Massacre memory haunts Kashmiris after 22 years

Writtenby: Showkat A. Motta.. Saltanat Farooq was four-years-oldwhen ‘the tragedy’ struck. “I remember it was a cold morning,and my mother tells me the date was January 21, 1990”.

Saltanatis 26, and what she calls ‘the tragedy’ is etched in thecollective memory of the Kashmiris as the Gaw Kadal massacre. It’snamed after the Gaw Kadal Bridge - a British era wooden structure inthe heart of Kashmir’s capital Srinagar- where on that day Indianparamilitary troops shot and killed at least 51 persons. The massacrewas followed by a series of similar bloodsheds, igniting a potentanti-India uprising that continues to smolder even after 22 years.

“Iremember my papa told me before leaving home, ‘I will soon take youthere’,” Saltanat recalls her father promising her a ride in agondola in Gulmarg - Kashmir valley’s famous hill station - wherehe worked as a driver. “In the evening papa’s bullet-ridden bodywas brought home” she said with moist eyes. Farooq Ahmad, her25-year-old father, had participated in an anti-India procession thatwas met with bullets at the Gaw Kadal Bridge. The victims, all ofthem unarmed protesters, were killed in cold-blood.

“Oursmall, beautiful world was destroyed that day. My mother didn’tremarry. I haven’t forgotten papa, either; I seldom smile,”Saltanat said.

Arrestsspark protests

OnJanuary 19, 1990, New Delhi appointed Jagmohan, one of India’stopmost civil servants, known for his pro-Hindutva leanings, as thegovernor of Kashmir. Jagmohan’s appointment came despitedisapproval and protests from the Kashmiri government then headed byFarooq Abdullah. Abdullah resigned in protest as the chief minister,and the state came under New Delhi’s direct rule.

TheIndian government, it’s widely believed, wanted to send a strongmessage to a handful of Kashmiri youth who had picked up arms tochallenge the mighty Indian state. The youths, though largelydisorganized, enjoyed support of a vast majority of the Muslimpopulation in the Valley that was seething with anger at New Delhi’sneglect of Kashmiris.

OnDecember 19, 1989, a month before Jagmohan’s arrival, thousands ofKashmiris had poured out on to the streets to welcome the fiveinsurgents who were released from jail, in exchange for the kidnappeddaughter of then India’s Home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, aKashmiri.

GovernorJagmohan, in his televised address to the people of Kashmir on theevening of January 19, 1990, hinted at pursuing a heavy-handedstrategy to crush the nascent insurgency. “I’ve come as anurse,” he said, “but if anybody creates a law and order problem,the cards of peace I am carrying will slip away from my hands”.

Nextmorning, India’s paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)troops conducted widespread and warrant-less house-to-house searchesin Chotta Bazaar, a congested locality in downtown Srinagar. Indianauthorities claimed that the presence of several armed militantsprompted the search operation.

Butnone of over 400 persons who were dragged out of their homes into thebiting cold and arrested proved to be a militant; neither was anyweapon seized. There were allegations of molestation as well duringthe search operation that was unprecedented in the history ofKashmir.

Eyewitnessaccount of the massacre

OnJanuary 21, 1990, as the word about previous day’s arrests andbrutalities in Chotta Bazaar locality spread across Srinagar city,thousands of people came out on the streets to hold anti-Indiaprotests. Eyewitnesses said the protesters defied the curfew andmarched through the city. They were intercepted near the Gaw KadalBridge where the CRPF troops went on a shooting rampage.

“IslamOnline” spoke to Zahir-ud-Din, a Kashmiri journalist and humanrights campaigner, who is one of the eyewitnesses of the Gaw Kadalmassacre.

“Processionswere organized from many parts of Srinagar. A small group was walkingtowards Lal Chowk (Srinagar’s main square). I rushed to cover theprotests,” Zahir recalled. “In the meantime, a huge processionappeared from Rajbagh area. The protesters wanted to go to ChottaBazaar to express solidarity with the residents”.

Whenthe peaceful procession comprising thousands of people, including anumber of women and children, reached near Gaw Kadal Bridge, Zahirsaid, it was stopped by police and CRPF troopers. “The men inuniform opened fire without any provocation,” he said, adding, “Idid not know what to do. Everybody was running for this life”.

“Whilerunning I saw something that had never happened before. A CRPFtrooper with a machine gun was firing indiscriminately on the unarmedpeople,” Zahir said. “A young boy (who was later identified as22-year-old Abdul Rauf Wani) went to him and tried to snatch the gun.The trooper emptied the entire magazine into his chest. Rauf fell ina pool of blood. The soldiers even fired upon the dead bodies. Ireached my place in the evening, and I hated myself for not helpingthe victims”.

‘Thatman is alive’

WilliamDalrymple, the acclaimed writer and historian, has also written aboutthe Gaw Kadal massacre and its impact on Kashmir and the Kashmiripsyche. As a young journalist when he arrived in Srinagar on January22, 1990, a day after the massacre, Dalrymple says he went straightto the city hospital.

“Everybed in the building was occupied, and the overflow lined thecorridors. One man, an educated and urbane city engineer named FarooqAhmed, described how after the firing, the CRPF walked slowly forwardacross the bridge, finishing off those who were lying wounded on theground. When the shooting began, Ahmed had fallen flat on his faceand managed to escape completely unhurt,” Dalrymple writes in the“New York Review of Books”.

Justas he was about to get up, Ahmed told Dalrymple, he saw soldierscoming forward, shooting anyone who was injured. “Someone pointedat me and shouted, ‘that man is alive,’ and a soldier beganfiring at me with a machine gun. I was hit four times in the back andtwice in the arms.” Seeing that he was still alive, another soldierraised his gun, but the officer told him not to waste ammunition.“The man said I would anyway die soon,” Ahmed said.

Ahmedsaid he waited forty-five minutes while the soldiers went through thepiles of dead bodies, finishing off survivors and kicking corpsesnear the edge of the bridge into the river. When a convoy of trucksarrived, Ahmed was hauled inside along with the bodies and coveredwith a tarpaulin. The trucks drove around Srinagar for an hour beforefinally dumping the bodies at the headquarters of the local police.From there the survivors were removed to the hospital.

Noinvestigation

Asthe public anger against the massacre mounted and anti-Indiademonstrations spread to the countryside, Governor Jagmohan orderedindefinite curfew across the Kashmir Valley.

Whenthe curfew was lifted after nearly three weeks, people rushed to themassacre site. “A heap of shoes and slippers were still there,”Zahir, the eyewitness, recalled. “It was a horrible site. Besidesthe relatives of the dead, there were many people searching for theirmissing ones. [A number of men had reportedly jumped into the riverto escape the bullets]. There were wails all around. Nobody hadthought that the valley of Kashmir would soon turn into a valley ofwails”.

Accordingto many eyewitnesses and newspaper reports, at least 51 people losttheir lives in the Gaw Kadal massacre and around 250 had sustainedinjuries. The official figure for the fatalities stood at 21. Policeregistered a first information report (No. 3/90), but claimed thatthe ‘‘unruly mob was pelting stones at the security forces.”Ironically, the police report makes no mention of the firing onunarmed protesters. The case was closed and the accused were declared“untraceable.” Nobody had approached courts for justice.

Massuprising

TheGaw Kadal massacre proved to be a turning point in Kashmir’shistory. Soon, the drifting struggle of a few angry Kashmiris morphedinto a popular uprising. Hundreds of young men, braving snow-cladmountains and bullets of Indian soldiers, crossed the Line of Control(that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan) intoPakistan-administered Kashmir to get arms training.

HumanRights Watch, in its report on Kashmir in 1991, quoted a man sayingthat he and other parents watched helplessly as their sons enlistedwith the militants. “Boys, as young as fourteen or fifteen, crossedthe border and came back with guns. No one could stop them”.

TheIndian government banned foreign journalists from entering intoKashmir after the international press carried reports about the GawKadal massacre. When the ban was lifted in May 1990—Kashmir wasawash in blood by then as many more massacres of unarmed civilianshad taken place across the Valley—“it quickly became clear thatthe brutality of the security forces had comprehensively radicalizedthe normally apolitical Kashmiris and turned a small-scale insurgencyinto a genuine popular movement,” Dalrymple adds.

“Indiahas united us,” a badly injured man, Dalrymple says told him at thecity hospital. “We have no option but to continue. Only then can welive with our heads held high”.

‘Reopenthe case’

Meanwhile,as the survivors prepare to mark the 23rd anniversary of the GawKadal massacre this weekend, a Srinagar-based human rightsorganization, J&K; Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), has decidedto file a fresh petition in court seeking the reopening of the case.

“Wewant justice for the victims’ families,” Khurram Pervez, theprogram coordinator of JKCCS who incidentally lost his 60-year-oldgrandfather in the massacre told “Islam Online”.

“Thekillers should get punishment”.

Thatwould probably put the smile back on Saltanat’s face.

Source:Islamonline.net

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