Two days after IG Police S M Sahai defended the siege of Jamia Masjid saying that nobody would be allowed to preach politics at the prayer places, Chief Cleric Mirwiaz Umar Farooq was allowed to offer Friday prayers at the central mosque for the first time in 14 weeks.
Mirwaiz had last offered prayers at the mosque on the Jummat-ul-Vida – the last Friday of Ramadhan. After Mirwaiz led a huge march from Eidgah to Lal Chowk on Eid ul Fitr, police clamped curfew in Kashmir and laid a siege of the mosque disallowing prayers for nine consecutive Fridays. Though the mosque was let open for Friday prayers just before Eid ul Adha, the Mirwaiz was not allowed to join. He was even kept under house arrest on Eid ul Adha and prevented from joining Friday prayers for a few more weeks.
Last week Mirwaiz moved his base to ancestral Mirwaiz Manzil in Rajouri Kadal on Thursday and threatened to make it to Jamia Masjid at any cost on Friday. However police swooped on Mirwaiz Manzil the same night and took Mirwaiz along dropping him back at his Nageen residence, where he was kept under house arrest the next day.
This week, however, Mirwaiz was not stopped as he came out his Nageen residence to join the Friday prayers.
Torture! But how do they know 
After the Wikileaks expose on torture in Kashmir jails, Inspector General of Police Shiv Murari Sahai was caught off guard in a BBC interview. Sahai was asked about the torture allegations made by ICRC, he had an interesting take. Though challenging the information ICRC had, Sahai seemed to admit that torture camps do exist in Kashmir.
According to a diplomatic cable leaked by whistleblower site Wikileaks, Red Cross officials had informed the US embassy officials in 2005 about the torture methods prevalent in Jammu & Kashmir. ICRC officials had told the US diplomats that torture in jails was systematic in Kashmir and the government condoned it.
When Sahai was asked about the allegations by BBC, he said.
“I do not know how the Red Cross could have accessed that information because they normally would not have access to these kinds to locations…”
Asked to clarify what kind of locations he meant, the police chief said, “Where the accusers (sic) have carried out the torture”
So such locations do exist, the BBC host shot back and Sahai went on defensive watching his words.
Still sahai seemed to drop hints about the nature of his objections about the location of tortures, when asked that ICRC had access to jail inmates in Indian administered Kashmir and had based their observations on interviews of some 1500 detainees.
“.. They are only detention centres where people are jailed and no torture takes place, so I do not know how they (ICRC) made this claim” Sahai said referring to jails ICRC has had access to.
On further queries Sahai said, “I said they do not have access to places where people who are under questioning are kept.”
It seemed that the point Sahai wanted to make was that ICRC had been to jails only and not to imfamous interrogation centres like the PAPA 2, Hariniwas or SOG Cargo camp.
The ICRC in its communications to US officials had said that they did had not been given access to SOG Cargo camp.
Policing university
Police is getting active in disciplining the academics in the valley. Within two weeks of arresting a college teacher for putting an allegedly anti-state paragraph and question in the undergraduate examination paper, they have booked another for putting an allegedly immoral paragraph.
Gandhi Memorial College teacher Noor Mohammad Bhat had put a paragraph for translation in English paper which talked about the killings of children and youth by police during the summer unrest. Police was quick to take action. Now Sahitya Academy Award winner Prof Shad Ramazan of Kashmiri department is facing possible arrest for putting a paragraph for translation that had references to female breasts.
A question paper set by an examiner does not go to print without being vetted by the examining bodies. It is a standard tradition that all academic bodies adhere to. If both the question papers have been approved by them then it makes a larger issue.
But the ideal response in both the cases should have been at the university level. Academicians of repute could have sat down, discussed the issue and taken a decision. It should be on their recommendations that the police should act. Permitting police to take actions bypassing academic bodies has long term consequences that undermine the fig-leaf autonomies that these institutions are still retaining.
Actions should have been initiated at the university level first and police could have followed it up.
