SRINAGAR: One hundred thirty-two persons died in a week of mindless repression by Indian security forces on the Kashmiris fighting for their liberation with the people resorting to a prolonged strike in towns and villages of the valley to protest.
India began its renewed death dance on April 9 when security forces killed Mohammed Maqbool Illahi, divisional commander of Hizbul Mujahedeen for Srinagar and Badgam areas, after he was taken into police custody. Illahi was second-in-command of the group and his coldblooded killing led to protests by the people. The security forces fired upon the protesting Kashmiris leaving 36 dead on that day alone and 38 the next day. Hundreds of shops in the state capital’s central commercial center, Lal Chowk, were set ablaze by the security forces, according to Kashmiri people, as punishment for joining the protest strike against the murder.
It is notable that when there is trouble in the valley because of the attacks on the freedom loving people of Kashmir by the Indian security forces, the communication link with India gets snapped. That is what happened again last week. The news was severely filtered by Indian intelligence agencies.
The mysterious fire in the Lal Chowk area broke out on April 10 as soon as the Indian Border Security Force vacated its head office in the Sana tam Dharam Sabha building where it had been pitted for months, The B.S.F, withdrawal is considered by political observers as mischievous. It was shown up as paving the way for Kashmiris to set the Sabha building ablaze first and the fire later having spread to other buildings. But most Kashmiris allege that the entire are a including the Sabha building was burnt by the Indian forces themselves. The loss to the Kashmiri businessmen was so extensive that the fire continued to shoulder even 48 hours after it began. Several shops which stored textile and electronics goods were reduced to ash while a cinema house was completely gutted. Numerous residential buildings in the adjoining Badshah Lal Chowk Maisuma area also were gravely affected.
Ever since India appointed a military governor, Gen K.V. Krishna Rao, about a month ago, deaths of Kashmiris in police custody started mounting. Political observers here felt that India tried to repeat their experience in Punjab where thousands of Sikhs were killed in fake encounters to suppress the Sikh freedom movement. A few Punjab officers were moved into the valley to prepare lists of those whom India wanted to eliminate.
On Friday evening, for instance, one saw body after body being brought into the police control room at Batmaloo while hundreds of agitated Kashmiris stood outside its gales waiting to identify the dead bodies. Unlike in Punjab, the public comes out on the streets against India’s repressive policies to lodge protests. And, it was against this background that the B.S.F. set the Lal Chowk area ablaze to financially wreck the people.
Most people here feel that the B.S.F. withdrawal from the Sana tam Dharam Sabha building was a calculated step aimed at razing to ground the Chowk arca. They dismiss as false the B.S.P. top brass Claim that the force only wanted to shift to the ground floor of the building. For, it is argued, where was the necessity to dismantle the bunkers on the ground close to the Sabha building if it was mere shift from upper floors to the ground floor, In fact, it is said, the B.S.F, was smarting since a few days earlier four of its men died in a mine blast.
The weeklong orgy of Indian violence was the most serious development after the January 6 Sopore incidents when the B.S.F. killed 43 Kashmiris (the local Population puts the number of the dead much higher). No B.S.F. official was punished by India although the incidents were featured by the media the world over, A Punjab and Haryana high court judge was asked to investigate the incidents and the judge has still to complete the assignment.
The Indian media claimed that, rampaging crowd mourning the death of Mohammad Maqbool Illahi, the divisional commander of a pro Pakistan militant outfit for the twin districts of Srinagar and Badgam, stormed into the Santan Dharamshala and set it on fire.
The security forces deployed in the nearby bunkers swung into action and replied in their own Style, in no time the buildings from Kokerbazar up to Badshah Chowk and Palladium Gali to Badshah Chowk caught fire.
Though how the fire started in Maisuma locality which is nearly 100 meters away from the scene of the incident is still unexplained and the state government has ordered an enquiry into the incident, most residents felt that security forces were responsible and nothing will be discussed during the investigation.
With this, the residency road, Maulana Azad road, the Boulevard running along the bank of the famous Dal Lake to the historic Mughal garden, the Nehru Park, the “Char Chinar” in the Dal Lake and shops, which used to be crowded with locals and visitors, hawkers and heavy traffic, is history now.
‘The burning down of the twin historic Chowk Lal Chowk and Budshah Chowk and the ruination of the nearby areas follows the gradual destruction of many localities and landmarks in Kashmir during the years of militancy, as security forces retaliate against citizens demanding the rights they deserve.
The Badshah hotel, which was destroyed in a fire incident much before militancy took root, is still in ruins with no immediate prospects of its rebuilding but Kara building, on the court road side of the Chowk, which was destroyed in arson, has come up again.
The Pestenji building, Dar builds and Subhana building on the banks of river Jhelum in the Lal Chowk area are still in ruins.
In downtown Srinagar, hundreds of houses in Kawdara and Noorbagh were razed to the ground in October 1990.
Elsewhere in the valley, Sopore witnessed many fire incidents during the past four years. Handwara, in Kupwara was completely.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 16, 1993
