The words are revealing. They come from someone who has served in the Border Security Force for 32 years. Noor Ahmed said with wonderful regret: “Now the punishment for running for the country that my brother killed while in army custody. When asked what kind of marks were on the corpses, he replied: “There is no position in the frame where there were no marks of torture. We made videos and took pictures. It hit a lot. Their necks were broken. »
His brother is among the bodies of three of the nine citizens of Topa Peer village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district who were arrested for wandering by the army and handed over to their families on Saturday. The three dead were known as Mohammed Showkat, Shabir Ahmed and Safeer Hussain. They were taken away by infantrymen for wondering after two army vehicles were ambushed by armed militants in the village of Bufliaz last week. Four infantrymen were killed and two others wounded in the attack. Some bodies were also mutilated by the militants after the ambush.
Families of those killed accused the army of torture. Others arrested have publicly stated that they were tortured and are being admitted to a hospital in Rajouri. The army accepted the crime by paying 10 lakh rupees as reimbursement to the families of those killed. . He evacuated three officers from the area, a brigadier added, and ordered a commission of inquiry into the incident. The military also said it was “determined to provide its full cooperation in conducting the investigations. “
This stands in complete contrast to the incident in Kashmir Valley when Major Leetul Gogoi had tied an innocent civilian to a jeep as a human shield, and was awarded a commendation by General Bipin Rawat in 2017.
In fact, the army leadership has long claimed that any punitive action for fake encounters and custodial deaths will degrade morale of the soldiers operating in a tough environment where they are shielded by the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA). The government has bought the argument, not giving sanction for prosecution to the local police for extrajudicial killings, as is required under the AFSPA.
In this case, the civil administration has also been active. There is an FIR filed at Surankote Police Station, but it is against unknown persons. Internet services were shut in two districts to prevent any spread of outrage and anger. Topa Peer was sealed by the police and security forces from all sides, with no outsider allowed to enter the village.
Poonch district officials have also presented Rs 20 lakh as payment and government employment to the families of those killed in army custody.
Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Governor Manoj Sinha visited the area, as did Defence Minister Rajnath Singh when he met with the families of those killed in Rajouri, 35 kilometres from Topa Peer. This political awareness is because the BJP is actively courting the Gujjar community as it pursues its purpose of installing a leading Hindu minister in the Muslim-majority union territory. That’s why the head of the J
Although Muslim Gujjars have supported the security forces, the BJP has so far largely failed to expand a significant voice bank within the community, which makes up around 12% of J’s population.
The torture and killing of innocent civilians by the army has distracted attention from the deteriorating security situation in the Pir Panjal Valley, which includes Rajouri and Poonch districts. While the country’s attention has focused on the state of militancy in the Kashmir Valley, official figures recommend that 21 infantrymen have been killed in six clashes with armed militants in the Pir Panjal Valley this year. By contrast, only seven infantrymen were killed in three clashes in the Kashmir Valley, the original focus of armed militancy in the former state.
Until 2018, the Pir Panjal region was an infiltration zone for armed and armed militants due to its favorable topography, lack of snow, and forest cover. It was later declared a non-militant zone, but violence against security forces returned after 2020. The armed militants operating in the area lately appear to be well-trained and professional in jungle warfare: the army has lost special forces members and has been unable to arrest the perpetrators. Demonstrating their skill for mental warfare, the militants also recorded videos of 3 major clashes this year framing cameras. As Ian Fleming warned in the famous Bond film: “Once, it’s a coincidence. Twice, it’s a coincidence. Three times is an enemy action. “
This is an enemy action that manages to demolish the Modi government’s discourse of normality. Since August 2019, when he repealed Article 370, the status quo has been high and transparent: normalcy has returned to Jammu and Kashmir. Since then, neither state has been restored. Although no parliamentary elections have been held, this assertion is based on a single indicator: the alleviation of violence. The reduction in the number of deaths of militants or infantrymen has not been accompanied by a concomitant reduction in the number of security forces on EU territory. A logical step for the revival of the political process. Rather, the region has noticed increased security from the administration, with the application of the most draconian anti-terrorism legislation rather than other people protecting Kashmiris.
Failure on many levels
The Union government had demanded an end to militant violence in Kashmir after Modi suddenly announced its demonetization in November 2016. Something similar was done in the wake of the so-called surgical moves across the Line of Control in September 2016 and the dubious Balakot airstrike in March. 2019. The fact that well-trained militants attacked Indian infantrymen in Rajouri-Poonch shows that Pakistan has not been deterred from going its own way; instead, it has expanded its presence outside the Kashmir Valley.
The Modi government’s boast of holding a G20-related event in Srinagar to depict normalcy now lies in tatters. In fact, the US ambassador to India used the visit by some of its officials to Kashmir for that event to justify the visit by the US ambassador to Pakistan to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The normalcy narrative has boomeranged, underscoring a spectacular diplomatic failure of the Modi government.
It is also an intelligence and security failure. The intelligence setup, working directly under the highly rated Ajit Doval, has neither prevented the return of armed militancy in Pir Panjal Valley nor provided the tactical intelligence to thwart specific attacks on security forces. This is in keeping with its poor record in averting the Chinese ingress in Ladakh and the ethnic violence against the Kuki community in Manipur.
Because of their astonishment through the Chinese, the army was forced to move the division-sized Rashtriya U rifle force from the Pir Panjal domain to eastern Ladakh. A reactive and defensive posture has resulted in a broad deployment of more troops to the Chinese border, leaving fewer troops available for counterinsurgency duties. The challenge is compounded by a shortfall of around 120,000 infantrymen in the army, created through the Modi government’s resolution to ban conscription until the armed forces accept the short-term contract recruitment program for infantrymen. called Agnipath.
The army’s action against those youths in Topa Peer, and then the alleged publication of videos of their torture, will likely galvanise negative reactions from the Muslim Gujjar network, which played a key role in the expulsion of activists from the Pir Panjal region twenty years ago. The network, classified as a recognized tribe, has been affected by the broader anti-Muslim discourse fostered in the country under Modi’s government. After 2019, the Gujjar network became even more alienated when the BJP made larger reservations of registered tribes for the Paharis, made up of upper-caste Muslims and Hindus. The army is to blame, but the political status quo driven by a virulent Hindutva ideology is also to blame. The ideological imperative is to covet the land of Kashmir and at the same time despise its people.
When post-independence India sought to make Kashmir an integral component of it, it was in defense of the country’s secular constitutional identity, which does not discriminate between citizens on the basis of religion. Its aim was to deny the basis for the Indian component on the basis of communal lines and can only be achieved by convincing the Kashmiris. Today, Kashmir is seen as the site of a Hindu-majority narrative, where others will have to be subdued and the land conquered. produce winners. Even if Kashmir had been won, India would have lost.
(Sushant Singh is senior fellow, Centre for Policy Research.)