When I am traveling abroad, I have to carry an Indian passport. But whenever I’m asked where I’m from, I tell them, “I’m from Kashmir. I’m a Kashmiri national.” That’svery close to our hearts. THERE WERE some other cases of atrocities that you have documented and reported on. WE ARE fighting different cases in court. One of the prominent ones going onis the murder of a seventeen-year-old boy from Srinagar in the Lasjan area who was abducted by soldiers and killed. We convinced the family to file a case. In this case the armed forces have impunity under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. A sanction has to be obtained from the Indiangovernment for prosecuting these armed forces personnel. In the court we argued for the sanction. The sanction was sought by the J and K government, by the court here. And the sanction was denied by the Indian government, for unknown reasons. But in this case we asked the government of India through the court how many cases they have given sanctions and we asked the J and K government in how many cases they have actually sought sanctions under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. And we were shocked to learn that the J and K government has asked for sanctions in only 458 cases so far. But then we were further shocked to know that in these 458 cases the sanction was not even granted in one case. So the impunity which exists here is almost 100 percent. There is no scope for justice. The Indian judicial system is dysfunctional. It is supporting the Indian state. That’s why, again, Isaid these are war crimes, because all the Indian institutions collaborate to perpetuate the crimes against humanity here. There is judicial impunity, there is moral impunity, and political impunity from India. And Indian civil society has hardly questioned what has happened in Kashmir. They are bombarded with disinformation saying the people of Kashmir are violent. Why are they not happy livingwith India? How can one be happy living with India with so many people killed and tortured? You would findin every small locality ten, fifteen, twenty people tortured. And torture has resulted in different kinds of disability. There is so much which has happened to the people of Kashmir. It’s an unpardonable crime which has been committed by India. We believe the only honorable solution is the occupation has to end and for the perpetrators of the crimes committed here to be punished. There cannot be any other redress. There cannot be reconciliation based on forgiveness, based on forgetfulness. We believe forgetfulness would be another crime committed by Kashmiris on themselves, if they forget what has happened to them by theIndian state. ONE OF the issues often brought up by India is the treatment of Kashmiri Pandits, the Hindus, who left. Numbers of them were killed, others lost their homes. THE KASHMIRI Pandit minority, which left in 1990, is an important topic for the Indian government to constantly use against us.But Kashmiris believe that they were not forced out. They left because of their own insecurity. Kashmiri Pandits are a religious minority but also a part of the political minority here, which believed in complete integration andaccession to India. They were seen as supporters of India. So they felt insecure. When the armed movement erupted, because of that insecurity and because ofthe fear which was created in their minds by the then government, they left Kashmir, thinking that in a few months the situation would be fine and they would return. So they didnot leave forever then. They left because they wanted to return in three, four months, thinking that the army and the police and the government would take care of these Kashmiris who have been, according to them, indoctrinated by Pakistanis and have gonemad. “They will be treated soon and we will return.” I don’t know what this “treated soon” would mean, but these were the words they used then. During that time, most of the Kashmiri Pandits whowere killed were killed for political reasons. For example, Tikla Taplu, the J and K president of the BJP, the leading Hindutvaparty in India, was killed.So was the chief of the television center here, who happened to be a Kashmiri Pandit. Another person killed was Neelkant Ganjoo. He was the judge who in 1984 gave the death sentence to Maqbool Bhat, a Kashmiri leader. So these were people who were killed not because they were Kashmiri Pandits but because they were collaborating with the Indian state. There were many more collaborators who were Muslim and were killed by the militants. The number of Kashmiri Pandits who have been killed since 1989 to date—the officialfigure is 209—and they call it a genocide. We unequivocally condemn all killings of political activists, of minority groups, and they should stop now. There are still some killings going on of political activists from the ruling National Conference Party or the People’s Democratic Party. A few hundred National Conference people were killed. They were not killed because they belonged to any particular religious group. They were killed because they were collaborators. We condemn that. The campaign against Kashmiris is that Kashmiris were engaged in ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits and they carried out genocide against them. The murder of these 209 people is very unfortunate and a big blot on the secular and pluralistic values which Kashmiris have always professed. There might be some killings which were communal, but most of those killed in the early1990s were killed for political reasons. We have always condemned that becausewe do not believe that civilian political workers should be killed, even if they are working for the occupation. Communal killings are unacceptable.There is abhorrence herein our society today for that as well as the killing of political activists. ONE OF the most prominent allies that the Kashmiris have is Arundhati Roy. SHE IS a great friend of Kashmiris. And if you ask Kashmiris in any village, illiterate or literate—theymight not have read her work ever—they like her,because she is among thevery few Indians who have helped in giving voice to the voiceless people of Kashmir. Kashmiris feel voiceless because the world is not willing to listen to them. And if someone like Arundhati Roy comes andspeaks on behalf of Kashmiris, people here feel morally indebted to her. She has stood up against the Indian government and spoken the truth to the Indian people. Indians are misinformed about the situation here. They feel that there is terrorism going on. They think thatPakistan is brainwashing the youth. They do not know that it’s a people’s movement. And individuals like Arundhati Roy, Gautam Navlakha, Sanjay Kak, and Angana Chatterji are honorable Indians in the eyes of Kashmiris. Ask any Kashmiri about them.They love and respect them.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 16:39:33 +0000