Areesh
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“He handed me a can of petrol, asking me to set my house on fire as he repeatedly kept saying that militants were hiding inside. I told him I wouldn’t do that and asked him to search the area for any militants. My response angered him and he tied a rope around my neck. For the next couple of hours, I was made to parade around, dragged with the rope, or forced to sit in a way that my limbs were tangled. I was repeatedly slapped and kicked. I told him it was better to kill me. He took out his gun pointing it at my throat, the barrel placed just over my jugular vein, and then remarked that he wouldn’t want to waste a bullet on me”, Haja, 55, told me when I met her last summer at her home in Dooru area of North Kashmir’s Sopore town.
This is not the only case of its kind in Kashmir. Over the years, in its war on Kashmir, the Indian forces, as a matter of Indian State’s policy, have specifically targeted women with torture. Rape is used as a weapon of war to get back at the pro-freedom population of Kashmir. In its 1993 report, Rape in Kashmir: A crime of War Asia Watch gave a glimpse of what was happening in Kashmir. The human rights organization reported about the ‘Standard operating Procedures’, saying that during crackdowns, cordon-and-search operations men are held for identification in parks or schoolyards while security forces search their homes. The report further added, “In these situations, the security forces frequently engage in collective punishment against the civilian population, most frequently by beating or otherwise assaulting residents, and burning their homes.” [Emphasis added].
Haja’s case is not an exception to this ‘collective punishment’; there are thousands of such cases. But I am especially reminded of this case from Dooru today because the person involved in the torture of the women was Captain Vikram Batra, who India celebrates as her Kargil War hero. Every 26th of July on the Kargil ‘Vijay Divas’, there are stories of his ‘bravery’ repeated in the Indian media, of how he led his men to ‘victory’ and died in action, later awarded the Param Vir Chakra. The Indian army has some of the fanciest words for the torturer turned hero on its website, “Captain Vikram Batra… displayed the most conspicuous personal bravery… in the face of the enemy and made the supreme sacrifice in the highest traditions of the Indian Army.”
One wonders why the story of the ‘bravery’ of such heroes, displayed by torturing women in Kashmir, is never made public! Torturing a woman must be for the Indian army ‘the most conspicuous personal bravery’.
Two years before the Kargil War, on 10 September 1997, there was a crackdown in Seeloo by Indian forces headed by Vikram Batra. While most of the men ran away to avoid the wrath, Captain Batra took it upon himself to teach the pro-Azadi village a lesson. Along with Haja, three other women were ruthlessly beaten. They were kicked in the abdomen repeatedly, beaten with sticks and rifle butts, paraded around while tied to ropes and dragged across the village. Their hair was trimmed. Haja’s daughter wasn’t spared either. The Captain kept asking the villagers to point out to Haja’s daughters but no one did. “When Batra hit me, my daughter, now 24, couldn’t hold back. She got up from the group of villagers she was sitting with and a cry escaped her lips. She was just a kid then, but he held her by the hair, slapped her couple of times and threw her to the ground,” Haja remembered.
The men from the village filed an FIR the next day, following which the Captain tried to bribe them to withdraw the case. When that didn’t work, he held the men of the village in custody from morning to evening for several days. “Captain Batra called a meeting of the villagers in a local school soon after, asking everyone to gather there. He compelled us to withdraw the case and the Auqaaf committee head was tortured as well. Then the entire village protested against his highhandedness outside the Sopore police station. [After that] he was transferred from Seeloo camp to Sopore – that was all. What sort of justice should one call this? It was a joke.” Haja went on to add, “The Captain even told me that if I didn’t withdraw the case or state that I had forgiven him, he would pick my daughters and take them away. It was frightening.”
Asha, 65, who was also tortured that day, recalled, “Batra tried to give us money, bought ration for us, but we didn’t take a thing. He asked me for forgiveness a couple of times but how could I forgive him? I told him ‘you did what you had to do. There can be no forgiveness for it. If you want to beat me again, you can; but don’t seek forgiveness for what you did’.”
As I prepared to leave, Haja’s son, now in his late 20s, suddenly spoke up after having silently listened to his mother and neighbours narrate the story to me. “I was a kid then, I didn’t understand much of what had happened; but now I do. We reject Indian democracy and even if India someday manages to completely rule over Kashmir, we would still reject it. That incident has only made our resolve for Azadi stronger. All we seek is freedom from the country that has tortured us so much. We may have good roads and everything, but it doesn’t affect us. We want Azadi.” It was his resolve but what was more chilling was his another resolve of taking the extreme step. It was just that Captain Batra died another day. (Courtesy Voice of East)
Salute to the Pakistani soldiers who put a bullet in this scumbag and ended his miserable life
This is not the only case of its kind in Kashmir. Over the years, in its war on Kashmir, the Indian forces, as a matter of Indian State’s policy, have specifically targeted women with torture. Rape is used as a weapon of war to get back at the pro-freedom population of Kashmir. In its 1993 report, Rape in Kashmir: A crime of War Asia Watch gave a glimpse of what was happening in Kashmir. The human rights organization reported about the ‘Standard operating Procedures’, saying that during crackdowns, cordon-and-search operations men are held for identification in parks or schoolyards while security forces search their homes. The report further added, “In these situations, the security forces frequently engage in collective punishment against the civilian population, most frequently by beating or otherwise assaulting residents, and burning their homes.” [Emphasis added].
Haja’s case is not an exception to this ‘collective punishment’; there are thousands of such cases. But I am especially reminded of this case from Dooru today because the person involved in the torture of the women was Captain Vikram Batra, who India celebrates as her Kargil War hero. Every 26th of July on the Kargil ‘Vijay Divas’, there are stories of his ‘bravery’ repeated in the Indian media, of how he led his men to ‘victory’ and died in action, later awarded the Param Vir Chakra. The Indian army has some of the fanciest words for the torturer turned hero on its website, “Captain Vikram Batra… displayed the most conspicuous personal bravery… in the face of the enemy and made the supreme sacrifice in the highest traditions of the Indian Army.”
One wonders why the story of the ‘bravery’ of such heroes, displayed by torturing women in Kashmir, is never made public! Torturing a woman must be for the Indian army ‘the most conspicuous personal bravery’.
Two years before the Kargil War, on 10 September 1997, there was a crackdown in Seeloo by Indian forces headed by Vikram Batra. While most of the men ran away to avoid the wrath, Captain Batra took it upon himself to teach the pro-Azadi village a lesson. Along with Haja, three other women were ruthlessly beaten. They were kicked in the abdomen repeatedly, beaten with sticks and rifle butts, paraded around while tied to ropes and dragged across the village. Their hair was trimmed. Haja’s daughter wasn’t spared either. The Captain kept asking the villagers to point out to Haja’s daughters but no one did. “When Batra hit me, my daughter, now 24, couldn’t hold back. She got up from the group of villagers she was sitting with and a cry escaped her lips. She was just a kid then, but he held her by the hair, slapped her couple of times and threw her to the ground,” Haja remembered.
The men from the village filed an FIR the next day, following which the Captain tried to bribe them to withdraw the case. When that didn’t work, he held the men of the village in custody from morning to evening for several days. “Captain Batra called a meeting of the villagers in a local school soon after, asking everyone to gather there. He compelled us to withdraw the case and the Auqaaf committee head was tortured as well. Then the entire village protested against his highhandedness outside the Sopore police station. [After that] he was transferred from Seeloo camp to Sopore – that was all. What sort of justice should one call this? It was a joke.” Haja went on to add, “The Captain even told me that if I didn’t withdraw the case or state that I had forgiven him, he would pick my daughters and take them away. It was frightening.”
Asha, 65, who was also tortured that day, recalled, “Batra tried to give us money, bought ration for us, but we didn’t take a thing. He asked me for forgiveness a couple of times but how could I forgive him? I told him ‘you did what you had to do. There can be no forgiveness for it. If you want to beat me again, you can; but don’t seek forgiveness for what you did’.”
As I prepared to leave, Haja’s son, now in his late 20s, suddenly spoke up after having silently listened to his mother and neighbours narrate the story to me. “I was a kid then, I didn’t understand much of what had happened; but now I do. We reject Indian democracy and even if India someday manages to completely rule over Kashmir, we would still reject it. That incident has only made our resolve for Azadi stronger. All we seek is freedom from the country that has tortured us so much. We may have good roads and everything, but it doesn’t affect us. We want Azadi.” It was his resolve but what was more chilling was his another resolve of taking the extreme step. It was just that Captain Batra died another day. (Courtesy Voice of East)
Salute to the Pakistani soldiers who put a bullet in this scumbag and ended his miserable life
