CHARAR: The government’s elaborate efforts at media management went awry as displaced residents of this guide town surrounded a large group of local, national and international newspersons, shouting and wailing that their town and its 15th century shrine had been burnet by the army.

“The residents of Charar which was still not fully under army control shouted slogans and insisted on telling the media party that the militants who had been in the town had tried to fight the fire along with them but the army’s shelling and orders prevented them.

The versions of residents, local policemen and fire service personnel tallied and pointed at the army, which they said sprayed the town with some powder and then shelled it with mortar fire, which set the powder aflame.

The pattern, established in the old town, was repeated at the shrine and the adjacent Khankah mosque they maintained, last week.

Firemen said they had been in a house in Gulshanabad locality of Charar, from where the army had ordered them not to stir out, when they saw the Khankah light up at about 11 p.m. and the shrine at about 2:30 p.m.

They said the militants called out on loudspeakers for fire brigade and police personnel to come and put out the fire at the Khankah but they did not dare stir out because the army had told them they would be shot if they did.

Ghulam Mohiuddin, the shrine’s caretaker, was among the eyewitnesses who stated separately that the army did not allow fire tenders to save the Stic that night.

The residents, who have lost their homes and belongings, seemed more anguished about the loss of the shrine and the ancient relics it contained.

Many of them were irate at the government, saying that it had stated over the past two months that it was laying ‘siege to the town in order to save the shrine so that the militants did not escape but neither had the shrine been saved nor many of the militants captured.

Some said Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao had first destroyed the Babri mosque and now this shrine.

Many of them called the army “cowards,” saying they were useless if they could not deal with 40 or 50 militants without burning down an entire town, What use is their training?,” asked one.

The army and other armed forces had obviously not counted on this outburst from the residents on the outskirts of Charar, from where they showed the journalists the bodies of five militants and a view of the smouldering town from a hillock about a kilometer away. ‘The media persons, including planeload flown from Delhi, had been taken in a convoy escorted by army trucks and the SP. The exercise had been planned in such a way that the media were kept occupied from the morning and away from the disturbances during Friday prayers.

Those media persons who had been in Srinagar had been told they would be briefed at 9:45 a.m when they ‘gathered, they were asked to wail for the contingent from Delhi.

After a further wait, they were taken to the headquarters of the army’s 15 Core and shown some captured weapons. After some journalists asked the Organizers to hurry, a planned visit to the army hospital was abandoned

AU a briefing, Lt. General J.S Dhillon, the 15/Crore commander, told presspersons about the Indian Army’s record of service in UN operations, the policy of not touching any shrine and asked them not to worry about human rights violations.

He did not answer questions during his briefing. Asked after the briefing, about reports that a powder had been sprinkled on the town before the fires, he said: “That is how propaganda is spread.” When told that various eyewitnesses had reported the same incident, he said “Ask someone who is technically qualified whether it is possible,” and turned away.

He said 23 militants had been killed (forces on the spot revealed that only five bodies had been recovered) and that not a single civilian had died. Charar’s residents, however, claimed that Noor Mohammed and Ghulam Hassan Kitas were among those killed in the shelling, The media group was taken by a circuitous route, double the normal distance, from Srinagar to Charar and arrived there only after the afternoon prayers in mosques at which trouble was expected across the valley were over.

Article extracted from this publication >> May 19, 1995