Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 17:15:28 +0300
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: aaa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: WHAT DEMOCRACY ANYWAY--APART FROM ITS CONTRADICTION WITH ISLAM!
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Bismillah irRahman irRaheem
In the Name of Allaah, The Most Gracious, The Most Kind
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hijri date: Wednesday 12 Jumaada al-THaany 1420 A.H.
Assalamu'alaikum
The person who brought this article to our attention wrote these opening
comments:
"This article was published in www.Rediff.com. This online newspaper is
well known to publish anti-Islam articles and other material that hurt
muslim sentiments. But even they could'nt help but write the truth about
what is happening in Kashmir. A slaughter of democracy."
The Rediff Election Special/ Chindu Sreedhara!
!
n
(http://www.rediff.com/election/1999/sep/20jk.htm)
The slaughter of democracy: How the army forced people to vote in Kashmir
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is not an incident that I will forget in a hurry.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
At 1630 hours, just half an hour before polling officially ends in Jammu
and Kashmir's Baramulla constituency, I am passing through Natnussa, a
village in Kupwara district, on my way to Srinagar. Ahead, I see a small
procession traversing the mud road that almost runs parallel to the one I
am taking. I take a closer look and, for the fourth time today, see
election at gunpoint.
There are women and children in the group. Men too, though their number
seems less. Around 70 people altogether. And shepherding them, guarding
them, are Rashtriya Rifles jawans.
The villagers walk slowly, sullenly. Many of the 10 to 1!
!
5 armymen carry
long sticks besides their weapons. There are a few at the head, a few
behind -- and the rest walk on the flanks, their sticks at the ready. The
villagers are being taken to the polling station ahead. I have seen
animals being led like this, but this is the first time I witness the same
treatment being meted out to humans.
Someone, you see, some bigshot authority wants to show the world that
Kashmir polled decently.
We stop the vehicle. It is too good a shot to miss. Throwing caution to
the winds, I take out my camera. Fiaz and Rashid, the journalists with me,
follow suit.
The reaction is swift and violent. Two jawans run towards us and snatch
Fiaz's flash. My camera is already in my bag. We tell them we are from the
press, that this is a public road, that we are allowed to take pictures.
That doesn't help. There is some hollering from their part, and we are
ordered to leave the place. The procession by!
!
now has stopped and all
jawans are concentrating on us.
"Aap log yahan se jaye," comes the order, "Or we will show you."
I wave the Election Commission pass in their face. No dice.
"Give me your camera," orders a jawan and makes a half-hearted grab for my
bag. I push it behind me, and back towards the vehicle.
"Aap yahan se pyar se jayoge ki nahi?" a junior commissioned officer
starts towards us, "Okay, come with us."
Fiaz by now has managed to get his flash back claiming he hasn't shot
anything. We get into our vehicle. As we start moving, more out of
pig-headedness than anything else, we click a couple more shots. There is
a wild rush to stop us from the head of the procession. But we beat them
to it.
I look back to see the RR men gesticulating angrily. And the sheep being
led to the vote.
I have started from Srinagar early in the morning. The road seems scrubbed
of the overwhelming security !
!
presence it boasted on the 16th. Today, only
a minimum number of personnel is visible. Apparently in Kashmir, on
sensitive days like this the forces are kept off the roads as much as
possible to avoid militant attacks.
Just before Baramulla town I stop to pick up Rashid and Fiaz. Our vehicle,
which sprouts a huge press sticker, is stopped by a group of men. They are
the first of the numerous people who stop my vehicle to complain about how
security personnel are forcing them to vote. All are ex-militants. They
were taken into custody yesterday evening, some 300 of them, by the army.
"They released us only this morning. They have ordered us to bring out all
the people to vote. Their officer told us they would give us time till
1030 and if the people don't vote then, they would come and drag them out.
They said that they would come in the night to check and if we didnt have
the ink mark on our finger they would beat us," a youth t!
!
ells us.
So will they vote?
"We will not, Inshallah," they claim, "We are being beaten up for the past
eight years, so whats one more time?"
"The way things are going," adds a youth, "we may pick up the gun again."
A few kilometres ahead, in Baramulla town, which is observing a
near-hundred per cent hartal in protest against the poll, we stumble upon
a blast site. A bomb had gone off here, near the general bus stand, 10
minutes ago. Luckily, no one has been hurt.
"But there is another waiting to explode," a jawan says, pointing to a
battery, with wires running from it, by the roadside. The blast, a local
person tells us, is the fourth since yesterday.
At the main polling station, there are plenty of policemen but no voters.
The National Conference's Abdul Rasheed Shaheen, the PDP's Muzafer Husain
Beig, Independent Saifuddin Soz or any of the other seven candidates have
no attraction here. At the sight o!
!
f the press, a group suddenly forms and
there is a small demonstration with the slogan:
Nare Takbeer Allah Akbar
Hum kya chahte?
Azaadi
and
Goli, lathi ke sarkar
Nahi chalega baar bar
The infamous Sopore is more deserted than Baramulla. Inside booth number
73B, I meet M Shahin Sheikh and Shah Shah. Their identity cards, they tell
me, have been taken by the BSF; those will be returned only after they
produce the nishan on their finger.
Unfortunately, Shahs name isn't on the voter's list. He cannot vote.
"Please mark my finger then," he tells the polling official, holding out
his hand, "I came only for this."
The official obliges. "Poor people. Why get them into trouble?"
A little later our vehicle is stopped by a mass of humanity running on to
the road. This is Chaugal, the time 1030. Fifteen minutes ago, there was a
blast here near the polling booth. Now the BSF is turning t!
!
hem out of
their houses, and violently. They have been beaten up, the people tell me,
some of them showing bruises.
"The army had come in the morning and told us to vote. Now the BSF is
trying to force us," they say.
I can see BSF men running into houses, waving their sticks, shouting
"Nikal bahar." When they recognise me for a journalist there is a slight
drop in their energy. Their claim is they are searching the houses to make
sure that there is no militant hiding there with another bomb.
"That is a lie," says Mohammad Ismail Hasan, "they are using that as an
excuse to harass us. They had beaten us up before the blast too for not
voting."
And had anyone voted? No, inquiries at the polling station reveal that not
even one of the 822 votes have been cast till 1100 hours.
"Tell the Indians through your paper that we do not want to be part of
India," says another, "it is security people like this who make us !
!
hate
India."
Handwara is the only place where I find people actually voting. But then,
this is not surprising the area is the NC stronghold. But even here, I
get to hear about the army's interference. As told by Bhat, a 50-plus
gentleman:
"I recently shifted to this place. My vote is 25 miles away from here. The
army came in civil dress in the morning and told me to vote. I told them I
don't have a vote here, but they didn't believe me. They said if I didn't
produce the mark in the evening I would be beaten up. Now I have come here
to see whether I can get them to mark my finger. You see, today is a
hartal and there are no vehicles so I can't even go to my village to
vote."
1230 hours finds me in Kupwara. Here there have been a little bit of
polling. But again, I hear the same story: the people have cast their
votes not because they want to, but for that ink stain on their finger. A
short walk through the heart of !
!
the town, sans anything to identify me as
press, is educative.
In an alley, an RR major is telling an old man standing with a pail in his
hand: "Put that down and go and vote. You can do it later. If you don't"
His men, meanwhile, are moving into houses and repeating the same. I
introduce myself.
"So what I should do?"comes his answer.
What kind of operation is going on here, Major?
"We are making sure that there are no militants or explosive devises
planted," he says, "That is all."
People say you are forcing them to vote?
"People may say anything. I am an Indian. Be an Indian."
But werent you telling that old man to vote?
"My office is over there. Please wait for me. We will talk."
I walk on. A little ahead, I meet Fiaz who had gone to another part of the
town. Two RR jawans, he tells me, had waylaid him. Has he voted? No, he
has not? Why? Because he did not want to.
"Th!
!
ey told me to come with them to the booth and raised their sticks," he
says, "Whereupon I showed them my identity card. Then they cooled down and
told me, 'Hum apne duty kar rahe hain.'"
We move on. We hear more complaints, witness more incidents. And finally
stumble on the mother of it all in Natnussa -- sheep being led to the
slaughter of democracy.
_____________________________________________________________________________
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