What's new

Kashmir | News & Discussions.

So, is new media only reinforcing old stereotypes?


  • Total voters
    44
Its actually local kashmiri owned news outfit. And is usually highly critical of security forces.
 
Its a kashmiri media outfit shouldnt itbe talking about AZADI instead of STONE THROWERS BEING PAID BY a VIDESHI ATANKI AGENCY:rofl::rofl:
 
I have been suspecting this quit often, there are people who are interested in making sure that world thinks that people are unhappy with Indian government. I am not saying there is nobody unhappy, there are good amount of people, but when you see people throwing stones for no reasons then you know something is wrong. You get 10 to 20 odd paid stone throwers and there would be few who will get carried away in emotions and suddenly things started to look so different.
 
yeah ISI's gotta a headquarter in Gaza and they have a special stone throwing corp... "The stone berrets"...they drill people on various techniques for throwing stones and remain incognito at the same time, one of their complex stone throwing exercises involves the highly top secret drill called "gulli danda" where the stone thrower is taught to perfect the projectory of the stones...Recently ISI has deployed this special force in kashmir and they also make guest appearances in Assassin's creed 2

Mods dont delete this :'(
 
"The 1972 Simla Agreement did not clearly mention who controlled the glacier, merely stating that from the NJ9842 location the boundary would proceed "thence north to the glaciers." UN officials presumed there would be no dispute between India and Pakistan over such a cold and barren region[6]"

You cannot call Siachen a violation on grounds of the fact that there was no demarcated boundary.....Early bird got the worm....
Besides, sending expeditions to Siachen without actually informing India is very legit right?....You got played at your own game....

Dont blame us for the lack of attention to detail by the UN....You can take it up with them.....

Shimla accord
(ii) In Jammu and Kashmir, the line of control resulting from the ceasefire of December 17, 1971, shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognised position of either side. Neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations. Both sides further undertake to refrain from the threat or the use of force in violation of this line.

No matter how u try to worm your way out it clearly says Neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations......it does not matter what excuse you use its against the simla accord and thus simla accord is void.
 
We have no obligation to conduct a "plebiscite" that Pakistan tries to stick down everyones throat.....
So whats the hulabaloo about?

:rofl::rofl::rofl:....You dont even understand the point!
 
A Guide to Militant Groups in Kashmir- The Jamestown Foundation


Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 8 Issue: 5
February 4, 2010

By: Arif Jamal

After a few years of relative calm, militancy is slowly but surely resurfacing in the Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir. In a smaller-scale repeat of Mumbai, two terrorists occupied the Punjab Hotel in downtown Srinagar on January 6. They remained held up there for nearly 24 hours before police commandos killed them. However, the terrorists succeeded in setting the hotel on fire before the holdup came to an end. As in Mumbai, the terrorists took orders from handlers in Pakistan who used five different cell-phone numbers. Their handlers had already used two of these numbers to guide the attackers in Mumbai (The Hindu, January 10). Police later said that one terrorist was from Kashmir and the other from Pakistan and pointed an accusing finger at the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the same group responsible for Mumbai. However, a little-known group, Jamiat ul-Mujahideen, later claimed responsibility for the holdup (AFP, January 8).

Over 150 Islamist groups

In the early days of jihad in Kashmir, between 1988 and 1990, more than 150 groups surfaced on the jihadist scene. Some of these groups united to form bigger groups such as Hizb ul-Mujahideen, but most of them simply disappeared. Some of those which still exist are mere shadows of their past and have very few followers. None except the Hizb ul-Mujahideen have the capability of carrying out militant operations inside Indian-administered Kashmir on their own. Some of these groups collaborate occasionally with Pakistani groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba to justify their existence.

Hizbul Mujahideen

From its start in October 1989, Hizb ul-Mujahideen started gaining strength as it became the armed wing of not only the Jamaat-i-Islami of Jammu and Kashmir but also of the Jamaat-i-Islami of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir (“Free Kashmir,” i.e. Pakistani controlled Kashmir). The Jamaat-i-Islami of Jammu and Kashmir elevated minor politician Mohammed Yusuf Shah, (a.k.a. Salahuddin, after the mediaeval Muslim general Salah al-Din) to the rank of supreme commander of the Hizb ul-Mujahideen. [1] Yusuf Shah cleansed the movement of everybody who did not agree with the ideology of the Jamaat-i-Islami or posed a threat to his personal leadership. In its early years, Hizb ul-Mujahideen boasted as many as 10,000 jihadist fighters, but currently the number of its members is barely in the hundreds. In the last 20 years, the Jamaat-i-Islami of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir had tens of thousands of young men trained in jihad in Kashmir. They are mostly waiting in the wings as sleeper cells. [2]

Ansar ul-Islam and Jamiat ul-Mujahideen

Jamiat ul-Mujahideen traces its roots back to the now forgotten Ansar ul-Islam (Helpers of Islam), a small group of Islamists active in Kashmir since the mid-1980s. Ansar ul-Islam was the first important Islamist group to emerge in Kashmir and helped turn the secular liberation struggle by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front into an Islamist jihad. Ansarul Islam was founded by Hilal Ahmed Mir (a.k.a. Nasir ul-Islam). Hilal Ahmed Mir dreamed of unifying the Islamists in Kashmir under one umbrella as Islam ka fouji bazu (the armed wing of Islam). [3] He was opposed to the intention of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to turn the group into the armed wing of the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Islamist political party founded by Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi. In 1989, a dozen jihadist groups united to form Hizb ul-Mujahideen, but the struggle continued between the group led by Hilal Ahmed Mir and the faction led by Master Ahsan Dar, a veteran jihadi from North Kashmir who wanted to turn the new group into the armed wing of the Jamaat-i-Islami. The ISI supported the latter and Hilal Ahmed Mir left Hizb ul-Mujahideen to form Jamiat ul-Mujahideen in June 1991. After the death of Hilal Ahmed Mir, Ghulam Rasool Shah (a.k.a. General Abdullah) became the amir of the Jamiat ul-Mujahideen. Today, the group does not have more than a few dozen followers.

Sectarian Jihadist Groups

The foremost goal of most of the Kashmiri youth who took up arms was to oppose what they called “Indian occupation.” However, there were two important sectarian groups: the Shi’a Hizbul Momineen and the Salafist Tehrik ul-Mujahideen. Apart from the Hizb ul-Mujahideen, the ISI allowed only the Tehrik ul-Mujahideen from Indian-administered Kashmir (led by Maulana Jamilur Rehman) to set up its own training camps. The most important of these, Ma’askar (camp) Abdullah bin Mubarak, was set up outside of Mansehra district. Although the Tehrik ul-Mujahideen attracted very few Kashmiris, it trained thousands of young Pakistani recruits from the Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith (an Islamist political party) at its training camp. The Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith (Assembly of the Way of the Followers) adopted Tehrik ul-Mujahideen as its armed wing in the late 1990s.

In the early days of the Kashmir jihad, Maulana Abbass Ansari, who heads the Shi’a political party Ittehad ul-Muslimeen, set up a Shi’a militant group under the command of Mir Tahir. [4] Under the influence of Saudi Arabia, the ISI discouraged Shi’a Muslims from joining the jihad in both Afghanistan and Kashmir. Maulana Abbass Ansari has a vast following among the Shi’a of Kashmir and was deemed particularly unacceptable by the ISI. Consequently, the Shi’a militants had to wind up their jihadi infrastructure and join the political field in the early 1990s. At the same time, the ISI encouraged a rival Shi’a group, Hizb ul-Momineen. Hizbul Momineen accepted only Shi’a recruits. The first commander of the Hizb ul-Momineen, Shuja Abbas, developed differences with the ISI in the late 1990s and had to quit. Now led by Syed Ijaz, Hizb ul-Momineen has engaged in little militant activity in recent years. The most important role of the Hizb ul-Momineen has been to save the Kashmir jihad from drifting into Shi’a-Sunni sectarian conflict when the ISI asked the movement to claim responsibility for the assassination of pro-Indian Shiites who were actually being killed by Sunni jihadis. This was done to prevent India from stirring sectarian tensions by claiming that Sunnis were killing Shi’a in Kashmir.

Harakat ul-Jihad al-Islami and its Deobandi Offshoots

The Harakat ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI), a Deobandi group of Afghan jihad veterans led by Qari “Saifullah” Akhtar, was the first external group to join the jihad in Kashmir, though its role was initially limited. By 1993, the Kashmiri groups, including Hizb ul-Mujahideen, started showing weakness. The Indian army’s strategy of crushing the militancy by punishing militants’ families worked to a great extent and neutralized a large number of the Kashmiri militants. This is when the ISI started pushing Pakistani militants into the Kashmir theatre of jihad. A group calling itself Harakat ul-Mujahideen under the leadership of Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil split from HuJI in 1991. As Kashmir opened up for the Pakistani and international mujahideen, the HuJI groups reunited under the name of Harkat ul-Ansar, under the leadership of Maulana Saadatullah. Harakat ul-Ansar pushed as many mujahideen as possible from Pakistan and other Muslim countries to Kashmir and became the principal player on the jihadi scene. It raised its profile by launching several high-profile operations such as Operation Charar Sharif, Operation al-Hadid and Operation al-Faran. The latter two targeted Western nationals and brought Harakat ul-Ansar onto the center stage of international jihad in 1994. It split once more into its former groups under Western pressure.

Jaish-i-Mohammad

Harakat ul-Mujahideen, itself a splinter group of HuJI, split again in 2000 when Maulana Masood Azhar formed the Jaish-i-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad). Some of the Harakat ul-Mujahideen militants hijacked an Indian aircraft on the eve of Christmas and took it to Qandahar in Afghanistan. They released the passengers only when India released three top militants from Indian jails. One of them was Maulana Masood Azhar, an ideologue of Harakat ul-Mujahideen. Instead of rejoining his parent group, Maulana Masood Azhar formed his own group, Jaish-i-Mohammad, in February 2000. Jaish-i-Mohammad drew cadres from all the Deobandi groups, particularly from the Harakat ul-Mujahideen and Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan. It was a great victory for Maulana Masood Azhar to win over Maulana Abdul Jabbar, who was sent to Afghanistan to run the Jaish-i-Mohammad training camp near Kabul. He was also the bridge between the Jaish-i-Mohammad and al-Qaeda.

9/11 and the Deobandi Jihadist Groups

The U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan and the fall of the Taliban in 2001 jolted the Deobandi groups. Consequently, the Deobandi jihadist groups scaled down their operations in Kashmir and focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although the level of Deobandi terrorism is likely to rise in the coming months and years in Pakistan, they are not likely to take power. The fate of Afghanistan is more likely to determine the fate of the Deobandis in Pakistan. If the U.S.-led coalition withdraws from Afghanistan without completely weakening the Taliban, the Deobandi groups are likely to come back to power in Kabul. The fall of Kabul would immensely strengthen the Deobandi groups in Pakistan.

Markaz Dawat wal Irshad and Lashkar-e-Taiba

The role that Pakistani Salafists played in the Afghan jihad was very marginal. They worked under Markaz Dawat wa’l-Irshad, an educational and jihadi religious movement headed by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. Their other important leader was Zafar Iqbal (Indian Express, April 27, 2000). [5] Both men taught Islamic studies at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore. When the Afghan anti-Soviet jihad came to an end in 1989, the group boasted less than a hundred members. However, the group received a lot of money from Saudi Arabia (including official sources) and grew rapidly. The Markaz set up Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) as its armed wing in 1990 to fight in Kashmir. LeT set up six training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir where it has trained more than 200,000 jihadists making it the largest jihadist group in the world. [6]

The LeT introduced suicide attacks in Kashmir in 1999 for the first time as a result of encouragement from General Pervez Musharraf, who became Chief of the Army Staff in 1998. Other groups copied the tactic, not only in Kashmir but also in Pakistan. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has perfected the practice in recent years.

When the LeT and Jaish-i-Mohammad carried out a joint attack against India’s parliament in December 2001, India brought its forces up to the international border. To avoid another war with India and to pacify international public opinion, General Musharraf banned several Islamist and jihadist groups, including the Markaz Dawat wa’l-Irshad and Lashkar-e-Taiba in January 2002. However, Markaz Dawat wa’l-Irshad was allowed to change its name in December 2001 before the ban was imposed and continued to function with impunity. Hafiz Saeed announced that Markaz Dawat wa’l-Irshad had been dissolved, with its members divided between Jamaat ul-Dawah and the LeT. Jamaat ul-Dawah was to henceforth focus on dawaat (preaching) while the LeT focused on jihad in Kashmir. Hafiz Saeed claimed that the two groups were independent of each other, with Jamaat ul-Dawah to be headed by Hafiz Saeed and the LeT by one of his top lieutenants, Maulana Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi. [7] However, the links between the two were never broken and they kept working together. Both groups provided relief in the aftermath of the earthquake in Kashmir in 2005 in full public view (as witnessed by the author).

The Mumbai Attacks and Future Prospects

LeT attracted a lot of international attention in November 2008 when it carried out terrorist attacks in Mumbai which targeted Jews and American and European nationals. However, the LeT sent hundreds of its trained recruits into Indian-administered Kashmir during 2009. Heavy infiltration of Indian-administered Kashmir by the LeT has created a lot of tension between the two nuclear neighbors, who occasionally exchange fire along the border.

The Kashmiri jihad has remained a war of liberation for all practical purposes, even for the most extreme groups operating in Indian-administered Kashmir, such as Hizb ul-Mujahideen. There have been few, if any, militants from Indian-administered Kashmir who took part in the global jihad. However, most Pakistani jihadi groups, including those from Pakistani-administered Kashmir, have a global agenda and Kashmir is only their first stop. With the militants from Indian-administered Kashmir retreating and the Pakistani jihadists taking over the center stage, the Kashmir jihad has drifted into global jihad. Kashmir’s two jihads are converging fast.

Arif Jamal is a visiting fellow at the New York University and author of “Shadow War – The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir.”

Notes:
1. Author's interview with Master Ahsan Dar, Muzaffarabad, September 10, 2001.
2. Author’s interviews with recruits at the training camps, 1998-2006.
3. Author's interview with Ghulam Rasool Shah, Islamabad, March 9, 2002.
4. Author's interview with Mir Tahir Masood, Islamabad, August 25, 2001
5. Author’s interview with Zafar Iqbal, November 27, 1997.
6. Author’s interviews with recruits at the training camps, 1998-2006.
7. Press Conference by Markaz Dawat wa’l-Irshad leaders in Lahore on December 24, 2001 – Attended by the author.
5. An audiotape allegedly recorded by Osama bin Laden appeared to claim responsibility for the attack, though not explicitly. The authenticity of the message has not been confirmed (al-Jazeera, January 25).
6. In January 2010 the chairman of the board of directors of the Yemen News Agency repeated the accusation that Iran is supporting the Houthis and stated that al-Qaeda cannot pose the same level of threat as the northern rebellion. Saba Net - Yemen news agency .
7. A translation of this work in full may be found at Minbar of Tawheed and Jihad .
8. See Jim Lacey (ed.), The Canons of Jihad, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2008, pp.147-161.
 
^^^ The thread is going offtopic. If you want to discuss solutions for Kashmir thats a different thread. But don't forget to take into account ALL sections of J&K including the pro-Indian section.

The thread was to show some details about who the J&K police are and what they do. Many Pakistanis think that even the J&K police is a "Hindu" force killing "freedom fighters" when the reality is that its local Kashmiris be they Hindu or Muslim or Sikh fighting mainly Pakistani nationals causing violence and mayhem here.

Of course they are not perfect, but when militants come knocking (rather crashing on locals doors), the J&K police is the first place where the locals will go and tip them off about infiltrators to get rid of them.
 
Last edited:
The Hindu : News / National : 'Stone-pelting turns into a ‘lucrative business’ in J&K'

'Stone-pelting turns into a ‘lucrative business’ in J&K'


Police on Friday arrested a person, alleged to be the kingpin of stone-pelters in the Kashmir valley, and claimed to have found documents which suggest this has fast turned into a lucrative ‘business’ for unemployed youths offering their ‘service’ for a price.

Police had launched a massive drive against stone-pelters in the valley and their investigations led to a house in Bemina colony on the outskirts of the city after which they found several documents suggesting his involvement in stone-pelting business for nearly last two years, official sources said here on Friday.

The arrested person identified as Irshad Ahmed was interrogated by the police and they recovered dozens of SIM cards, threat letters, fake press identity cards, cheque books and well maintained account registers which state the expenditure for stone-pelting incidents in various parts of the valley.

The first register contained 294 names along with their photographs and mentions the details of money paid to them for their stone-pelting activities in the last one year in the downtown city, the sources said.

Police claimed to have recovered sketches of roads leading from Ganderbal to Leh, a route used by the Army personnel to maintain essential supplies to Ladakh division, they said.

Business worth lakhs of rupees is estimated to be generated through this activity.

Separatist groups, especially those owing allegiance to Pakistan-terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashker-e-Taiba, are alleged to have formed several groups comprising a minimum of dozen people, sources in the interrogation team said.

These groups are paid an amount ranging between Rs five to eight lakh, they said, adding a part of this money is handed over to another group known as “initiators” who pick up stones and start pelting on police and paramilitary forces.

The groups, which are alleged to have been receiving funds from a political party as well, have stationed their people in various localities and other districts of the valley, the sources said. This could be the reason for stone-pelting incidents occurring in a synchronised manner throughout the valley during agitations and protests, they said.
 
ISLAMABAD: A day after Islamabad said it was seeking a clarification from New Delhi on the agenda for the proposed Foreign Secretary-level talks, the Jamat-ud-Dawah, front organisation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the Mumbai attacks, held a public meeting here vowing to seize Kashmir by force and threatening “rivers of blood” in India.

In Lahore too, the JuD organised a public rally, led by Hafiz Saeed, alleged by India to have masterminded the Mumbai attacks.

The rally went from the JuD headquarters in Chauburji to the University Grounds, where Mr. Saeed led the participants in Friday prayers.

It proceeded to the famous Masjid-e-Shohada on Mall road, where the second tier leadership of the group made anti-India speeches. However, Mr. Saeed did not speak at the public meeting.

The meetings were held alongside other country-wide events to mark Kashmir Solidarity Day, annually observed in Pakistan on February 5. The JuD rally in the capital was held at Aabpara chowk in the heart of the city, a short walk from the barricaded headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence.

The JuD is on the United Nations terror list as a front of the LeT, but Pakistan has not banned the group. This is the first time after the Mumbai attacks that the group has come out openly, dropping last year’s cover of “Falah-i-Insaniyat”.

The government, which took some steps against the JuD and placed Hafiz Saeed under house arrest days after the Mumbai attacks, seems to have given it a long rope now.

Friday’s meetings in Islamabad and Lahore followed the one on Wednesday in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

In the capital, it was not a crowded meeting, the cold and steady drizzle dampening enthusiasm for the event, but the speakers more than made up for this. Banners and posters with the JuD ensignia were found everywhere.

“Whenever our jihad in Kashmir nears success, India becomes ready for talks,” Abdur Rehman Makki, deputy to JuD leader Hafiz Saeed, told his audience, mostly traders from the local market, students from madrasas and JuD activists bussed in from Rawalpindi.

“But what is this dialogue all about? [Former President Pervez]Musharraf tried dialogue for eight years. What did he get? What did Pakistan get? A ban on Lashkar-e-Toiba, while Shiv Sena is allowed to go free,” he said.

India and the U.S. were trying to make the Kashmir cause a part of the “war on terror,” he said, but if India did not pull out its troops from there, “each one of the 17 crore Pakistanis would struggle step-for-step with the Kashmiris in the massacre of Indian soldiers until the last soldier is dead.”

The JuD, he said, “is a reality of Pakistan, and anyone who tries to finish it will not succeed.”

Mr. Makki also railed against the United Nations and the U.S. “Ban us all you like. It is meaningless. It is no more one Hafiz Saeed, every citizen of Pakistan will fight for Kashmir until the last drop of his blood,” he said.

He warned that jihadis were ready to fill the Ravi river with “blood on the water” to avenge what he alleged was India’s denial of river waters to Pakistan.

“Kashmir had become a cold issue. But by denying Pakistan water, India has ensured that every farmer in Punjab is lining up with his tractor and plough, ready to overrun India.”

At one time, jihadis were interested only in the liberation of Kashmir, but the water issue had ensured that “Delhi, Pune and Kanpur” were all fair targets, he said.

A string of other JuD speakers praised jihad, and urged Pakistanis to take to it in “Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.” The Pakistan People’s Party came in for its share of criticism for straying from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s promise of a “100-year war” for Kashmir.

The Pakistan Muslim League (N) spokesman Siddique-ul-Farooq, and Sardar Khalid Ibrahim of the “Azad Jammu and Kashmir” Pakistan People’s Party also spoke. at the meeting.

source : The Hindu : Front Page : JuD vows to take Kashmir by force


this is really a bad news considering the situation that most likely india and pak will resume tha talks by this month
 
And how they are going to do it ???:)
 
:pakistan:

PLEASE WATCH AND GIVE ME YOUR FEED BACK ...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
throwing stones for no reasons
What the heck? For no reason? What else are you supposed to do when the other side has INSAS and tear-gas canisters and whatnot? What are you supposed to do when they come lathi-charging at you for no apparent reason but to break-up your demonstrations and rallies?

Throwing stones is a last resort for human beings. It is common in places like Kashmir, Palestine, etc. where the populace is left with nothing to answer the brutality and might of the forces against them. It's unbelievable that the media on your side is now trying to portray this as a "lucrative business" when it's clearly a display of desperation, anger and hate by Kashmiri youth. Have you ever been in a riot? Are they generally predictable? How the heck do you know when one is going to break out and prepare for it in advance? Is stone-throwing something that started recently? Also, how rich do you think the Government of Pakistan is that it's sponsoring stone-throwing and rallies Occupied Kashmir?

Instead of feeling sorry for the teenagers who have to revert to stone-throwing, you guys come up with another convenient theory to turn your eyes away. For one second, consider that the recent rallies and unrest may have something to do with the death of a 14-year-old at the hands of a BSF soldier, and that the stone-throwing began when the BSF came by to forcefully stop the protests and demonstrations. Try to put yourselves in their shoes, and you might just see why they throw stones.

Edit
I thought the original article was idiotic, but this last article is definitely a contender for the number one spot. Why would anybody "document" stone-throwing? Why would militant organizations form "teams"? Oh yeah, I forgot, they do that so it's easier for them to get caught. They don't want to leave any mysteries, I guess.
 
Last edited:
The thread was to show some details about who the J&K police are and what they do. Many Pakistanis think that even the J&K police is a "Hindu" force killing "freedom fighters" when the reality is that its local Kashmiris be they Hindu or Muslim or Sikh fighting mainly Pakistani nationals causing violence and mayhem here.
The first part of this statement may well be a fact and J&K Police may well Muslims. However, the second part is an opinion, and an ill-informed one at that. Militants don't go killing people indiscriminately, as you are implying, and there are many local militants as well, according to the chief of J&K Police in a news article I read (probably posted by you).

the J&K police is the first place where the locals will go and tip them off about infiltrators to get rid of them.
Where do they go when the BSF comes "crashing their doors"? I know this isn't the place to ask that question, but the Police is subject to the BSF and Army, so they are bound to fight the militants rather than the occupiers. Hence, there isn't much the Police can do about them. It's not a choice they're given, it's something they have to do. If the Police only has the power to target either separatist militants or criminals (who are probably labeled as Pakistani insurgents), how is it okay to assume they are not aiding the occupiers?
 

Pakistan Affairs Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom