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GULAB/ MADAM BAKHTAWAR
It took me a week to get around to meeting Madam Bakhtawar alias Gulab. Our meeting was arranged in a house in the posh locality of Bemina. I was asked to abandon the car in Lal Chowk and was taken by an auto-rickshaw over a bone rattling eight- kilometer ride to keep our rendezvous.
Slim, fair, of medium height, dressed in a well coordinated salwaar suit, she could pass off for a young genteel housewife and hardly looks like the founder leader of Muslim Khawateen Markez (Muslim Women's Organisation) who had been underground for the last three years.
I am twenty eight years old and have studied upto matric level. I have never married since I have been involved with Tahreek(the freedom movement) . Initially, when I was very young, when the elections took place, I used to work for Al-Fateh—when the call for jehad had just begun. At that time Salal-ud-din and Mohammad Yasin Malik used to work together and I was highly inspired by them. Then in 1989 when the whole movement for Azadi gained momentum, and since this had always been on my mind, I threw myself totally into it.
About the organization she works in:
For my land, for my own satisfaction, I worked initially from my own house. Our organisation was initially called Shobe-Khawateen and we were involved only in social work. In helping the poor and those who suffered in violent incidents. Our membership was approximately 500 strong.
We do not get monetary help from anyone, not even the militant organisations that we support, like the Hurriyat. We share ideologies and have a common cause but apart from that ours is purely a humanitarian organisation. We collect donations from individuals, relatives and well wishers and distribute it to the needy. We have a very strong voluntary support system. We have never taken up the gun or imposed our will on anyone but we do support militancy in the name of Azadi.
In 1992, just before Hilal-e-Ahmar(Red Cross—with fathers of some frontline JKLF leaders running the group) ceased to exist, we worked together and achieved much beyond our own expectations because massive donations from the locals would pour in daily. We financially supported the families of slain persons; arranged remarriages of widows; offered monetary help to orphans to continue their studies and even managed the affairs of the city's main cemetery at Eidgah. We clothed the poor and distributed burqas among poor women.
I have a sister who is not only poor but has lost her son—he went missing in 1990 and no one knows his whereabouts. I did not help her because I said I am not working for my own family. My parents have been very ill because they worry about me all the time. But I have not been able to do much for them either since I am on the run. Over the last ten years, I have had to shift my house several times. Initially I was in our own house in downtown Srinagar. Then I went to another place, then I was in Jawahar Nagar. Now I am in another rented place.
I used to have all the documents to support our claims of helping so many suffering and destitute people but all our papers, records and documents were taken away by the security forces during raids and crackdowns.
The security agencies- the police and the army were very suspicious of our work. We do support militancy by sheltering militants and providing them with all the help because I am a member of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and support all its programs. I have been under detention three times. The last time was in 1997. They came and took me away one evening, to the Rajbagh Police Station. No one from the security forces has ever seen me since I am always in burqa, so no one can recognise me but someone identified me for the police.
They did not harm me physically but subjected me to rigorous interrogation. They wanted to know about the Muslim Khawateen Markez, about our links, about our activities. I kept telling them that they were mistaken and that I wasn't Madam Bakhtawar. They let me off that very evening, probably because they did not have any policewoman present that day or maybe because they were not sure of my identity.
Our work as a support system is not restricted to any particular organisation . Pro-Pakistan or Pro-independence, we help all organisations since ours is mainly humanitarian work. Recently our membership and activities have gone down since I am not able to do much because of being underground. Initially our membership was huge with people coming voluntarily to join us. There were educated women, doctors, lawyers, who were part of our organisation and supported our cause.
Support has dwindled because we are harassed all the time now by the security forces with governmental pressure having increased considerably. Even people whom we have helped will not tell you about us because the security forces have their sleuths everywhere and the very next day these people will be interrogated about who is helping whom.
Personal Costs Involved:
I never married, because I never had the time. Many were after me to marry them but I said first lets finish this job; let us get Azadi, let decisions be made. I have sacrificed my house and my home, my parents and my life for the organisation, for my land. There aren't many others like me, I am the one who has sacrificed the maximum.
Atrocities on Kashmiri women:
She insisted that the security forces had carried out a lot of atrocities on the women of Kashmir. When asked if they had also suffered at the hands of the militants, she reluctantly admitted that it was a fact but due to fear of militants, no one openly held them responsible or blamed them. It was much easier to criticise the security forces.
MARY KAUL
Mary Kaul is the quintessential school teacher—ever smiling, comfortably plump with a rough voice but pleasant mannerisms. Daughter of a migrant priest from West Punjab, she was born and brought up in Amritsar, Punjab. Since her marriage to Ved Prakash Kaul in 1977, she has been in Srinagar. She here stands out in any crowd because she has continued to don the saree.
She was one of the very few who had the courage to blame the militants for her present situation and volunteered to speak about the trying times she faced during the years of violence in the region. She insists that hers is the only Christian family that had suffered such loss and is bitter about the indifference of the Church and Christian community in Kashmir.
I was one of five sisters . My father was a Christian priest and my mother was a housewife. I had a normal happy childhood with emphasis on studies and academic achievement. I did my B.Ed. and was teaching in St. Francis Convent in Amritsar when I got married.
Ours was an arranged marriage. My father had come to Kashmir for a conference and that is when the Reverend here told him about my husband and his family. My husband lost his mother when he was just a year and a half old. My father-in-law, Mr Dina Nath Kaul, used to work with Gandhiji in Vardha where a Mr Brown got him married to a Christian lady. It was she who converted him and my husband to Christianity.
In 1952 they returned to Kashmir and started a school, Vidhya Bhawan, in Navakadal. I joined the family in running the school after my marriage in 1977. That was till my father-in-law died in 1984. After his death my mother-in-law not only took over the school but also turned us out. We were left with the house in Alikadal where we opened a junior school upto the fifth standard. By then we had a daughter and a son.
Plight of Pandit Areas
In 1990 the problem started and since ours was a predominantly Pandit area we were severely affected. We were the only Christian family there. Due to the Pandits leaving, the strength of our school and income was greatly reduced. So I requested the Father in Tyndale Biscoe School for a job. I was appointed as an ad hoc teacher on 5 June 1990. My husband continued to run our school with 40 to 50 students.
On the night of 4 July there was an attempt by some miscreants to enter our house. I yelled for our neighbour and her son came and took us to their house. She advised us to leave the locality because she said even she would not be able to protect us for long. The next day I went to the Principal, Mr Kaul, and asked him for some accomodation within the campus.
He refused and said, ‘this is not a Mission compound and besides you have been with us for only a month.' I was shocked at his reaction since I had known him from Amritsar where both of us had been working in St Francis school and apart from that all the bachelor's accomodation at that point of time was lying vacant. That one decision could have saved my husband's life.
On 16 July when I was returning from school with my children, a child from our own school ran up to my daughter and said ‘Sir has been shot'. I thought she meant one of our employed teachers till she said ‘Ved Sir has been shot'.We rushed to our house and were amazed to see that everyone in our neighbourhood had locked their houses and run away so that they would not be called upon to help or be questioned. Apparently the militants singled out my husband and told the rest of the teachers and students to run away and then shot him.
I sent my seven-year old son to bring a three-wheeler to take my bleeding husband to the hospital. They all refused to help a victim of the militants. So I went myself and stopped an approaching three-wheeler by spreading my arms across the road. I told him that my daughter has an acute stomach ache and I needed to rush her to the hospital. He agreed to go but the moment he saw my husband he refused. Then seeing us in such a desperate situation, he ultimately removed his number plate and took us to the hospital but literally threw my husband's limp body there and sped away.
The doctor examined him and said that he had lost a lot of blood from the gun shot wounds in his waist and hip and would need four pints of blood. I asked someone there to donate some blood and he demanded Rs. 2000. I didn't have that kind of money since my salary at that time was only Rs. 1400. I had no one to turn to so I requested the blood bank to take a pint each from my minor children and two pints from me. They refused till I insisted and said that I would take the responsibility since saving my husband's life was my immediate concern.
All this while my husband was alive but could not speak. They took him to the operation theatre but he continued to be in the same state. In the morning at about 5 am he was very restless so I went to call the doctor but by the time I returned he was no more. He was just 42 years old. That is when the doctor told me the they hadn't performed the surgery at all and that the bullets had not been removed. Apparently militants had entered the opertion theatre and threatened them with dire consequences in case they tried to save him because he was a Pandit.
Then he was taken to the Safakadal Police Station where they had a post mortem done and declared him dead. In the report they stated that all efforts had been made to save him which wasn't true. I bathed his body before the funeral and I saw that the bullets had not been removed.
After the attack
Then I was told not to moan too much because these things happened all the time and that I would be given compensation speedily. I was advised not to go back to my house. So, with my children, I stayed in the Church for three months with absolutely no belongings, only the clothes on our backs. On 13 October I heard that even our house had burnt down. Then I approached Mr Ved Marwah, the security advisor to the Governor for some accomodation since I was a genuine case of suffering due to living in a conflict environment. He was instrumental in getting me a one room flat in the special security Jehangir Chowk area. Since then I have been living there.
It took me three months to get compensation of Rs. 1 lakh but I did not get anything for my house. It had now been nine years since I last visited that downtown area or my house.
In 1992, a group of militants approached me to sell the plot of my house to them. I refused because I wanted to wait till I could get a good price. But they threatened me by saying that if I wanted to live in Srinagar, I would have to do as they said. By now I had no where to go. My mother had died long back and my father died of a heart attack the moment he heard of my husband's murder. My sisters were married. So I gave away the land at a ridiculous amount of Rs.60,000 . Today the value of the plot is 6 lakhs.
I put that money in a fixed deposit which matured in 1997. I have invested that Rs.2 lakhs in a DDA flat in New Delhi. I don't intend on leaving this place ever because here I am a special case and have a lot of entitlements. The government authorities are approachable and sympathetic. But just in case I am ever forced to move, I must have some place.
The common people here are uneducated and totally unaware of people beyond the Banihal Pass. They know nothing about Christians. Anyone who is not a Kashmiri Muslim is supposed to be a Punjabi Hindu. I have often been harassed by groups of young boys who cannot be identified because they cover their faces below their eyes. A few years back they stopped me and asked why I didn't wear a bindi. I told them that I was Christian and even took out my cross and showed it to them. Then they asked me why I always wore sarees to which I replied that this was the dress that I was used to. Then they told me that I should either wear a bindi or a burqa. I refused to, to which they advised that I should not tell anyone that I was a Christian. In fact I was to give my story to the Press when I was threatened and warned against doing so.
My tormentors were from the Hizbul Mujahideen. Recently I met one of my neighbours from Alikadal and she told me that the boys who shot my husband were killed in a bomb blast. This does not give me any sense of satisfaction or happiness because my suffering and loss continue.
My children have never been approached or threatened but they suffer from deep psychological trauma. My daughter is very submissive and withdrawn. Immediately after my husband died, she would often run away to go and sit at his grave. I have been very troubled by her condition. She does not talk or laugh like normal children. She is physically and mentally weak. She fears loneliness and is timid, but average in studies. My son is quite normal and is in the 12th standard now. Both of them are entitled to government jobs under the special article of the State Government—SRO 43—for militancy-affected cases. My own life has been very lonely.
I am very bitter about the attitude of our Christian community. Nobody in the hierarchy helped me. There was no such thing as charity or help for my children's education, uniforms, books. We have subsisted on my salary. Once I approached the Bishop who was visiting from the North India Diocese of Amritsar and he said, ‘There are many women like you. How many can I help?' So I decided to pin all my hopes on God.
Reverend Yunethan Paljer of Srinagar is most uncharitable and self-serving. He has politicised the Church here. He was supposed to retire seven years back but is still carrying on because he does not allow anyone else to take over.
I do not feel any anger for anyone, only deep regret:why did I come here at all?
RAZAI ZAMEEN
Deep in the by-lanes of Nawgaon, Srinagar, lives Razai in a rambling double storey house enclosed in a high compound wall. Short, matronly, forty-five years old: she looks older than her husband who insisted on being her prompter and translator throughout our conversation. Her hospitality was persuasive—she served sweet milky tea in ‘Made in China' cups and proudly announced that the milk was from her own milch cows.
Born into a zamindar family, she was married at fifteen and brought a piece of land as part of her dowry. As a child, she never went to school and remembers playing with her brothers and sisters the whole day. No one even suggested school, she says.
It was only after marriage that I really started living and experiencing life. I was married to Ghulam Mohammed Zameen who was about the same age as me. We were distant relatives and lived in the same locality. He too is uneducated but very smart. He has always made more money than any of our relatives by dealing in cattle. He used to transport cattle from all over the country and sell them here. But that was in the past, now he doesn't do anything.
We had three daughters and two sons after which he insisted that I should get myself operated. Our eldest son and two of our daughters went to Chanpora Mission School. It was English medium. In our society we somehow don't force education on our children. So they studied till they wanted to. Two of the girls are married—we married them last year by selling some of the property. Now we manage only by slowly disposing off our property. We look happy and successful but look into our hearts and you will find only pain.
In September 1990, my husband's younger brother, twenty-year old Farooq Ahmed, was taken away by the BSF. He was a petty daily wager with a young wife, Sara, and two little sons. In fact the younger one was just twenty days old. Despite our best efforts, he has not been found. We followed various leads to Punjab, Rajasthan, Jammu but never saw him. Here is a Police Order dated 15 October 1990, signed by Mr Jaswant Singh, Deputy Inspector General of Police, CID, Srinagar. It says, ‘Farooq Ahmed Zameen is lodged in JIC Jammu. His parents want to see him. They may kindly be permitted to meet him under the rules.' He was not found there.
My son , Nazeer, who was then eighteen years old, was very attached to his uncle and the two were inseperable. He was suddenly filled with a burning desire to take revenge. Nazeer had been a very respectful and obedient son and had studied up to the twelfth standard. We had dreamt of making him either a doctor or an engineer since he was brilliant in his studies, but this was not to be.
Taken by militancy:
In early 1991, he ran away from home to take up the gun. We didn't know what to do. The SP in Kupwara was a friend of my husband's and he informed us that our son had been seen in that area. My husband went and brought him home. But it didn't change his resolve to join the militancy movement. He ran away again and again. Three times we brought him back but he was ultimately successful in crossing the border and going to Pakistan for training.
He returned after seven months but by then he had been completely subverted. He didn't care for anyone and was ruthlessly committed to violence. He only spoke of Quam ki Azadi (freedom of the motherland). He was now the dreaded Tanveer ul Islam and was part of the Tariq-ul-Mujahideen. He stayed home during the day and operated at night along with a gang of other similarly motivated youngsters.
Nazeer's motivation and commitment were complete. He had emerged as a local philanthropist. We tried to talk him out of this path of no return and even spoke to some of our security force acquaintances to help us in case he agreed to come clear and surrender, but he refused. The most traumatic experience for us was when he told us that if we continued to put pressure on him to give up the gun, he would not spare us. He said he would have no qualms in shooting us dead—in the name of Azadi. Our son was completely lost to us long before he died. He had become a completely different person.
It is commonly believed that the families of militants have flourished because of huge monetary compensation. No such thing happened in our case. Whatever money he got from across the border, was distributed among the locals to buy their support or to convert youngsters. He even took 2.5 lakhs from us for this purpose. He would bring lots of nice clothes to give away and of course he never parted with his AK 47.
He was a dreaded terrorist and youngsters here emulated him. We, as a family, didn't want the rest of our children influenced by him. Our house was raided many times and we were beaten up by the security forces to divulge information about him. He was swift and sharp: despite being involved in so much killing and sabotage, he was not nabbed for four years.
In September 1994, he was holed up in a house in Gulshan Nagar along with four of his companions when he had a fierce encounter with the BSF. They were all killed and even an innocent Haji died in that house. We came to know about it only when the police informed us, to take the body away.
We have never mourned his death. He was better dead than alive because he brought only pain and suffering to the family. But in our neighbourhood and in the community, his memory is revered. Our suffering and sorrow is only for the missing brother, Farooq.
His wife and children subsist on our charity since according to the Islamic Law, if the husband is no more, the wife is not entitled to anything. We have given her one room but apart from that I cannot afford more since I have my own family to think of. We tried to send her back to her own parents so that she could remarry and we would have kept the boys, but she refused to go.
Sara is managing by spinning yarn for a local Pashmina weaver and by cleaning grain for our neighbours. All this hard work is ruining her health but then how else can she support her sons? I don't think her husband will ever come back—it has been too many years.
Our life and our destiny was ruined the day my brother-in-law was taken away. Now we are harassed night and day by the STF (Special Task Force), our son became a demon, the younger son is terrified of everyone and everything, and my husband has lost his will to work. Our dreams have been shattered.
LALIJI BUTT
Laliji's is a strange story of abduction and rehabilitation. According to her, cases like hers have never received any attention since there are far more important and pressing issues in Kashmir.
Dark complexioned and tall, she does not look like a local. But she has schooled herself to blend in by speaking Kashmiri and learning the ways of the women here. There are many more like her whose poverty and helplessness in a strange place has been exploited. Their condition has been further aggravated by the lack of acknowledgement of their existence.
Lalji was brought from West Bengal as a ‘comfort woman'. Such women have continued to be brought to Kashmir to be sold to the highest bidder.
I was born in the month of Ramzan (November) about thirty years ago, into a very poor family in Murshidabad, West Bengal. My father, Alawas Khan, was a daily wager. I had three brothers and two other sisters. Since my parents could barely afford to feed us all, my married sister adopted me when I was very small, probably because I was the youngest.
My sister, Feroza, was relatively well-off and her husband was a very kind man. My brother-in-law ran a grocery store and my sister used to make a lot of money rolling cigarettes. They had no children despite having been married for several years. My sister was grooming me to be the second wife of her husband because she knew knew that sooner or later he would have to marry again since she could not have any children. He too was happy with the deal. One day they went to take the advice of a 'Peer Baba' . He advised against it and said it was ‘haraam' to marry someone you had brought up in your own house.
Soon after this, when I was about fifteen years old, a frequent visitor to the house, a woman called Kolli and the mother of my sister's neighbour and friend asked me to accompany her. She told me that she would teach me some work but I would not be able to return for a year. I agreed but did not tell my sister anything because I was scared that she would stop me from going. Since that day my life has never been the same.
We traveled by trains and buses for days and I was ultimately brought to Srinagar. I used to cry all the time. On reaching our destination, I asked her where she was taking me and that is when she told me that I was to be sold. Once in Srinagar, I soon realised that this was her business and that she had been doing this for a long time. I met many Bengali girls like myself.
She knew some people in the HMT (Hindustan Machine Tools) factory area and that is where we stayed initially. Then I was sold to a woman called Ayeshama for Rs 5,500. She had apparently bought me to marry her brother who was very old, ugly and lame, so he couldn't find a bride among his own people.
She kept me with herself for six months during which period she taught me to cook and take care of a house. She was happily married with children. I attempted to run away but she gave my photograph in the police station and I was soon brought back.
Then our ‘nikah' (marriage ceremony) took place. She put ‘mehndi' (henna) for me, gave me clothes and a burqa. My husband Ghulam Nabi Butt was forty-years old when we married. I didn't like him and have never learnt to like him. He used to be a bawarchi (cook) in Delhi and had recently returned to Srinagar because of poor health. He worked in a poultry farm and stank all the time. I used to run away all the time. My husband was advised to make me a mother so that I would have ties to bind me to the family. Since I didn't like him, she used to lock me indoors with him. The last time I attempted to run away was when I was carrying my first child.
I soon gave birth to three girls and a son. I am very proud of my children and live only for them. My eldest is a daughter who asks many questions but I don't tell her very much; how can I? I plan to work very hard and give them very good futures, not a destiny like mine. I intend educating them even though their father and I are both illiterate. After the third daughter I insisted on getting operated but I wasn't allowed until I had a son. The situation here was very bad and nobody was willing to perform the operation. So I went to Jammu and had a tubectomy.
During this period my husband earned about Rs. 1,200 a month. We were able to rebuild our house by selling some of the trees his family owned. Now, for the last few years he cannot move at all; he gets breathless if he does.
After the birth of all my children, I did go home to Murshidabad along with my husband and the children. What I learnt about my family was very painful and I wished I had never gone or got to know. I learnt that after my disappearance my brother-in-law blamed my sister for getting rid of me. She suffered so much because of this accusation that after remaining ill for three years, she committed suicide by consuming poison. My brother-in-law filed a case against the neighbour's husband, Idris, for my abduction and he was jailed for six years. He also went looking for me to Bihar, Banaras and Kashmir but returned disappointed. My mother went insane and used to roam the streets before she died.
Now my home is here in Kashmir where I have to bring up my children and protect them from this air of militancy. We have not been harassed during this period , probably because we are too poor or maybe because we live so close to the cantonment. But we used to hear a lot of firing and bomb blasts—I couldn't sleep for nights on end. My husband is an acute asthmatic and too ill to do anything. I work in the cantonment as a domestic maid and hope to get a permanent appointment as a sweeper or something. Working in the cantonment gives me protection and respectability.
Plight of other women:
My life has turned out far better than the rest of my family. I have been fortunate in the people who bought me. Another girl who came immediately after me was Rahima. She was abducted along with her two children, a son and a daughter. Her son has remained with her but her daughter was sold off seperately. Rahima is my neighbour now but has been miserable ever since because she has not been able to trace her daughter. The man who bought Rahima, did not marry her.
Recently another girl was bought from Bengal by three women. Her case was different. Her parents sold her. The rate for such girls is very low now probably because outsiders are not so welcome here anymore, even though we are of the same religion. She was sold off for just Rs.8,000.
SHABNAM LONE
The interview with Shabnam Lone, a well known lawyer, took place in a plush, book –lined office on the main tourist shopping mall in Srinagar. Like all lawyers, Lone is articulate and forthright on some issues and deft at dodging others. Presently in her early thirties, Lone has been a practicing lawyer for some years.
She is the daughter of the senior All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leader, Abdul Ghani Lone, who was a Congress leader till 1977, a Cabinet Minister for a short period and a legislator for twenty-six years. The APHC is a representative body of 23 separatist political and religious groups that were behind the poll-boycott in Kashmir in 1999. In recent times her father has either been ‘underground' or under detention for long periods due to his secessionist activities. At the time that we spoke, he was in America for medical reasons. The Union government had initially refused him permission to fly to the US and he was allowed to do so only after the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and a number of political leaders intervened on his behalf.
Shabnam spoke about the state of the judiciary in J&K, her perception of the years of strife and the unforgettable experience of being held hostage by unidentified gunmen in Srinagar, and of being booked under TADA in Delhi.
My family consists of my father, my mother who was a school teacher and two brothers. Because of his political activities, I seldom saw my father but whatever time he gave me was enough for me as a daughter. He gave me confidence and I never felt any different from my brothers. There was no discrimination between us: I felt that was the maximum that he could have given me. I went to a missionary school here, Presentation Convent, and went on to do my English Honours from Kashmir University. Then I did law from Aligarh Muslim University.
A practicing civil rights lawyer:
Initially I joined the J&K Bar . I practiced there for three years before I decided to move to Delhi. I wanted to specialize in Constitutional Law because in the beginning I handled a lot of civil rights cases. I represented Yasin Malik and my father a number of times because at that time not many lawyers wanted to take up these cases. It didn't matter to me because I had a political background. I was quite successful with their cases and later I also took on cases of other detainees whose family members were not allowed to meet them. It was only because I took up their cause that the government later made a rule that they should be allowed to meet their family members. I was able to achieve this right at the beginning of the insurgency, in 1990-91, when I was fresh from law school, fired up with idealism and passionate about my work.
I felt strongly about human rights abuses and the state of terror which was rampant because of excesses by the security forces. Militant excesses are there but you could not pinpoint the culprits. They came masked at night so you really couldn't condemn the militants.
Once my mother and I were in the car when we were stopped at a barricade by the police. They were extremely rude and I started arguing since I was used to demanding my rights, having lived in Delhi. But my mother was very scared and said, ‘here you don't argue'. There is suppression and oppression in the minds of people. The urban situation is far better than in the rural areas where small groups of people live in far flung areas, isolated from help and authority. They have become hypocrites and opportunists to save their skin.
Kashmir has always had more than its fair share of uniformed people. Even as a child I remember hearing about demonstrations against shortages of essential commodities, or hikes in tariffs; and these demonstrators were often fired upon. But we were not scared of uniforms or easily intimated. Children nowadays know fear. They talk about bomb blasts, policemen, armymen. Parents are sending their children out of the state, not because they want them to escape the strife here but because they want them to study.
State of the justice system in Kashmir:
The state of the courts here is pathetic. There is a tremendous gap between the judiciary here and the judiciary in Delhi. I would like to change 90 per cent of the system here. We need better judges who are more qualified. Presently we have unsuccessful, briefless lawyers at the helm of affairs just because of their political affiliations.
For me working here is a culture shock. I am used to being thoroughly prepared with my brief before appearing before the Supreme Court. The judge here once told me, 'I don't want to see the Supreme Court judgement, I don't want to see this book. Don't bring it here.' I didn't know how to react. But now I have started adjusting and I know that if you take books it angers them and there is no point in preparing your briefs because they don't listen. A judge here is just someone supervising the Courts, that's all.
The other day, when the case of a Class IV employee was adjourned for the thirty-first time, his lawyer requested, 'If your lordship does not have the time kindly assign it to some other bench.' The judge shouted, ‘Do you realize that I make people surrender before me? Till you don't surrender I will continue.
Lawyers here have suffered a lot during the last ten years and are helpless. There hasn't been much litigation work and they are badly affected financially. They feel vulnerable and are at the mercy of the judges. They wouldn't dream of speaking against them. When Justice Venkatachaliah was the Chief Justice, a Supreme Court judgement was passed against relatives of sitting Supreme Court judges coming up in the courts because it impairs justice and does not help the confidence of other lawyers or the public. This rule is blatantly flouted here. The wife of a sitting Supreme Court judge is in fact a regular member of the Bar and all Central government briefs, sales tax briefs, everything goes to her.
There is another sitting judge whose son is the Additional Advocate General. Then there is this sitting judge who has his son-in-law and his father here. Still another sitting judge has his brother-in-law appearing regularly. The judiciary here is a happy family of the Justices and their relatives. When there are just six judges it is very unfair on the Bar, its members and the public at large.
Working here is a frustrating experience because of the prevailing work culture and atmosphere. Being a woman makes it even tougher. Initially I faced a lot of problems from my colleagues. I come from a very well known family so they had preconceived notions about me. I faced immense opposition probably because there were no well established lady lawyers. The attitude was often indulgent and I often felt like telling them, 'if you don't like my point of view, dismiss me but do hear me out.' The judges were no different. Some of them were very nice and candid while others were positively hostile.
Now, after nine years, I am accepted like a colleague, probably because I have been in the Supreme Court for a long time and they often have to cite judgements that I have been a part of. Whenever I win against them it feels very good.
One of my most memorable victories was the first case I fought in the Supreme Court: a rehabilitation matter. I fought the case right from the initial to the final stage. The litigants had lost their case in the divisional bench and had come to me only after being turned down by all other lawyers who were convinced that it was a hopeless case. The gentleman came to me and said that Rs.15,000 was all he could afford to give me. I worked very hard and progressed very well at every stage. Ultimately I won the case. They got 27 lakhs which was deposited in the Supreme Court. It was a novel experience.
Another thing about this place is that for every omission or commission, militancy is blamed. This is very unfortunate. I was appointed by the Supreme Court to investigate an environment matter,the illegal felling of trees. I was shocked to see the affidavits filed by the officials of the State government: illegal, in flagrant violation of court orders and in total connivance with timber smugglers. I filed certain special applications in the Supreme Court itself wherein the officer said this Supreme Court order does not apply to the ‘kattha' tree because it isn't a tree, it is a twig. The result was they got in a contractor, felled trees and smuggled out timber worth crores. Nobody was nailed.
People here are not doing anything to help each other collectively, nor are they demanding some kind of accountability or taking a stand against rampant corruption; this is because they feel it would be worthless. They feel that it would be a futile attempt to make a more accountable, humane society. They have resigned themselves to the corrupt and unresponsive systems here.
You get used to hearing and seeing death and resign yourself to fate. Many of the youngsters have moved out for education and not to escape the environment. We all have to learn to live with it, to not run away from it. People move out for the lure of money or because of individual perceptions and aspirations. Nobody would want to go if good education were available right here because our experience outside, in India, has not been very good.
People outside view us Kashmiris as violent and trouble creators. For me, since I belong to the exalted institution of the Bar, people don't tell me to my face but I can understand the vibes. I have to do a balancing act. They are sympathetic to Kashmiri Pandit layers because they can see the misery of someone who has been uprooted but they don't see my trauma. There are extreme pressures in everyday life, I face them all the time. The first time that I went to Delhi, in 1991, I was arrested under TADA from my house in Lajpat Nagar. They had some ridiculous charge about me taking some money, which they couldn't substantiate. It was my boss who filed a petition and I was let off the same day.
Another unfortunate thing about the Law Association of Kashmir is that they do not have an independent attitude. They have declared themselves an important constituent of the APHC(All Party Hurriyat Conference). They should have been more autonomous but sometimes what happens is that the people who are heading the Bar have strong affiliations and influence the rest, or that the majority ideology prevails. Here the Bar is very involved with the political and social happenings, despite it not being a predominantly Muslim Ba, we have Pandits and Sardars.
I stumbled into this profession but now I feel I am not suited for anything else. I could graduate to politics sometime later but right now I am very involved and satisfied with my profession. I was invited to the USA by Frank Wisner in 1995, a woman lawyer of J&K. I travelled extensively there and respect their way of doing things and the excellent institutions they have there but I didn't want to stay back despite the conditions here. I wanted to contribute to society here. I haven't done anything significant yet but maybe, having stayed in the profession and gained acceptance, I might have made a difference.
In my opinion the only way out of the impasse in the valley is a dialogue with everyone, even the most extreme militants listen with patience and without any preconceived notions. To find a solution, there has to be an understanding of the historical, political, economic and real problems here. It is a complex situation that requires a collective solution. The thought process hasn't even taken off as yet. Everyone here wants peace and stability. They realize that the best place to live in is where there is dignity and respect for human rights.
Recently during the elections the Hurriyat had called for a poll boycott which was very successful, nobody voted. It wasn't due to intimidation but because people thought elections were not a relevant process at this point in time. The Election Commission should have announced that there were zero votes in certain places. They did the contrary and it was like telling the people that you don't matter. I am not speaking for the Hurriyat but as a lawyer.
Surviving Kidnapping and Murder:
Everyone here has suffered or had some dreadful experience. I haven't told you yet about my kidnapping. It was a terrible and scary experience that left me very bitter. Sometime in late 1990, I visited my father in Tihar jail where he had been detained along with other activists. While there, my father told me to meet another senior leader, Shabir Ahmed Shah and other detainees since I was a lawyer.
Soon after that on 10 January 1991, a girl came to my house in Rawalpora, Srinagar and told me to accompany her since a Naeem Khan wanted to see me about a message from Shabir Shah. I am usually very careful but on that day I just walked into a trap. I drove her to wherever she said and then we walked. Gun-wielding boys started surrounding us and we kept walking through a labyrinth of narrow lanes till I was led into a room. All this while I kept asking them about where they were taking me but all they said was that I had to meet someone who was coming all the way from Barmullah and that I would have to wait for him. I was very scared but then I thought that if this is how I am supposed to die well then so be it. Then these boys put a kalashnikov to my head and started saying ridiculous things like, 'you are a lawyer, a very modern girl, an Indian agent.' I told them, ‘If you want to, go ahead and shoot me. I have worked with many militants but they were very good boys who were committed to the cause of freedom, not like you.'
Then they put me into a three-wheeler and boldly took me through the security cordons to another place. There I was asked all kinds of political questions like when you visited Tihar what deal did you strike up there? What set agenda did you discuss with people in Mehrauli? In what way are you involved with IB and what role are they playing?
I was blindfolded throughout with my hands tied. There were torture sessions when I was made to sit in a bucket full of water, I was made to walk on ice and a lady called Baaji was called upon to slap me off and on. They put a Kalashnikov in my mouth and said that I should remember God since I was going to die. I told them that they were cowards and that if they were good people they should just kill me without coming near me. That they should kill me like men. In Islam, before someone is killed, all the jewellery is removed. They had done all that.
They kept me for two nights and three days. Later I came to know that they had wanted to kill me but since I had remained cool and coherent, I had created some kind of division between them. I did hear them arguing. Most of them were young drop-outs but were being directed by some older men. Many did not even know who I was.
After they left me I was angry, scared and shattered. But I had to recoup on my own because no one from my family was in Srinagar. Our retainer did miss me but all he did was to ask a few people and waited. Later, my anger lessened against them because I realized they were as much victims as I was. They had been used by a certain system, by certain people. This helped me get over it.
But this was not the end. A couple of years later there was an attempt on my life, I was also shot at. I escaped that assassination attempt and am still confused about why they targeted me. I am opinionated but I couldn't have posed a threat to anyone. Everyone knows that I have always believed in Kashmir, for the Kashmiris without discrimination, between caste, creed, religion. I was furious and decided to channel this anger into my career. Surviving a kidnapping and a murder attempt has been very traumatic for me.
Then I went to Delhi which was very unfriendly because firstly I was a Kashmiri and then a Hurriyat leader's daughter. I have never tried to hide these connections. I deal with people on a factual and honest basis. That is the reason I have made very few but good friends. A few months ago I shocked everyone at my office by contributing Rs, 5,000 to the Kargil Relief Fund!
Recently I was honoured by the ABI(American Bibliographic Institute) with the title of ‘Outstanding Woman of the Millennium'. This is a very prestigious award and is bestowed for significant contribution to society. I didn't even know that I was being considered till I received a letter from the American Ambassador in India. So now I am a member of the Supreme Court Bar Association, J&K Bar Association and the ABI.
After all I have achieved and done, our society continues to be biased against women and my achievements are not taken seriously. I am still dogged by the question of marriage. I tell my mother—‘ why don't you look around and see if there is anyone my age, man or woman, who is as successful as me. Don't compare me to just anyone.' I don't see this attitudinal discrimination ending ...ever.
DR BILKEES JAMILA
Dr Bilkees Jamila, born on 25 January 1942, has the grace of that generation of educated Kashmiris who speak of the past without bitterness and mention those responsible for their misfortunes only with rueful reluctance. Short, stocky with very short tinted hair, she was pleasant and forthcoming though somewhat guarded.
She spoke about her carefree childhood, which was in sharp contrast to the recent turmoil and how she had weathered these years in her professional life as a gynecologist. Today she is the Head of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics in the tertiary care Lal Ded Gynaecological Hospital.
A visit to this hospital reveals miserable conditions on the ground. There are patients sprawled in the corridors; there is no evidence of attempts at cleanliness and hygiene; there are no restrictions on visitors of either sex who can be spotted occupying patient beds.
My family belongs to village Nazgaon, 20-25 kms. from Shopian but I was born in Srinagar. I come from an educated family so there was awareness about academic achievement. My father was in the State Administrative Service and my mother though educated, was a housewife. In my academic life I did not face any struggles. In 1959 I joined the first batch of students at the Government Medical College, Srinagar. We were forty of us from Jammu and Kashmir, out of which 30 per cent were girls. We were granted admission on the basis of our FSC marks.
The 50s, 60s and 70s were a glorious era. Girls today do not enjoy that since there are a lot of restrictions in the prevailing environment, not in terms of education but movement. Wearing of the burqa was not common and it wasn't enforced. I have never seen my mother in a burqa.
In 1965, twenty eight out of the original number passed out and we all joined SMHS(Sri Maharaja Hari Singh) Hospital on 1 February, 1965. In those days it was a 100 bedded hospital where all departments were centralised but now it is in shambles. There are speciality hospitals now like Lal Ded, Orthopedic, Paediatric, etc.
After house jobs, most girls used to opt for specialising in gynecology and obstetrics and I too got interested. I was the second batch of post graduation students. We were lucky, we didn't have to go anywhere else to study like our predecessors.
During those days the hospitals were inadequately staffed. When the problem started , 50 per cent of the staff migrated, en masse—doctors and para-medics. We have not been able to recover from the vacuum that their departure created. Another blow was that no post graduate examinations have been conducted in the last ten years. One was held and out of the five students allotted to me, to our department, only one joined. The rest did not want to work here and left. The staff situation has only been worsening. We appealed to the Health Secretariat and did manage to get some doctors from their waiting lists and even managed some staff through court orders but we are just pulling along.
Health system in Kashmir
During this period our resources have been further stretched since all cases, even simple medical patients, have started coming here. This is a tertiary care hospital where only referred cases are supposed to come from the peripheral health centers. But with the collapse of the health services throughout the valley, even normal pregnancy cases come here. In fact since people have to travel long distances from far-flung villages, sometimes normal cases become complicated due to the delay. In winter this is further aggravated since roads are closed due to bad weather and heavy snow. The morbidity rate and mortality instances have gone up as a result of ruptured uterus due to neglected labour. Cases of still-borns, foetal mortality and abortions have increased since antenatal care is often not available throughout the pregnancy period. Postnatal care too is not being provided because we are too busy with cases and emergencies.
Family planning and contraception was reduced to zero because of a diktat by the militants. There was a time when we used to conduct camps in villages and border areas where up to 200 legations were performed. Nothing of the sort has been done in the last ten years. Doctors were not willing to operate due to fear. Many women did resort to illegal means and these often resulted in complications. For example a para-medic operated and instead of the fallopian tubes he cut up the small intestine, we had to fight to save the patient's life. Tragically none of these unauthorised persons could be brought to book because people are scared to report against them. Vasectomy was never popular here, it was hardly ever requested or performed. Very few educated men went in for it. Now we are planning to start tubectomies once again.
There is no awareness of HIV or AIDS nor has there been any attempt to create it. There are two hospitals here that are supposed to have a facility for screening but I am not too sure. We have our own blood bank but no screening is done here. Blood transfusions are done without any screening. Recently some HIV awareness centre was opened and they say that the incidence of HIV is very low here. How can you be so sure without any screening? We are living in a fool's paradise. Everybone is vulnerable - doctors, para-medics, patients, especially surgeons. Hepatitis is the number one killer today but even for that we do not screen.
The biggest health problem among women here is anemia. This is due to poverty and lack of awareness about a proper diet. We as doctors are happy if the hemoglobin of a patient is 9mgs. which in any other place would be considered very low. The second major problem here is PIH(Pregnancy Induced Hypertension). This is due to lack of antenatal care and can be prevented with regular check-ups.
There are no medical awareness programs but people here are amazingly medicinally conscious. In fact self-medication is a menace here. The man on the street can reel off the names of hundreds of drugs and they take them indiscriminately. Traditional or natural methods of medication are not popular here. Access to drugs should not be so easy because that is how people get habituated. If you want to do any good for the people of this place, please get the Drug Act implemented. Right now people can go to any drug store and ask for any drugs.
During the last ten years, one big change that I have seen is that no one is prepared to listen to ‘NO'. It is a word that is not accepted by people anymore. If I tell someone that there is no urgency and that a certain case does not require my attention, that my junior can handle it, they insist on my coming. If I refuse there are scuffles, shouting starts and I feel very uncomfortable. At my stage as HOD (Head of the Department) certain protocols have to be observed. Patients or their attendants have to come through the proper channel, after being recommended. But they come directly, no protocols are being observed and this poses a functional problem. Earlier, if I refused they used to threaten, ‘You come out and then we'll show you!' Now they don't threaten so openly.
For the same reason no visiting hours are being observed here. Only the other day the gatekeeper stopped someone from entering at an odd hour, since this is a women's hospital and privacy has to be maintained, but the poor chap was beaten up. People walk in and out of the various wards at will. There is no discipline, no respect for seniority or authority. Even Class IV employees are not bothered. Earlier they used to be scared. This hospital is like a bazaar. People even get into the delivery room. You will never see so many visitors in any other hospital and that is also because here the whole family must visit, the maternal and paternal side.
During peak militancy, there was talk of our hospital, especially the attics, being used as torture chambers by the militants. I did not see but heard about such things taking place after dark. Doctors, by and large, especially ladies were not harassed. Some did trouble us but those I think were uneducated elements who were drug addicts. They harassed us for money and to get us to attend to their patients.
There is no cleanliness nor are any standards of hygiene being maintained because our resources are stretched to the maximum. You must question the administrator about it. I cannot bother about everything because the medical side is my job and the numbers that I treat leave me no time for anything else.
There is no doubt that young internees are unhappy here. This is because no one listens to them and the work culture is very poor. My son did his medicine from here and even got admission in post graduation. But due to the prevailing environment we sent him abroad to study further. Now he and his wife, who is also a doctor from here, are working in USA. My younger son is in final year MBBS here and he too is engaged to a doctor. He will also go abroad. My husband is a senior paediatrician.
Children here are very brainy and given the right opportunities, have the potential to do very well. In the medical college, the external examiners are amazed because our teaching staff is just 50 per cent and even classes are irregular and still the children do so well. Theoretically they may not be too good but clinically and practically they are very experienced. They are very skilled surgeons.
Another fallout of these years of insurgency has been the lack of sponsorships for doctors to attend conferences for exchange of ideas and information to keep abreast. Over the last ten years this routine has been broken.
PARVEENA AHANGAR
Parveen Ahangar is the Chairperson of the Association of the Parents of the Disappeared Persons in Kashmir. A title that she would any day exchange for her missing son and nine long years of anguish.
A short, fair, medium built woman of forty, Parveena is unusually lively and effusive, probably in the hope of somehow getting information about her son. The sheaf of calling cards and correspondence she displays of people who have visited her over the years include international news agencies and welfare organisations.—CNN, Le Mode and L'Express of France, National Post, New York Times, Sunday Times of London, Amnesty International, National Human Rights Commission, International Red Cross. Though nothing concrete has come out of her wide spectrum of interaction, she is not bitter or discouraged. She is a fighter and along with 300 other similarly affected families who together formed this association in October 1996, plans to continue the quest for the missing.
She displayed a certificate dated 27 March, 1998, that says ‘J&K High Court Bar Association is pleased to confer Presidential Award to Mtr.(Mohtarma) Parveen Ahangar in recognition to her unrelenting efforts for pursuing the cause of tracing out missing persons.' This is indeed ironic since their success till date is zero. She commented—‘What we need is power of their office, not this paper.'
I was born into the family of a mechanic who worked at the local bus stand. I had a happy though frugal childhood. I was one of two brothers and four sisters and our mother was an illiterate housewife. I was sent to the local school but was allowed to study only till the fifth standard. No one knew my exact date of birth but at the time of my marriage I was around twelve years old. I was married to twenty year old Ghulam Ahangar who ran a small metal works shop. His family lived in Zainakadal, close to my parents and consisted of his parents, six brothers and one sister.
By the time I was thirteen, I had a son to care for, something that I wasn't initially very happy about. After this point my life was a blur of household chores, child-care, arrival of more babies and the move to a larger house in Batmaloo. I gave birth to four sons and one daughter and never resorted to any form of contraception since my husband forbade it.
Disappearances:
My problems started in 1990 when there was a raid on our house by the security forces . On 2 June, my fourteen year old son, Mohammed was taken away. There was a curfew on so we couldn't follow him. The next day my husband and I went to the local police station expecting to see him there. We were not allowed to meet him and were told that he would remain in custody till he could be proved innocent. Soon we heard that he had been moved to Udhampur. We went there that very day and were allowed to meet him. He was gaunt and dirty and cried all the time. We were given heartening news, that he was found innocent and would be released soon. At this point we didn't know that it would ultimately take a year for him to be freed.
At 3 a.m. on 18 August, the same year, there was another raid in our locality and this time Javed my sixteen year old son was taken away for interrogation. That was the last that we ever set eyes on him. We went to the police station at daybreak and were told that he was in the local military hospital. We followed the trail there but it was a dead end; he wasn't there. A few months later a Gujjar boy from Lolab told us that he had been with Javed in Bharuchili underground jail, along with 80 others. For many years we ran from pillar to post at the slightest hope of seeing or locating Javed, but to no avail. By now we had filed a case in court and had approached various officials in the State government, security forces and political machinery.
By the end of the year we had two sons in detention. Mohammed was accessible and we continued to visit him frequently but could not stay near him in Udhampur since we had not yet traced out the whereabouts of Javed. Mohammed requested us to file his application for the approaching matriculation examination, confident that he would be released by then. We did not tell him about his brother, Javed.
It was in June 1991, exactly after a year of detention that Mohammed got freedom. He was shocked to hear of his brother's disappearance.
That was the most trying time for the family. Javed was still missing and we didn't want to lose Mohammed too. We wanted to ensure that he was not permanently scarred by the loss of his brother and his own experience of torture in detention even before he had grown a beard. But Mohhamed seems to have been strengthened by the experience. He went on to complete his matriculation and graduation but like thousands of youth in the valley, is yet to find suitable employment.
Javed is my second son and has a a congenital speech condition. He had a slight stammer but maybe because of that God blessed him with a sunny disposition. He was very affectionate and the last person to ever take up the gun. He loved the family and helped in all the household chores including washing clothes and cooking. He was good in studies too and had just completed his PUC.
Javed being taken away by the security forces is a case of mistaken identity. His name is Javed Ahmed Ahangar and our neighbour's son, a militant activist of the same age is Javed Ahmed Bhat. They most probably came for him and nabbed my Javed instead. Bhat has since become a reformed militant with a flourishing agricultural business, a comfortable home, a wife and has recently been blessed with a son. Every time I see him, I don't grudge him his happiness but I can't help thinking of my Javed.
Since that fateful day in 1990, the family has split up. My daughter was taken away by my parents and is being brought up by them. There is no contact with other relatives since no one wants to be associated with a family in distress and under a cloud. My youngest son studied only till school level and is working with his eldest brother at their father's shop. My husband has since been dogged by health problems. He suffers from a chronic back problem after having suffered a slip-disc several years back. He had major operations for nerve disease in his hip and right arm. His toes too had to be amputated. Now he is laid up at home and looks more infirm than his years. I shoulder all the responsibilities of the family and chasing the case in court.
Since Javed was taken away nine years ago, I am obsessed with finding him. I have had no time for the rest of the family or to be bothered about the house which need serious repair work. I just don't have the will to involve myself in these things, it seems so unimportant and futile.
In October 1996, a group of similarly afflicted families formed the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons. We have a three hundred strong membership. We meet regularly at each other's houses to extend physical and emotional support to each other. We exchange experiences, information and share the hope that some day we will see our loved ones.
I get letters from all over the world and from various organizations to attend their conferences and meetings but so far I have not gone anywhere since I cannot afford it and nobody is going to fund us. But now I have made up my mind. I plan to go to Nepal for something that is happening later this year. I want people to know about us.
Our Association suffered a huge set back last year when the Vice Chairperson, Halima and her young son were shot dead. We suspect pro-government militants, the ‘renegades', but nothing has been proved and no one has been booked till date.
‘I am not intimidated. What is there for me to lose now? I have already lost everything.'
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