PANIC STATIONS IN J&K
Just before midnight on February 22, the Jammu & Kashmir police, assisted by army and paramilitary forces, conducted multiple raids and arrested over 200 separatists. While the majority belong to the Abdul Hamid Fayaz-led Jamaate-Islami, several others, including Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik and Maulana Mushtaq Veeri of the Wahhabist Jamiat e-Ahle Hadith, were also detained. While the unexplained raids continued into the wee hours, a hundred additional companies of the BSF, CRPF, SSB and the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) arrived the following day. The 10,000 personnel were deployed to ‘static guard duties’, hitherto assigned to the CRPF in Srinagar and other sensitive locations. The BSF was returning to a civilian policing role in Kashmir after more than a decade.
The deployment and raids spread panic in the Valley, even though it was bracing for a ‘big crackdown’ in the wake of the February 14 Pulwama attack. Most locations in Srinagar’s normally bustling downtown had begun shutting at dusk, even the chemist stores along the busy road to the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital. IAF fighter jets flying sorties through the night only added to the sense of foreboding.
Although acting at Delhi’s behest, the state government’s conduct did not inspire any confidence. In two separate orders issued on February 23, the director of health services, Kashmir, asked all chief medical officers to ‘urgently’ stock up on medicines and surgical equipment, while the directorate of food and civil supplies called for the immediate distribution of foodgrains to all fair price shops and sale points. All leave was cancelled and government officials were instructed to stay at their stations. Some were even issued curfew passes.
This only lent credence to the rumours that war with Pakistan was imminent and that the Narendra Modi government was preparing to abrogate Article 35A via an ordinance. So while thousands queued up outside shops to stock up on food, medicine and other supplies, fuel stations, already receiving short supplies because of the intermittent closures of the Jammu-Srinagar highway, ran dry. The rumours about 35A also provoked public protests, including one particularly angry demonstration led by the National Conference in Srinagar on February 23.
It took an urgent call from former chief minister Farooq Abdullah to Union home minister Rajnath Singh to apprise Delhi of the growing panic in the Valley. Instructed by Singh, J&K governor Satya Pal Malik finally sought to quell fears. Newly appointed state administration spokesperson Rohit Kansal said the Centre had only sought an adjournment of the February 27 hearing on Article 35A, the administration’s position that only an elected government could take a stand on the issue was unchanged. Governor Malik himself issued a statement to say the induction of additional forces was in view of the upcoming elections.
It did little to curb the rumours. India’s air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror-training camp in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province on February 26 and the retaliatory strike by Pakistan the following day further fuelled speculation of another war. Although both the troop induction and the crackdown on the Jamaat are evidently part of poll preparations, very few in the Valley believe the BJP will not leverage its moves in J&K and against Pakistan to boost its electoral prospects.
Cutting across political hues, mainstream parties in the Valley warned of the dire consequences of tinkering with Article 35A and other constitutional guarantees, saying it would “delegitimise” J&K’s accession to India. Alluding to Delhi’s reluctance to take a position on petitions in the Supreme Court seeking the abrogation of 35A, former CM Mehbooba Mufti said any attempt to withdraw or dilute the provision would make it “difficult for those who raise the flag of this country [in Kashmir] to even shoulder it”. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah warned “the situation in J&K would turn worse than Arunachal Pradesh”. Even Riyaz Naikoo, the incumbent chief of the Hizbul Mujahideen in the Valley, warned in an unverified audio, that not one nonKashmiri would be allowed to remain in Kashmir if 35A was scrapped.
The disquiet is in large measure due to the stance of senior BJP functionaries. Party general secretary Ram Madhav, in a signed newspaper article on February 26, argued that J&K’s ties with India were no different from the 540 kingdoms/ principalities that acceded in 1947-48. ‘Article 370,’ he wrote, ‘can go whenever the government of the day decides. All that is required is a proclamation by the President.’
Amid all this, there’s no let-up in the frenetic activity across state government offices. Officials, including those issuing curfew passes and signing orders to designate magistrates in districts, are clueless. Apparently, it’s all in “Delhi’s hands”.