Introduction: By targeting women and children militants are trying to spread fear
The brutal murder of three children and three women in Jammu and Kashmir over the last two days once again reveals that some of the groups operating in the strife-torn state under the guise of carrying out a ‘freedom struggle’ are nothing but vicious and cowardly criminals.
As in various insurgencies in the country, notably in the Northeast, the so-called struggle for self-determination has, in some instances, become nothing but a camouflage for thugs to carry out summary executions on the street in order to create a fear psychosis, terrorise the innocent and discredit the political process. The recent murder of PDP MLA Abdul Aziz Mir also proves that there are elements in Jammu and Kashmir working hard to destroy chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s policy of the ‘healing touch’ and trying to drive the state back into bloody violence.
The inhuman manner in which three sleeping children were cold bloodedly gunned down and the savage killing of the three women who were not wearing a burqa should also alert General Musharraf and the Pakistani leadership. Pakistani statements about lending support to the ‘legitimate’ freedom struggle of the people of Kashmir against the ‘oppressions’ of the government of India in this context sound like formulations out of Alice in Wonderland.
The Kashmiri freedom struggle is in danger of becoming criminalised and Musharraf will have to decide whom he is speaking for. Is he speaking for ‘freedom fighters’ or is he lending legitimacy to murderers who kill children and execute women who do not obey their sartorial diktat? The freedom of dress is a democratic right, one which is dearly beloved in Mahatma Gandhi’s land. The turning point of violence in Kashmir began with the abduction of a woman — Rubaiya Sayeed — and brutality against women has been a crucial tactic by which militants have tried to spread fear.
The murders must also give pause to the BJP leadership at home. For the last few months we have heard the phrase ‘jihadi mindset of the terrorist’. But here is a case where the jihadis far from killing infidel Hindus are in fact slaughtering fellow Muslims. It is also a fact that of the approximately 30,000 killed so far in the Jammu and Kashmir conflict, almost 90 per cent have been Muslims. So where does that leave the jihad that the government insists the terrorist is trying to carry out?
New Delhi must respond swiftly and
work to ensure that Sayeed’s policy of the healing touch is strengthened
and the process of reaching out to the people is made more vigorous. Terrorism
cannot be defeated by shouting electorally beneficial slogans in distant
Gujarat. Terrorism can only be defeated if it is fought head-on in every
village and town of Jammu and Kashmir where innocent women and children
live.