AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

        Much is expected of the ongoing attempts to make a success of the Indo-Pak dialogue to ensure durable peace in Kashmir but there is a festering wound which has remained unattended, if not worsened, because of inexplicable indifference. That wound is the suffering that innocent Kashmiris undergo because they are caught in the crossfire between militants and the Indian security forces and also because of human rights violations of the Indian Army.

        In an alien terrain nothing is gained and everything is lost by alienating the people there. Some Kashmiris might have provided sanctuaries under threat to their life and to the modesty of their womenfolk. Some might have been won over by separatists. It is, of course, true that the security forces have no way of identifying the real extremists and, in their anxiety to flush out militants from their hideouts, they cordon off whole villages and raid homes and rough up the inmates. Many innocents have lost their lives in this process. The hard feelings of survivors induce them to hate the security forces and deepen the hostility towards India which, they say, maims them instead of giving them protection as warranted by their being Indian citizens.

        The alienation caused in this manner coupled with a feeling of insecurity becomes the congenial ethos for separatists to win over the local population by rhetoricising about the anti-Islamic and anti-minority mindset of their Indian rulers. The successes of the Indian Army are thus overshadowed by its alienation from the people.

        This alienation and hostility of the average Kashmiri is reinforced by positive criminality on the part of some bad elements in the Army. Thinking that anti-terrorism operations constitute a no-win situation and that therefore laurels could not be secured by fair means, some army cadres besides their high ups killed some people and spread the falsehood that these were militants killed in encounters. This type of murder had been going on for a long time until it got exposed in a dimension which forced New Delhi to order a probe. This enabled the apprehension of the guilty, though policemen who were accomplices were ignored for some inexplicable reason. Whatever it be, this provided the inducement to Kashmiris to unburden themselves of details of their personal anguish which had been gnawing at their heart.

        Statistics of missing persons saw light. The official figure is 1,000 while the affected families put it at between 8,000 and 10,000. According to them, some of the missing people had gone in search of a job while the bodies of some reached their houses with the report of chance death in encounters.

        When the CBI exposure surfaced and bodies were exhumed, there were angry demands for exhuming the bodies of all those who had been killed. According to a civil society activist of Kashmir, 10,000 Kashmiris had disappeared, 70,000 killed and 2.5 lakh young men were tortured and became impotent.

        Kashmiris ask quite legitimately whether, if such a thing had occurred in any other part of India except Kashmir, would the Central government have survived or the Minister in charge of security escaped punishment he deserved. Indeed , after 1990, human rights activists never visited Kashmir.

        Indian civil society activists seemed to have written off Kashmir. This State has become a blind spot in official policy.