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| What went wrong in Shopian | | | BALRAJ PURI
Murder and alleged rape of young women would shock people anywhere. But for a number of reasons the intensity of the shock in the entire Kashmir valley was much more severe when the police recovered the bodies of Nilofar, who was pregnant, and her 17-year-old sister-in-law Asifa Jan near a stream in Shopian on May 30. Massive protest rallies continued uninterrupted for full 10 days and in some form lingered on therafter also.
Firstly, the armed forces had camped near the place where the bodies were found, and their men were suspected to be guilty of the crime. As these forces have been visible all over the valley since the onset of militancy, it has not been difficult for political leaders to divert the popular agitation over the Shopian episode to the demand for withdrawal of the armed forces from the state and then the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Disturbed Areas Act, which give them immunity form the action of the civil authorities. They have also found it easy to link all this with the usual slogan, “We want Azadi”.
Secondly, people lost confidence in the government by its contradictory and confused initial reaction to the tragedy. In its first reaction on May 30, police officials said, “Drowning could have been the possible cause of death, and ruled out any kind of violence”. The doctors at Shopian Distirct Hospital separately stated that they were unable to complete their work because of the angry mob. Later doctors from a Pulwama hospital and the Srinagar Forensic Science Laboratory in their “postmortem conducted on the bodies revealed no marks of violence.” It was only on June 7 that the police admitted, “The interim medical report indicated that prima facie cognizable offence has taken place and a case has been registered.” On that date, a case for murder and rape was registered as the “forensic report found sperm stains in private parts on the victims.” Thus, the local administration, particularly the police, contributed to deepen the mystery.
Political leaders behaved no better. Cabinet Minister Ali Mohammad announced that an inquiry into the tragedy would bring out the truth within 48 hours. Nothing of the sort happened. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who was camping in the New Delhi for the swearing-in-ceremony of his father Farooq Abdullah as a Union Cabinet Minister, on his return, in his initial reaction found no foul play, prima facie.
Meanwhile, patience of the people had been exhausted. They expressed their lack of confidence not only in the government, the police department and the doctors by attacking the hospital but also in opposition PDP leader Mahbooba Mufti, who was greeted by angry protests when she went to Shopian to express her sympathy with the bereaved family. They protesting crowd pelted her bullet-proof car with stones and shoes. It was thus the loss of confidence in the government as well as the political system.
To salvage the image of his government, the Chief Minister admitted his mistake of relying on official reports. He appointed a judicial commission headed by a retired High Court judge to probe the incident and submit a report within one month.
Initially, the announcement of the commission was greeted with distrust. The bereaved family expressed lack of trust in it. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who had taken the lead in starting the protest movement, called the judicial commission a sham to gain time. The Kashmir Bar Association wanted a sitting judge to conduct the judicial inquiry.
But soon after the commission started its work, it got the case of rape and murder registered. DGP Kuldeep Khuda constituted a three-member SIT for expeditious investigation of the case. The Chief Minister personally issued an order transferring the Superintendent of Police of Shopian. The commission had gradually received the cooperation of all concerned.
Though Mr Geelani formally terminated “this phase of the agitation” from June 10, he urged the students to stage protest demonstrations in their educational institutions for two days. Apart from them, on June 11, the teaching and non-teaching staff of Kashmir University and the Government Employees Action Committee staged demonstrations to protest against the alleged rape and murder of the Shopian girls. Women employees of the civil secretariat, for the first time, registered their protest on June 13. Full normalcy has yet not been restored.
What are the lessons from the Shopian tragedy and how it was initially handled? Some of the responsibilities that the Chief Minister has assumed could be handed over to autonomous institutions. For instance, the State Human Rights Commission, which had offered a suo motu inquiry, could do so effectively if it was equipped with an adequate and effective investigation machinery of its own. Similarly, the State Women Commission, which had become defunct as all its members have retired, could take the initiative of visiting the trouble spot and establish a rapport with the agitated women and help them in articulating their grievances.
For a change, the current agitation witnessed a debate in the print media on the methods adopted by the agitating people like pelting stones on law enforcing agencies and government officers and prolonged shutdowns, and the effect on the economy, tourism trade - which was expected to register a boom this year - the coming Amarnath Yatra, education of students and patients to be taken to hospital. The questions are being raised whether Kashmir can be spared of such self-inflicted injuries.
It is not a question of comparing the monetary loss during the agitation with the honour of the young women. The relevant question is finding better and more effective methods of protest with the least damage to the interest of the local people. Mr Geelani, considered a hardliner, for instance, suggested avoidance of stone-pelting to register protest. Mirwaiz Farooq, leader of the other faction of the Hurriyat, acknowledged that strikes should be done away with and suggested “a way that the people do not suffer; tourism, trade and other related fields are allowed to drive.”
If the objective in the first stage was to know the truth about the real culprits, was it necessary to divert the popular anger to the movement for “Azadi” and even link it with the demand for the withdrawl of the Indian Army? If that was not done, it should have been the duty of the ruling party to seek the cooperation of the Opposition and even of the separatist parties instead of putting the leaders of the latter in jail. The leaders of the agitation could then count on the support of a large section of civil society and women activists from outside the state, which would have added substantial strength to their struggle, as eventually they did after about a fortnight of the tragedy. In any case, the issue of human rights could be separated from the final solution of the Kashmir problem. Even if they are related, technically all the issues should be taken up in stages.
Finally, the grilling of the former SP of Shopian by the commission of inquiry for six hours on two days had revealed glaring lapses in the role of the police which cast doubts about its complicity and possible involvement in the crime. After all, many recent incidents have shown that policemen are not entirely incapable of committing heinous crimes like rape. And what about nomads, who were camping near the site where the bodies were found? Where did they disappear? They may not be involved in the crime, but they might have been crucial eyewitnesses to it.
As the enquiry proceeds, more questions may be raised. There is, therefore, need to concentrate on getting answers to all the relevant questions without linking them with broader issues.
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