The administration of the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir this week makes its annual spring migration to the city of Srinagar and into the heart of an increasingly violent secessionist uprising.
The Muslim rebel campaign which has cost more than 850 lives this year alone, has paralyzed normal life in the Kashmir Valley and raised serious fears of a fourth war between India and Pakistan.
On May 5 Indian forces on the Kashmir border claimed to have shot dead two Pakistani soldiers a claim denied by Pakistan. Over the weekend another 30 deaths were reported in clashes between security forces and militants in and around Srinagar.
And India’s Prime Minister, VP Singh, called for a crackdown on separatist groups. In a letter to the chief ministers of 25 states, Mr. Singh blamed anti India agencies from across the border for secessionist violence and demanded firm punishment for people shouting religious slogans that could incite violence.
In that somber context, the decision to move thousands of state officials from the comparative safety on the southern winter capital, Jammu is clearly a high stakes gamble.
But the state’s top official, Governor Jagmohan insists that the thousands of troops and paramilitary forces in the valley are at last getting the better of the separatist rebels.
In a recent interview he claimed that between 200 and 250 militants had been jailed. “As a result of this drive we have been very successful, we have got most of those involved in the killings. We are not losing the war,” he said.
Mr. Jagmohan appointed in January to succeed the last elected State government is one man ruler of India’s only Muslim majority state. One of this first acts was to ban foreign journalists from Kashmir.
Now he claims that the six million or so people of the valley are turning against the militants, who stand either for union with Pakistan or for independence,
But the governor’s assertion that the rebel flags and slogans are disappearing from the walls of Srinagar is flatly denied by travelers returning from the state. They say that the city, which is under rightly curfew, sees armed clashes every day, with snipers taking on the heavily armed security forces.
The Muslim population is reliably said to be utterly alienated from the administration. There are persistent accounts of beatings, rapes, torture and even summary executions.
There is now real fear of economic collapse. Kashmir depends heavily on its tourist industry, which has all but disappeared.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 11, 1990
