Muslim countries ruled by equally corrupt and rotten to the core rulers have no time for Kashmir as they are busy selling themselves to ensure the safety of their own regimes.

The so called international community (United States Britain and France)  busy demonizing Islam, invading and destroying Muslim countries and killing and maiming Muslims under the guise of fighting a fraudulent war on terrorism too has no time for Kashmiris.

The United Nations, the shameful tool of US, UK and France to legalize their wars, too has no time for Kashmiri Muslims. The UN Security Council passed a resolution on 24 January 1957 stating that; the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be made in accordance with the will of the people expressed through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.

All UN resolutions on Kashmir have been gathering dusts in the UN shelves.

At a prayer meeting on 26 October 1947 Mahatma Gandhi told; “If the people of Kashmir are in favor of opting for Pakistan, no power on earth can stop them from doing so. They should be left to decide for themselves”.

However it is not Mahatma Gandhi’s India today.

This is the era of godfather of Hindutva terrorism against Muslims Lal Krishna Advani whose road to power is through the blood, flesh and lives of innocent Muslims. He went on Rath Yatra, whipped up anti Muslims feelings and caused the communal clash during which thousands of Muslims were slaughtered. In its wake he led his gangsters to demolish the  500 year old Babri Masjid.

His follower Narendra Modi burnt and roasted innocent Muslim men, women. Children and the aged. His thugs raped and gang raped Muslim women and girls before killing them. Some even used swords to mutilate female organs of girls and women.

This murderous thug still remains Gujarat’s chief Minister and now clamoring to become the prime minister. 

These are today’s Indian leaders. They were treated with respect by Indian society and the media. Naturally India doesn’t need enemies?

Under the circumstance one could imagine what is in store for Muslims in the weeping valise of Kashmir under these Hindutva leaders.

Their sufferings continue with the world turning blind eye. This became worse since India established close ties with Israel .The two are bonded together by their common inherent hatred towards Muslims and Israel has been reported to be helping Indian troops on modern techniques to suppress the freedom struggle of Kashmiris.

According to All Parties Hurriyet Conference Azad Jammu and Kashmir 93,935 Kashmiris were killed, 105,982 houses and shops destroyed, 107,461 children orphaned,10,065 women molested and 22,772 widowed up to  September 2013.

Thousands of Kashmiris have disappeared during the past two decades. A police investigation in 2011 by the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) found 2730 bodies dumped in unmarked graves at 38 sites in north Kashnmir. At least 574 were identified as the bodies of local Kashmiris.

Commenting on this UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution in Kashmir valley Christof Heyns stated that;

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act,AFSPA, has become a symbol of excessive state power and has resulted in consuming innocent lives in Jammu and Kashmir; the pro liberation Kashmiri leadership has expressed the hope that the world community would put pressure on India to revoke AFSPA and other laws from Jammu and Kashmir. He called for repeal of all draconian laws such as AFSPA, Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act,DAA and Public Safety Act,PSA, from the territory.

This happens in the largest democracy in the world .What would be plight of Kashmiris, if Modi is elected as prime minister of India.

The unanswered question is where are the Hindus who believe in Vedas and non violence? Ends

The author Latheef Farook is a Sri Lanka based journalist. He could be reached at[email protected]