Life on the Line
Surviving victims of Army excesses in Jammu and Kashmir’s villages on the LOC struggle with their lives as justice proves elusive.
NAHID AKHTAR, 19, IS FROM Dhari Dabsi, an inaccessible village in Poonch district’s Mendhar sector. It sits on the Line of Control (LOC). Besides hostile hilly terrain and the looming threat of firing from across the border, the heavily militarised village has landmines on the side towards Pakistan and a strong fence called Anti Infiltration Obstacle System on the other side.
Girl students from such villages, which resemble open prisons, barely make it to high school. Nahid was an exception, and secured 87 per cent marks in her class XII examination. But she did not get admission in college this year. “There is no one to support or guide me,” she said, as she spoke about a future she is not sure will ever happen. “I want to work as a nurse. I am aiming to do a course in paramedical care. My mother has suffered enough while raising me after my father’s killing. Now it’s my turn to look after her.”
Nahid was born a few months after her father, Mohammad Riyaz Gujjar, was shot dead by a group of Army men on June 27, 2002. Gujjar’s father, Khadam Hussain Gujjar, and his brother-in-law, Mohammad Rashid Gujjar, were killed along with him. The next day, their bullet-ridden bodies, labelled as “terrorists”, were handed over to the family only after police intervention and protests by local residents. Eventually, police investigation pronounced the killings to be custodial deaths. Nahid, who refused to be photographed, said: “We don’t want to live in this village but are helpless because of our economic constraints.” When the tragedy struck their family, her mother, Shamim Akhtar, was just 23.
Scores of aggrieved families like Nahid’s have been living without even a dim hope of justice despite interventions by the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission. In the absence of any social security or government assistance, widows like Shamim Akhtar are facing not just acute poverty. They have multiple physical ailments and mental health issues.
Low on development indicators and the victims of neglect by the administration, residents of border villages such as Dhari Dabsi have been deprived of many civil rights and
liberties. These villages are yet to get basic government services or amenities such as phone connectivity, electricity, road connectivity, health care,and school education.
Shamim has to walk for more than an hour to reach the fence gate from her home, where soldiers ascertain her identity on the basis of Icards issued by them before they allow any resident to move in or out. The fence—which was set up after the Kagril War to check the movement of militants from across the border and illegal cross-border activities—remains open for the villagers only for certain hours of the day.
When the ceasefire agreement was reinforced between the two countries on February 25 last year, families living along the LOC heaved a sigh of relief. But the wounds run deep. “Our wounds won’t heal. This India-pakistan conflict has claimed the lives of innocent people. Even if the government gives me Rs.100 crore, my pain can’t be compensated,” said Sakina Bi, Nahid’s aunt and Mohammad Rashid Gujjar’s wife.
Talking about the isolation of her village and the civilian killings, she added: “There is no accountability when a human being gets killed here. The trauma of all these deaths has made me age faster. It has ruined my health.”
Sakina Bi’s son has dropped out of college and does menial jobs for a living . “Despite all these difficulties, I made sure he got an education. I wish the government would at least give him a job,” she said.
Gulzar Bi, Nahid’s grandmother and Khadam Hussain Gujjar’s wife, recalled how in 2002 the villagers had migrated to a safer place in the adjoining village to escape the daily exchange of fire between India and Pakistan. She spoke of how the menfolk would go across the fence to the village to tend to farms and livestock.
THE FATEFUL DAY
She described what happened on June 27, 2002: “My husband, who was the village chowkidar, had just returned from across the fence at around 5 p.m. when he was summoned by the Jat Regiment. My son Riyaz and nephew Rashid accompanied him. The next morning, when we started looking for them, we discovered that they had been killed. While the Army claimed they were militants, the police identified them as local residents. Subsequently, a post-mortem was conducted, and our statements were recorded before the bodies were handed over to us.” She claimed they had been disfigured by acid.
According to the police investigation,
charges of abduction and murder were proven against Captain Naresh Kumar, Havaldar Ram Nivas, Havaldar Prithvi, Lance Naik Pardeep Kumar, Lance Naik Ramesh Kumar, Sepoy Satvir, and Sepoy Rajinder Kumar. All of them belonged to the 7th Jat Regiment.
M.Y. Kawoos, the then chairperson of the State Human Rights Commission, termed the killings a “grave human rights violation” and said the police had “investigated the case rightly”. In his report of September 17, 2007, Kawoos said: “This is manifestly clear that the Army people instead of giving protection to the citizens are violating human rights and are using their unbridled powers against the innocent people.”
The commission recommended a financial compensation of Rs.2 lakh to the three petitioners, Shamim Akhtar, Sakina Bi, and Gulzar Bi.
According to these women, when the financial compensation eventually came, they got only half the recommended amount from the local administration. None of them is aware of the legal status of the case
So far as assistance to victims of state violence is concerned, the government’s role has been wanting.
today. “The daily struggle for survival after we lost our breadwinners did not allow us to follow up on the case,” said Gulzar Bi.
NOT ISOLATED CASES
The villages along the LOC in Haveli tehsil of the district have similar stories. So far as assistance to victims of state violence is concerned, the government’s role has been wanting.
This is evident in the case of two women, both named Fatima Jan, and a third named Naseeb Jan, all three residents of another fenced-in village, Guntrian Kuyian. Like thousands of other families here, they have lost their agricultural land over the years to the growing military infrastructure. They do not get financial compensation or rent from the Army or the government.
Like other conflict widows, these three women too live day to day, somehow making ends meet. When this reporter met them, they had come to pay obeisance at Dargah Sharief Hazrat Sain Baba Miran Baksh, situated outside their village. It is the shrine of a Sufi saint who reportedly migrated from across the LOC in 1954 and settled in Guntrian.
Hakim Din, husband of one of two women called Fatima Jan, was killed in Army custody in July 2000. In its report dated June 25, 2008, the
Commission notes, after referring to an inquiry report filed by the then SSP of Poonch: “This is a clear case of custodial disappearance caused by the Army personnel of 8 JAKLI. The police do not appear to have registered a case for prosecuting Army personnel.”
It underscored the SSP’S admission in his report that the family was living in penury as it did not have an earning male member or other source of livelihood. The Commission recommended financial assistance of Rs.1.5 lakh for the family. It also directed the police to register a case of custodial murder against the accused Army personnel.
The recommendations were met with the usual non-compliance. With six daughters and a mentally challenged son, Fatima has been struggling. “I’ve married off three daughters somehow and now I am worried about the remaining three,” she says. “I am surviving on medicines. I suffer from shortness of breath and can’t walk for more than a few minutes at a stretch.”
The other Fatima Jan’s husband, Noor Mohammad, disappeared on December 12, 1998. Referring to the report submitted by the Inspector General of Police, Jammu, the Commission stated on May 23, 2007: “It is crystal clear that Noor Mohammad,
whether a source of Army or not, was called by JAKLI 8th from his house to NPP Post at Guntrian and was seen in their custody last in 1998 and thereafter he is neither heard of nor his whereabouts.”
The Commission referred to what the wife said: “She couldn’t lodge any missing report as she was not allowed to move to or approach police. She has all the apprehensions that her husband is killed by the Army and she is not informed of any action taken by the police and the Army in the matter.”
Maintaining that the family was exposed to risks and exploitation, the Commission emphasised the need for a logical conclusion to the case. “Her case may be processed before a competent authority. In addition, a missing report of Noor Mohammad may be entered in the police records for investigation,” it stated.
The trauma of her husband’s death and her day-to-day problems have taken a heavy toll on Fatima Jan’s mental and physical health. She lost her right leg a few years after her marriage when she stepped on an anti-personnel mine while grazing cattle near her home.
Talking to this reporter, she struggled to remember her children’s names or the year she had received a prosthetic leg from a charity medical
camp. Her worn-out artificial leg is a telling comment on her plight. “During hot and humid weather, the residual limb develops sores, making it hard to walk,” she said. Her dilapidated wood and mud house, she said, “can collapse any time”.
As for Naseeb Jan, she has no idea who shot dead her first husband, Khursheed, over 20 years ago. Her second husband, Jamaal Din, abandoned her for another woman. Though she has two sons, one each from the two marriages, she lives alone.
NOT MUCH HOPE
The Ministry of Defence in a written reply told the Rajya Sabha on January 1, 2018: “A total of 50 cases have been received by the Union Government from the Government of Jammu and Kashmir for Prosecution Sanction against Armed Forces personnel under Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1990.”
Denying sanction to prosecute, it said: “The reason for denial/pendency of prosecution sanction is on account of lack of sufficient evidence
to establish a prima facie case.”
In July this year, the Army initiated general court martial (GCM) proceedings against one army captain after a court of inquiry found that troops led by him had “exceeded” powers vested under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in a staged encounter in Amshipura in south Kashmir in July 2020. At least three men from nearby Rajouri district, who used to work as labourers in Srinagar, were killed.
But this verdict does not seem to inspire much confidence among victims in similar cases or among human rights defenders. The Jammu and Kashmir Protection of Human Rights Act, 1997, which provided the basis for the setting up of the State Human Rights Commission, became invalid with the implementation of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, following revocation of the special constitutional status of the former State on August 5, 2019. After the Commission was shut down, the Union Territory administration, in response to an RTI query, reportedly stated: “All the records of the Commission were locked in a designated room at the office premises of the erstwhile Human Rights Commission, Old Assembly Complex, Srinagar.” The Union Territory administration is yet to set up an equivalent body to redress the issues related to human rights abuse in the erstwhile State.
Kamaljeet Singh, a noted Poonch-based human rights activist, said that he had taken up 467 cases relating to extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and deaths of local civilians who used to work for the Army. “In these cases, the Home department constituted a committee to provide a compensation of Rs.1 lakh to the dependent families, but barring a few exceptions, even this paltry amount wasn’t provided to them,” he said.
Deeply disillusioned by his experience with the justice system, Singh added: “The Commission used to be the go-to place for all those who did not have the financial means to get justice from the courts. Now I feel a sense of guilt when I look at the plight of the aggrieved families. For years, these poor people ran from pillar to post to gather documents…. I gave them a false hope that they might get justice.” m