Murdering Minorities

Concept of human rights, specifically applicable to wars and warlike situations, covers a wide ground. But we have specially focused our attention on the right to survival of noncombatants, unarmed and uninvolved innocent civilians. We have raised our voice against the threat to this right from whichever side it came.

When three Sikh and two Kashmiri Pandit girls were killed at Kreeri Posh and Hogam villages in Kashmir, it highlighted a special case. The victims belonged to a minuscule Sikh and Hindu minorities who opted to stay on in the Valley after the mass migration of the rest of their communities in more than one phase. Their killing by what were called "unidentified" gunmen poses a threat to the moral, human and cultural basis of Kashmiris as also to their political aspirations much more than all the excesses from either side.

This danger is fortunately realised by most of the Muslim leaders and the people of the Valley as was attested by the massive response throughout the Valley to the call for strike given by the Hurriyat on December 28. But have they seriously pondered over the ways and means to prevent its recurrence; which despite their protests has not stopped? Can they ease their conscience by insinuating the hand of Indian agencies behind the gravest threat to the soul of Kashmir? A similar plea was used by sympathisers of Osama bin Laden who alleged that the attack on World Trade Centre on September 13 was organised by the Jewish groups. Or those who alleged that assault on Parliament House in India was stage managed by Indian government. Such a plea has been used whenever minorities were killed in J&K State-in Chhatisinghpora, Mehjoor Nagar, Pahalgam, Doda district or Railway Station in Jammu.

Even if the government evidence about various incidents of mass killings of Hindus and Sikhs is not fool proof, how credible is the proof for government hand behind these killings? If a government that could not keep a secret of the responsibility of its army in killing five innocent Kashmiri Muslims described as killers of the Chhatisinghpora Sikhs and of the killing of some Amarnath Yatris in a cross firing between the CRPF and the militants, can it keep a secret of its complicity in the alleged conspiracy of killing Hindus and Sikhs in dozens-one hundred on 1 August 2000 alone-at so many places through so many agencies? At what level such a devilish plan would be hatched? Nobody short of the Prime Minister could he get it implemented without the help of the Home Minister and the Defence Minister? How many channels of command the instructions have to pass and how many people have to be involved in implementing it?

It is not a defence of the lapses of the security forces and intelligence agencies. The governments of the state and the centre cannot be absolved of their responsibility of providing security to lives of the citizens. But let not leaders of Kashmir indulge in self-deception and divert the attention of their people from identifying the real culprits. The least that they must realize is that it is the prevalence of gun culture which helps in shrouding their identity. After all none of the secessionist leaders today have a control on any militant gun. How are they in a position to absolve them for the excesses they commit or alleged to have has forced committed? The spate of minority killings in various parts of the state is an additional reason for the leaders and people of Kashmir to realise that gun has far outlived whatever utility is claimed for it.