Doda Hindu killings

Designed at ethnic cleansing of
Jammu & Kashmir
By Prof. Hari Om

The most horrible aspect of the whole situation is the candid acknowledgement by certain officials that they simply cannot provide foolproof security cover to each and every member of Hindu minority community inhabiting the Rajouri district’s 375, the Udhampur district’s 645 and the Doda district’s 655 villages.

The Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Government consistently claims a significant improvement in the State’s overall security environment. It boasts that it has been able to check infiltration of mercenaries and merchants of death and destruction from across the border and that its crusade against the Pakistan-sponsored terrorists and their supporters in J&K has produced the desired results. It consistently describes the killing of Hindus and nationalist Muslims as isolated aberrations and dismisses out-of-hand the suggestion that genocide of Hindus is taking place in certain parts of Jammu province, especially Doda, Udhampur and Rajouri.

All these claims are as false, misleading and fundamentally flawed, notwithstanding the fact that the Indian Army and paramilitary forces have been able to liquidate 50 terrorists, including 25 of Pakistan and Afghanistan origin, during January-April this year. The fact is that the internally displaced Kashmiri Hindus are still languishing in the horrible refugee camps at Jammu and elsewhere in the country and that the State Government has not taken any step whatsoever to rehabilitate them in the Valley they quit in early 1990. (They had, it may be recalled, left their homes and hearths in January 1990 en-block to save their religion, culture and dignity and escape physical liquidation at the hands of the fanatics and Islamic zealots.) The fact is that the State Government has utterly failed to protect the lives of minority Hindus inhabiting the districts of Rajouri, Udhampur and Doda – all in Jammu province. Terrorists have physically liquidated no less than 93 hapless Hindus in these areas between March 2005 and May 1, 2006. Intelligence reports suggest the involvement of mercenaries from Afghanistan, Peshawar and Rawalakot in most of these gory and heart-rending incidents.

The most horrible aspect of the whole situation is the candid acknowledgement by certain officials that they simply cannot provide foolproof security cover to each and every member of Hindu minority community inhabiting the Rajouri district’s 375, the Udhampur district’s 645 and the Doda district’s 655 villages. This is an admission on the part of administration that it is not always physically possible to reach some of these villages because of the nature of the terrain and topography. In other words, it implies that it is not possible for the Army and paramilitary forces to reach these remote and “inaccessible villages” on time and that is the reason the Islamic terrorists; separatists have been roaming about freely in these villages and mercilessly butchering the Hindus and patriotic Muslims.

What a strange logic that the Indian Army can brave the vagaries of nature in Siachen, situated at a height of 20,700 feet, and defeat all the evil designs of Pakistan on this strategic glacier, but not counter or defeat the terrorists operating in the mountainous areas of Rajouri, Doda and Udhampur districts! Our Army and paramilitary forces are competent enough to controvert the pernicious influence of the militants anywhere in J&K, be it Doda, Udhampur or Rajouri. It is the treacherous, callous, corrupt and inhuman administration that has not only abandoned the militant-infested areas in these strategic districts but also tied the hands of the Army and paramilitary forces in the name of the so-called human rights. All these statements seem calculated to infuse panic and sense of insecurity in the minds of Hindus to hasten their wholesale migration from their homes and hearths and help fundamentalists establish Nizam-e-Mustafa (Islamic rule) there. How else should one interpret the disbanding of the ill-equipped Villages Defence Committees as well as the withdrawal of the Army and paramilitary forces from the militant-infested Kulhund area (Doda) and Basantgarh (Udhampur) immediately after the installation of the Congress- People’s Democratic Party (PDP) coalition government in the State?

This writer visited the Kulhund area immediately after the Hindu carnage and met several members of the bereaved families to ascertain their views on the nature of security environment they were living. Everyone told me that the situation in the area they inhabit was never so bad as has it turned after the Congress assumed power on November 2, 2005 leading to unbridled freedom to mercenaries to carry on subversive activities and create Kashmir-like environment in the Kulhund and similar other areas in Jammu province to make Hindus quit their age-old habitats. These mercenaries are, people told me without reservation, today feeling jubilant and highly emboldened to roam about everywhere without bothering to conceal their deadly arms. Result is the migration of almost all the Hindus of the Kulhund and adjoining areas to Doda town, where they are holding protest demonstrations and demanding establishment of Army pickets in the entire area, the revival of Village Defence Committees and sophisticated weapons, including AK 47s and AK 56s.

Another cause of jubilation for the terrorists is that majority of Hindus in terrorist-infested Kudwa, Sangh, Lodra, Panaara, Kothi and Khend in the Basantgarh area is also planning to migrate to Basantgarh. They feel totally abandoned by the State. They have come to believe that it would be better if they quit their homes and hearths and migrate to somewhat safer areas. In fact, reports have already started pouring in that the hapless Hindus come down to somewhat safer Basantgarh town every evening and go back to their houses in the morning to “feed their cattle” and work in their not-so-fertile agricultural fields. They, like their co-religionists in the Kulhund area, also want the government to set up Army camps and police posts in their areas and raise adequate number of well-equipped Village Defence Committees so that they could lead a peaceful life. Deputy Commissioner Udhampur, Shri Ashok Parmar, terms the “reports of fear among the people are unfounded” and that “we have further strengthened the Village Defence Committees by delivering at least 100 guns to counter any sort of militancy-related incident”. But all this has failed to restore the people’s confidence. They want foolproof security arrangements plus sophisticated weapons and not the out-dated and archaic .303 rifles.

The demands of the people of Kulhund and other Hindu-dominated hamlets in the hilly areas are genuine and based on ground realities.Terrorists have targetted the Hindus no less than 21 times between March and December 2005 and murdered as many as 43 hapless and innocent Hindus, including those who were dragged from their houses in Rajouri and Udhampur districts. Similarly, the terrorists have liquidated or butchered no less than 46 innocent Hindus (including 35 Hindus of the abandoned hamlets of Panjdobi and Thava in Kulhund area and Lolan Gala in the Basanatgarh area) and left hundreds of them seriously wounded.
The authorities in New Delhi should recognize the gravity of situation and take every step necessary to crush the Islamic terrorists getting strengthened with each passing day. The brutal killings are part of a grand design by Islamabad to first change the demographic profile of Jammu province and then accomplish what it has been striving for since 1947 – annihilation of the Hindus and dismemberment of India. They should realize that the situation in Doda is fast deteriorating, getting out of control and that the ill-equipped Village Defence Committees simply cannot counter and defeat the indoctrinated and motivated terrorists armed with lethal AK-47, AK-56, rocket launchers and what not. They immediately need similar weapons, adequate number of Village Defence Committees, Army pickets around all the Hindu-dominated hamlets, modern communication network, all-weather roads, fully-equipped dispensaries and work avenues. They also want from the government a policy that gives absolute power to the Army and paramilitary forces to crush the terrorists wherever they are. They all believe, and rightly so, that a soft approach would only help the terrorists expand their influence and their writ in more and more areas, thus causing an irreparable damage to the national cause. To be more precise, they want the Islamic insurgency and its innumerable supporters in the State Government to be liquidated with a heavy hand and creation of a situation where the writ of the Indian State runs and runs effectively.

(The writer is J&K BJP State Vice-president & spokesperson)