 |
||
|
||
|
||
Introduction: Pak based Hizbul against KPs return
Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, has been equipped with highly sensational inputs vis-a-vis unbridled freedom enjoyed by terrorists "for months together" in the vicinity of Nadimarg in south Kashmir till the massacre of 24 Kashmiri Pandits.
Horror-filled Nadimarg carnage took place on March 23 this year. According to details furnished to the Prime Minister, a batch of armed desperadoes did regularly visit Nadimarg. Two terrorists had, during the 6-month period ending March 21, visited the local police picket at Nadimarg "regularly".
Often, these terrorists, according to these details, stopped for a meal or had night halt "within full knowledge" of the people manning the picket. And the report to the Prime Minister contained yet another sensational revelation: The two terrorists stayed in the Nadimarg police station on Friday (March 21), a couple of days prior to the brutal killing of the 24 Kashmiri Pandits.
Sharing with EXCELSIOR some of the inputs made available to the Prime Minister, top sources in the Government said that the fact that all local police personnel in Jammu and Kashmir "are not holy cows" was borne out with the "quiet exercise" officially launched to subject several policemen to intense investigation. In this connection, the inputs threw light on a set of instances in relation to the events before and during the Nadimarg massacre.
Instance number one: Ghulam Mohd War, head constable, and Abdul Rashid, constable, have acquired "prominence" in the list of investigators, apparently because of their alleged direct complicity in the Nadimarg massacre.
Instance number two: Constable Abdul Rashid was aware of the ‘plot’ hatched to do away with the Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) at Nadimarg. After the gang of armed terrorists descended on the village, Abdul Rashid was sent out to call the victims. He was not, at the point of time, accompanied by anyone. As he started calling the victims, he claimed that the Army personnel had turned up for a search-and-cordon operation.
While briefly discussing the terrorists’ earlier operation at Ind in Gool Gulabgarh in Udhampur district, the report contains yet another revealing instance: Local policemen stationed in the Ind picket looked sideways, making no effort to resist the terrorist raid on March 16.
All the more reason for the authorities to subject four policemen of the Ind picket to detailed questioning. These policemen, it is stated, are under investigation for having provided "cover to terrorists" to reach the location and lock the room which contained arms and ammunition.
The report has, at the same time, made a pointed reference to the statistics to establish that Jammu and Kashmir has been "a safe place" since the PDP-led coalition Government was formed in the beginning of November last year than during the same period in the previous years.
The report has asserted that between November 2002, when the Mufti Sayeed Government was constituted, and April 15, 2003, the number of terrorism- related violent incidents, attacks on security force personnel, the killing of civilians and security forces fell appreciably from the corresponding periods of 2000-2001 and 2001-2002.
"What is disturbing", the Prime Minister has been told, "is the overt and covert support by Pakistan-based militant outfits to the sinister designs to sabotage the effort to bring about peaceful return and rehabilitation of Hindu migrants in the Valley of Kashmir".
In this connection, a pointed reference has been made to the renewed activity of the Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen against the J&K Gover-nment’s proposal favouring re-settlement of the Kashmiri Pandit migrants in the two townships of Mattan in south Kashmir and Khirbhawani in Ganderbal tehsil. In fact, the authorities have received inputs vis-a-vis the Hizbul Mujahideen supremo, Salahuddin’s "one more directive" to his cadres in Kashmir to abort the Government’s plan to bring about the KPs’ return to the Valley.
Sources also informed EXCELSIOR that Salahuddin’s "intercepted message" ran thus: "Jihadis like Hamid Gada should be set in motion for the purpose". Hamid Gada ? Answer to this question was there in the report.
After the Farooq Abdullah Government made its plans clear, in 1997, to effect the return of KPs from their "temporary" camps in Jammu and Delhi, top Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Hamid Bhat, was assigned the task of aborting the plans.
Five years earlier, in 1992, Hamid Bhat, who had kept himself far away from the militant activity, played a key role while saving the Khirbhawani temple in Ganderbal when the two terrorists had arrived on the scene to burn down the shrine. Hamid, the report says, had reasons to act as a defender of the Hindu shrine as his father, Abdul Mohd Bhat, served as a watchman.
More importantly, the Bhat family worked at the shrine. The temple had been saved by the Bhat family was, for no fault of theirs, forced to witness distressing conditions. Hamid Bhat and his mother were kidnaped. The mother was subsequently released by her captors, but the son never returned.
Hamid Bhat, under the tutelage of
his captors, was left with no choice but to emerge as the most feared leader
of the Hizbul Mujahideen. Code-named ‘Hamid Gada’, the armed desperado
was charged with over 100 murders, many of them of KPs living in the Ganderbal
tehsil. He died in an encounter with J&K Police personnel in March
2000.
|
||
|
||
|
||