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KASHMIR IN FOCUS
More pressure on the
peaceful approach
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI - The Sunday killings of 24 Hindus in
India's Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir have
shaken its new government, which was popularly elected
in September on a mandate to bring peace to the
territory long disputed by neighboring Pakistan.
In the wake of the violence, the government of
Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed is being accused by
the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules
India's central government, of inviting the attacks
through a policy of reconciliation with Pakistan-backed
militant groups and releasing several of their leaders
from jails.
"This massacre is matter of concern
for us and it is the result of the soft action taken by
the state government against those responsible for the
violence against Hindus in the valley," BJP spokesman
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
Hundreds of thousands
of Hindus have fled Kashmir since 1989 when a simmering
movement for independence with pro-Islamic overtones
turned violent. Sayeed, as part attempts to bring a
"healing touch" to the strife-torn territory, has been
encouraging the Hindus (also called Pandits) to return
to their homes. But others said that more political
infighting at this point only helps violent groups in
Kashmir.
"It follows that the response to the
latest tragedy must be one from a united front, because
at the level of battling terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir,
there can be no government/opposition divide," argued
the Indian Express newspaper on Tuesday.
In
fact, the newspaper tended to blame the BJP-led
government in New Delhi for allowing the situation in
Kashmir to drift ever its since its ally in the state,
the National Conference, was ousted from power in the
September poll - and thus refusing to engage with
Kashmir politically.
"New Delhi has been guilty
of frittering away almost by design, the huge political
goodwill and momentum generated by a near PR-perfect
assembly poll in the state," it said. "Worse, it has put
hurdles in the way of the so-called healing touch policy
undertaken by the coalition of government of Mufti
Mohammed Sayeed."
Sunday's killings near the
Shopian town of Pulwama district, carried out by unknown
gunmen, targeted some of the Hindus who had chosen to
continue living in Kashmir in spite of attempts at
"ethnic cleansing" by militant groups, most of whom have
their bases in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir.
The BJP and the National Conference were soundly
beaten in September after people voted in an alliance of
Sayeed's pro-independence People's Democratic Party
(PDP) and the opposition Congress party.
Sunday's violence was serious enough to prompt
an emergency meeting of the Cabinet Committee on
Security on Monday, presided over by Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee and attended by Deputy Prime Minister
Lal Krishna Advani, Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha,
Defense Minister George Fernandes and army chief General
N C Vij.
Briefing reporters after the meeting,
Sinha said the meeting was called to review the
situation both in Iraq as well as the one arising out of
the massacre in Jammu and Kashmir.
On Tuesday,
Advani visited the district in Kashmir where the
killings took place. "Violence in Jammu and Kashmir is
continuing because of our neighbor [Pakistan]," he said,
although Pakistan said it "strongly condemns" the
killings in a foreign ministry statement released in
Islamabad on Monday. Pakistan has consistently denied
supporting militant groups except to offer them "moral
support".
Kashmir's governor, Girish Chandra
Saxena, said the killings, the latest in a string of
separatist militant attacks since the September poll,
was "an attempt by people across the border to whip up
communal tension in the state" between its majority
Muslims and minority Hindus.
Already, the
killings have stoked emotions among communal lines.
Shanti Bhan, spokeswoman for the Panun Kashmir
organization that represents some 300,000 Kashmiri
Hindus living in exile in Delhi and other parts of
India, says that the violence makes it seem like
returning to Kashmir was a mistake.
"The chief
minister should take care of security arrangements
before inviting us to return to Kashmir. We knew that
the militants were planning a massacre of Hindus who
have chosen to remain in Kashmir and had warned him,"
she said. "We now have no choice but to demand a
separate homeland for Hindus within Kashmir."
Sunday also saw the assassination in Kashmir of
Abdul Majid Dar, a popular separatist leader who was
expelled from the Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen group
last year for advocating a ceasefire with the government
and returning to the negotiating table.
Soon
after Sayeed was sworn in as chief minister in November,
Kashmir was rocked by the killings of 12 pilgrims by
suicide who briefly laid siege to temple of Raghunath in
Jammu, winter capital of Kashmir, much of which is
snow-bound during the winter months.
In
November, 13 soldiers and several others were injured in
two separate incidents, which were seen as reactions to
the popularly held elections certified as free and fair
by foreign diplomats who witnessed it. Violence in
Kashmir, which nearly brought India and Pakistan close
to war last year, have also continued this year.
This month has seen a sudden elevation of
violence with six people losing their lives in blasts -
one set off in a shop and another in a bus. On March 15,
militants also attacked a police post in Udhampur
district which left 13 people dead, 11 of them
policemen. But Sunday's killing, targeting the Hindu
community, was by far the worst militant attack since
Sayeed's government took power.
(Inter Press
Service)
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