Ignoring the spate of curfews and strikes, an apparent repercussion of Afzal Guru’s hanging, the Fidayeen attack in Bemina is being used to blunt any debate on AFSPA revocation or the idea to offer space to dissenting voices in Kashmir. As the Vale is passing through trying times, New Delhi has started talking about ‘packages,’ again, a Kashmir Life report.
Since February 9, when Afzal Guru was hanged, a new chain of events has overtaken Kashmir. While the valley remained boiling over the intermittent killings – first in Hyderabad and then in Baramulla, this time it was a Fidayeen attack that is attempting to alter the way people looked at Kashmir.
On Wednesday, it was a Muslim Majlis-e-Mashawarat (MMM) sponsored strike and there was no report of any untoward incident anywhere when a shootout was reported in Bemina. The Jammu and Kashmir police and home ministry in Delhi termed it a Fidayeen attack. At least two young men had reported to the spot on the outskirts of Srinagar city, pretending as if they had come to play cricket in the sprawling grounds of the Police Public school. They were carrying a bag used for transporting cricket bats, wickets, leg-guards, and gloves. They got into the premises and mingled with boys playing in the field of the school that was closed because of strike. After some time, they opened the bag and start arming themselves.
It was at that point that a CRPF posse sitting in a corner detected the duo. Some of them were in chairs and a few actually sitting on ground, resting. Well before they could make out anything, the suspected militants lobbed a grenade towards them and followed it with firing indiscriminately at the forces. It was this attack that led to casualties – five dead and seven injured, besides three civilians. The firing invited the attention of the forces guarding the housing colony of the CRPF. They came out and shot dead the militant duo, whose identity is still not known.
These paramilitary and Jammu and Kashmir police personnel were the real game changers in the entire event. Had they not acted, the militant duo might have barged into the residential quarters. They were neutralized well before they could storm the quarters. This was the first Fidayeen attack in Srinagar after around 37 months. The last such attack was carried out by militants in Lal Chowk when they jumped into a hotel to keep the story ‘live’ for many days.
This attack followed one killing in south Kashmir and preceded another in Srinagar, not far away from the spot of the attack. Reyaz Ahmad Khanday, a resident of Matipora, was seriously injured when his load carrier was allegedly attacked by stone pelters. His family members said Khanday was on way home after dropping the willow sapling load in Mattan when he was attacked. Khanday suffered severe fractures and was operated upon at the SKIMS hospital. But the doctors could not revive him. Khanday who had dropped out of school to help his parents, breathed his last at the hospital.
It was a tragedy that shook entire south Kashmir. Hundreds attended Khanday’s funeral and there was lot of sloganeering. Police acted quite fast and arrested four youth. They were booked for murder. Hunt is on for two more boys. The killing was widely condemned.
Within an hour after the Fidayeen attack, a few vehicles carrying CRPF personnel were on their way to SKIMS. They received a few stones and while they passed Zoonimar, they opened fire at Altaf Ahmad Wani, who was crossing the deserted road along with his uncle. Two bullets were fired and both hit the chest of Altaf who was father of three girls and the lone breadwinner for his family that included his aged parents. When Wani reached the hospital, he was not even considered for an operation. He suffered two cardiac arrests within minutes and doctors were somehow managing to stabilize him. He was declared dead within minutes.
Police dubbed him a stone pelter and the hospital was suggested not to handover the corpse – given the policy that the dead bodies of those injured in such incidents are put on ventilators in the larger interest of law and order. But a huge gathering of the locality barged into the hospital and took away the dead body home. Wani was a close associate of Speaker Mubarak Gul and a second generation NC activist.
Police was quick to react. It ensured that the angry CRPF men do not open fire in Bemina when a small stone pelting incident followed the encounter. The investigations into the Bemina attack have led to the arrest of a former militant, a resident of Uri, who in turn led to another arrest, reportedly of a foreigner. Same is the case in Islamabad case in which it arrested the alleged accused in the case. But there has been inaction in the Saidpora killing, even though it was proved beyond every shred of doubt that Wani was no stone pelter.
Police carrying the body of militant killed in Bemina encounter.Pic: Bilal Bahadur
In the entire discussion that followed the three incidents, it was Fidayeen attack that topped them all. It was in the parliament in Delhi, in Assembly and obviously grabbed headlines on the TV channels, the new stakeholders in Kashmir. And it ought to be, because the attack killed five security men and it came at a time when all indicators suggested that militancy was down. There was a raging debate on the use, misuse and continuation of the AFSPA and the event offered it a new life, especially to all the forces which want the law to stay in Kashmir for some more time.
The attack came at a time when the central government was in ‘controlled desperation’ to see something happening positive in the state that was totally disturbed after Afzal Guru’s hanging. It has resorted to literal emergency means to keep Kashmir peaceful. While almost everybody who matters in the separatist camp is either behind bars or under arrest, it has been curfew ruling Kashmir for half of the days since Guru hanging.
The assembly currently in session at Jammu is unable to function. It did manage the immediate reaction to Guru hanging issue but could not manage the later events. However, it ended up in a fiasco as the principal opposition PDP announced it will stay away from the house for rest of the session against the humiliating statement that Home Minister Shinde made in Delhi. With everybody under arrest, the only non-government voice fell silent almost voluntarily.
When New Delhi had decided to hang Afzal Guru and it was conveyed to the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, the latter had suggested that if there is no second option to hanging, it should be done while announcing a political package for Kashmir, simultaneously. When he discussed the idea with Home Minister Sunil K Shinde, he was advised to go up the power ladder. Omar met Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister with the same prescription. Nobody responded to the idea and actually nobody asked him his details of package he wanted. But that was before the hanging.
As the hanging triggered a situation in which three persons were killed, it was taken as a satisfaction that there was nothing more in store. But as incidents started happening one after another, the situation went from bad to worse, Delhi started feeling the heat. The Congress core group is now considering options. It has sent requests to a number of Kashmir “experts” to offer them suggestions so that it would consider for implementation. There was nothing much that had come.
Responses have not been positive. Every other person is talking about what Prime Minister’s Office did to the reports that five Working Groups drafted and submitted. Even the three interlocutors who were hired at the peak of 2010 unrest and paid to spend a year and report about a way out are shouting that Delhi lacks sincerity and seriousness. There are no impressive instances when Delhi was keen to engage Kashmir purposefully.
But suggestions are pouring in. One suggestion was to fly Prime Minister to Srinagar and make a speech. Another was to help Omar by going solo by asking Congress to create an issue, come out of government but continue support to him so that he can manage situation on his own terms. Right now, he is facing a problem because he has to keep in mind Congress’s concerns while tackling Kashmir. It is not immediately known what centre has in its hand that made home minister Shinde to announce that the centre will offer a package to Kashmir to help it cool.
But the much larger issue for Kashmir is if the Fidayeen attack becomes an indicator of the revival of militancy. Package or no package, it could probe a larger consequence of the happenings. Analysts think such a situation will push Kashmir back to pre-2008 days when violence was the only means of the communication between the people and the state.
Year 2008 was the watershed year in the contemporary history of Kashmir. As the Raj Bhawan created an issue out of the land transfer, it became a major public event. It divided the state on communal lines as the reactions came from Jammu right-wingers that eventually led to the fall of the Ghulam Nabi Azad government. While the agitation devoured more than 60 people, besides causing loss of hundreds of crore because of economic blockade, it marked the beginning of a non-violent phase in Kashmir.
Notwithstanding the killing that took place in 2009 and 120 others in 2010, the three subsequent agitations marked the beginning of a non-violent phase in the contemporary history. It coincided with the fall in the overall militant activities graph.
The transition did not create much of an impact, but at the back end many things were gradually happening. For the first time, cops would roam around with routine riot gear and quite a few would stay dressed in the battle gear. Three successive regimes encouraged the system to opt for a new set of weaponry that is apparently non-lethal. There is a huge debate over this part of the change, given the deaths that these weapons are triggering, but the system is openly claiming to be adopting non-lethal systems. And above all, the fall in militant violence was triggering two vital arguments. Firstly, the AFSPA must be rolled back, at least from areas where there has not been any militant activity for a long time. And Srinagar was one of these places because it reduced the numbers of bunkers simply because they were not required at all. The argument was being made by different people at different levels.
Secondly, a semblance of peace had strengthened the debate that people must have more space to express themselves. Though it continues to be denied for one of the other reason, the debate is not dead so far.
The Fidayeen attack, momentarily, stopped both arguments. But can one attack in 37 months be used to declare Srinagar militancy infested?
