Author: Pradeep Dutta
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: October 15, 2001
Displaced persons have put the Pakistani
President in a dock. General Pervez Musharraf's recent statement was that
"there is freedom struggle and not terrorism" but facts point to something
else.
Take the instance of Nazir Begum's
response to a question from this paper. Begum (70), of Rajouri and now
in a migrant camp in Belicharana, whose son Rashid was also killed by the
militants said, "Militants didn't just kill my son, but also snatched our
lone bread-winner. If they (militants) are true jehadis, they should have
thought of these toddlers," she said, pointing towards her grandchildren.
The harsh realities of what is called
as "fight for freedom struggle" by Musharraf can be realised while going
through the daily death count. During the past 12 years of militancy, 12500
civilians have fallen victims to militants bullets or improvised explosive
device (IED) blasts. Which include 600 women and 110 children, below the
age of 10 years.
More than 1,000 people including
women were abducted and were brutally tortured before killing them by hacking
them to death or beheading them. The militants have also committed 60 massacres.
Not to talk of the minority community, the trigger-happy militants have
not even spared their Muslim brethren, for whose cause their mentors across
the border project them to be fighting for.
A resident of Kot Dharra, Rajouri
Nazir Begum is a victim of ongoing violence in the state. Begum leaves
her dhok (temporary shelter) early morning, treks more than three km to
reach the houses where she works as a maid-servant. Back home are her paralysed
husband, Hakim Din, ailing daughter-in-law and two children.
From her meagre income, Begum can
barely manage a meal once a day for them. "At times, I am unable to earn
anything. Those are the days when I hide my face from my grandsons. They
expect me to turn up with eatables. On days when I get nothing, they drink
water and fall asleep," says Begum. Begum's son Mohammad Rashid was gunned
down by the militants. Ras-hid's fault: he was spotted talking to security
forte personnel who had visited the work-shop where Rashid worked. Many
like Begum, who had to face the wrath of militants in all these turbulent
years, took Musharraf's recent statement with a pinch of salt. The question
that is haunting everybody is whose jehad are the militants fighting?
There is hardly any family in Belicharana's
makeshift camp here, who have not lost their loved ones to militants bullets.
The commonality in all these, killings was that each target of theirs was
branded as mukhbir (informers).
