Shortly before the case went to the High Court, Kupwara’s local MLA Mir Saifullah, who lives barely a few kilometers away from Kunan in Shumnag, approaches the villagers. Now state’s law minister, Mir after a series of meetings, invites the victims to his official residence in Srinagar and pays 29 of the 30 a sum of one lakh rupees each. The victims see it part of the compensation that SHRC recommended. But when it is being talked about in the court, the state government is unwilling to accept. It has created a strange situation for the government.
Accepting that it paid the amount essentially means it admits Kunan is not propaganda. That goes against the policy of denial which state and the central governments maintained for nearly a quarter century. Denial essentially raises questions about from which fund the money was paid? It is a devil and deep sea situation for ruling NC that is so keen to retain Kupwara in 2014 polls.
As the case is back in sharp focus, the situation is improved and the comparative idea of space and time has fairly changed. From Shilpi Gupta, a Jammuite American, to Bilal A Jan, Kunan provoked many filmmakers to work with the victims. Many tried to help the victims and that included the army, General Patanker tried to do his bit. Now, details associated with the certain characters around Kunan case have gone rich.
Take the case of Wajahat Habibullah, for instance, the top IAS officer and one of the trusted confidants of 10-Janpath. Kashmir knew that he gave an ambiguous report that termed “highly
doubtful” the “veracity of the complaint” while insisting that he found “many of the village women genuinely angry”. Even this report, he left unsigned for the records in the office of Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir. This report was used by the government for absolving army of the charges that villagers were making.
After two decades, Habibullah is saying that the government “deleted important portions of the confidential report” that had recommended a police probe, up-gradation in the level of investigation, entrusting the case to a gazetted police officer and seeking an order from the 15 Corps Commander to ensure Army cooperation in the probe.
In his confidential report, Habibullah had referred to “an offence of monstrous proportions” as per the finding of DC and had suggested proper investigations. He had mentioned the failure of Brigadier H K Sharma in explaining his conclusion of the allegation being baseless when village women testified before him on March 10. Sharma was deputed by Srinagar based Corps Commander to investigate the allegations.
“The paragraphs of my confidential report where I had recommended that the level of investigation be upgraded to that of a gazetted police officer so that this case is probed efficiently were taken out of my report. I had also asked that the Corps Commander should issue orders to ensure that the Army cooperates with the investigation because SP Kupwara had indicated that in other cases, he was not getting the required cooperation for investigation from the Army. That paragraph was also deleted,” Habibullah told Indian Express recently. “When the report came out in the public, I did protest. I called up the Governor (G C Saxena). But I was already posted out of Kashmir by then.”
But in Srinagar, people who know Habibullah so closely ask why the soft spoken gentleman took two decades to make this thing public?
Even the Verghese part is getting interesting. As reported by The Hindu, he still sees Kunan as “bogus” and propaganda aimed at blackmailing the army. The new information is that he has been a colleague of General S F Rodrigues’s father. The General was then heading the army and had made a complaint that army is facing a “propaganda war”. Acting on this complaint, the Press Council of India (PCI) expanded the mandate of a pre-existing committee, led by Verghese. Accompanied by K Vikram Rao, Verghese flew in an IAF chopper to Kunan and stayed with the unit that was accused of the crime!
It was India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed who accepted the happening in Kunan. He is one of the few Congressmen who were in the thick and thin of Kashmir mess when a resolution was moved in a UN body on the issue of human rights by Iran, China, Pakistan and many other members of the so called Islamic block. Those fighting the resolution were Atal Behari Vajpayee and Salam Khursheed under the Narasimaha Rao regime.
“I can only say I am ashamed that it happened in my country. I am honestly appalled
