View from Kashmir | Anatomy of a Tragedy

Ashq Hussain Bhat

On 14 September 1989, JKLF killed provincial vice president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tikka Lal Taploo at Habbakadal. This was the first Pandit killing incident. But it was not the first political assassination. On August 21, JKLF had killed a National Conference worker, Yusuf Halwai at Sarafkadal. Halwai was a Muslim. On November 1, JKLF killed Neel Kant Ganjoo at Hari Singh High Street. Ganjoo was a retired sessions court judge who had sentenced JKLF leader Maqbool Butt to death. On 9 January 1990, JKLF shot dead Krishna Gopal of CBI. On February 13, they killed Lassa Koul, director, Door Darshan, Srinagar. Thereafter, DD Srinagar started describing gunmen as ‘militants’ rather than as ‘terrorists’.

Yusuf Halwai’s assassination frightened NC cadres who now swore on the Holy Quran in mosques that they would have no truck with NC. On the same day militants threw a bomb in the house of Shafi Qureshi of Congress.

Militants neutralized Provincial Police when they killed, on 1 December 1989, Said Ullah, SHO, Police Station Maisuma. Since the November 1989 Indian national elections CRPF began arriving in Kashmir in large numbers. They took over schools, colleges, cinema houses, hotels, etc. To foil them taking over more school buildings, militants began setting schools afire. Although JKLF was the most prominent militant organization active in Kashmir, there were other outfits also: Al Umer Students Liberation Front, and Allah Tigers. The last mentioned struck against cinema houses, video libraries, beauty parlours and liquor shops calling them social evils. Hizbul-Mujahideen was not a significant organisation.

February 1990 was a significant month for JKLF. The government of Pakistan designated February 11, Maqbool Butt’s death anniversary, as a day of solidarity with Kashmir.

Mood of Kashmiri Muslims

Kashmiri Muslims, having no military capabilities, believed that they would never be able to fight an armed rebellion against India. They had not touched firearms, except very few sportsmen who kept outdated muzzle loading muskets or modern shotguns for shooting pigeon. Then something happened that changed Kashmir for ever. On the night of 17 September 1988, security guards posted at Kursoo Rajbagh residence of Ali Watali, DIG Police, killed Aijaz Dar, a JKLF militant. They captured an AK-47 rifle from him. Bomb blasts, firing incidents etc., reassured Kashmiris as to the beginning of Liberation War.

On 11 February 1989, they observed Maqbool Day with a strike, hartal, in protest against his execution. The same month they organised massive protest demonstrations against publication of Salman Rushdie novel The Satanic Verses. Then in July 1989 Ladakhi Buddhists launched an agitation against domination of Kashmiris in Ladakh. They beat Kashmiris working there, looted their shops, and burnt taxis owned by them (P.S. Verma Jammu Kashmir at Political Crossroads, page 234-35). Kashmiris resented Buddhist demand that Ladakh should be separated from Kashmir.

On August 14 Kashmiris celebrated Pakistan Day and hoisted Pak flags. On August 15, the Independence Day of India, they observed Black Day by hartal. On August 17, they observed hartal to mark the death anniversary of Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan. On being questioned by CRPF men about the whereabouts of militants (who used the terms ‘ugrwadi’ and ‘aatankwadi’) they swore they had no idea.

On September 8 they observed the death anniversary of Sheikh Abdullah as Youmi-Najat, Deliverance Day, by remaining on hartal. In the evening they observed ‘Black Out’ by putting out lights of their homes. Again, they observed a hartal on September 18, death anniversary of Aijaz Dar.

Kashmir Police arrested Shabir Shah on September 28. Kashmiris observed hartal for 4 days. Hartal was now given the name of ‘civil curfew’. They observed Black Day on October 27, the day the Indian Army landed in Kashmir in 1947. They boycotted Indian national elections in November. They observed hartal on December 5, the birth anniversary of Sheikh Abdullah. They let off firecrackers on December 8 when Farooq Abdullah released five militants in exchange for Rubiya Sayeed, the kidnapped daughter of Union home minister Mufti Sayeed. They inundated the streets so that the releas