Watch your words

Mudasir Majeed Peer This is in reference to recent inciting remarks made by the BJP state party president Ashoka Khujuria in which he demanded the immediate removal of VC Kashmir University Mr. Riyaz Punjabi for allowing the veteran Hurriyat separatist leader Mr. S A Geelani into KU campus and rendering him the opportunity to address the students there. One can mock on Mr. Khujuria’s pungent remarks. Mr. Khujuria remains tight-lipped when VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal leaders visit the Jammu University campus and use the university campus for the promotion and propagation of their party ideologies. Geelani Sahib’s purpose to visit the campus wasn’t to propagate any ideology or any political thought but to meet the students and made them aware about their responsibilities toward their nation and society. Mr. Khujuria gets infuriated as he and his party deems him a threat. I must remind Mr. Khujuria that Geelani Sahib is not associated with any terrorist outfit and his address to the student was to make them aware about their rights and religion obligations. He wasn’t on the mission to annihilate any community and he wasn’t there to incite the communal frenzy. He is a true follower of his religion and true believer in the principles of Islam. His address to the students was to make them visualise their goals. He wasn’t there to spoil the academic environment of university. Mr. Khujuria, Geelani Sahib is a noble soul and possesses a crystal clear vision. And more importantly he is the believer of non-violence. He is not like the BJP, VHP or Bajrang Dal leaders who are always hell-bent on spreading and escalating communal violence and always giving rise to communal flames and disrupting the national peace. I suggest Mr. Khujuria not repeat such vicious, worthless and condemnable remarks again and not to target through these venomous remarks a person who is heading the state highest state of learning. Mr Riyaz Punjabi has devoted his life for the upliftment and betterment of education and has refurbished the whole academic infrastructure of university. Feedback at pir.mudasir@gmail.com

Land grab at Drugmulla’s defunct marble factory

Mudasir Majeed Pir The ban changed our lives and they’ve only gone downhill since. Our children had to suffer too. We don’t have money to educate them. These days, Drugmulla’s marble factory resembles nothing more than a ruin. Over an inch of dust coats the machines that ceased to function in the late 80s. The floor is covered with the bird feces. There are no windowpanes. Instead, the windows are slammed shut with pieces of wood. Slabs of marble lined up against the dirty walls tell a story of what once was a lucrative business and means of livelihood for a region that boasts of no industry. The factory was forced to shut shop by the government due to rising militancy in Kupwara district in 1989. Over two decades after the unit was forced to close, the locals are still reeling under its impact. Still waiting for the day the factory will be restart. The sudden closure not only affected the lives of the locals who were employed there but also those in the vicinity who eked a living out of stone extraction. Later, the state banned stone quarries, providing no alternate forms of employment to those whose livelihood they snatched. The factory, as some locals recalled, was functional for only the first six years. After 1985, there were some faults with the machines and finally in 1989, because of growing militancy in the border district, the government decided to shut it. Since the factory was the only source of livelihood for those living in its vicinity, they suffered immensely. Currently, it remains under the purview of Jammu and Kashmir’s Minerals Department. Most locals and factory employees blame high ranking officials of the state’s Minerals Department for their inability to resurrect the defunct factory now that things have returned to normal. “It’s not just the state, even the Minerals Department doesn’t want to restart the factory,” said Mohammed Sultan, an employee. Future tense: The impact of closure The imposition of the ban on stone quarries had an adverse impact on the lives of the villagers who now lead a hand-to-mouth existence. They even had to compromise on the education of their children, as it was unaffordable. Around 40 to 50 families who reside around the factory bore the brunt and not even a single person is a graduate amongst the affected families. This speaks the volumes about the damage caused by poverty, generation after generation. “The ban changed our lives and they’ve only gone downhill since. Our children had to suffer too. We don’t have money to educate them,” said Wali Mohammed, a villager. The underground marble repository spans over 100 kanals of land. Unfortunately, some locals have encroached almost 80 per cent of this land. When Kashmir Dispatch talked to an employee from the factory about this, he said, “People here are very stubborn. They do not think that it is the government’s land. They fight with us and abuse us. We are unarmed and have no way to defend ourselves, so how can we save the land?” When Kashmir Dispatch contacted DC Kupwara Showket Mir and asked him about the defunct factory, he replied, “The work in the factory was stopped due the militancy problem in 90s and since then it was not put to use. Now, it is up to JK Minerals to reopen the factory and it is not in our hands.” On lease to entrepreneurs The government had imposed the ban on stone quarries, especially on land which comes under the jurisdiction of the Minerals Department. The ban made the lives of the people, whose mainstay was stone extraction, miserable. The property in question has now been leased to some powerful politically connected entrepreneurs by the state. This has infuriated the locals who feel like the land was their asset and they should be the ones to benefit. “We request the concerned authorities to either restart the factory or lift the ban from stone quarries so that we can earn our livelihood and our children will not have go in search of job to the far away places” said resident Ghulam Ahmad. Locals complained that some expensive machines from the factory have been stolen. But the administration has turned a blind eye to this too. “We used to work from dawn to dusk in the quarries and dug out stones to supply them to factory. We were paid for that but the closure of factory has left us idle,” complained Wali Mohammed, a villager. Despite these issues, officials from the Minerals Department have not paid a visit to this place. However, the managing director of the department went to the site a few days ago after several complaints were made at the state-level. When locals requested him to start factory again, he was very rude to them and told them to not interfere in these matters.

Move beyond rhetoric

The recent statement by CM on the issue of Human rights violations rekindles many hopes. Will the young Chief Minister wash away the wrongdoings of former reigns? Mudasir Majeed Pir This is in reference to the recent speech of Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, which he rendered with unprecedented valour while addressing a massive gathering in Mawar, Handwara. It seemed as Omar Sahib had worn the shroud while his address. He asserted in his speech that human rights violations are not acceptable to us at any cost. Defying the continues HR abuse by troopers, Omar Abdullah said whosoever found guilty would be punished. No one is going to escape illegally from the clutches of judiciary. Reacting to the killing of a 70-year old beggar Habibullah Khan of Kupwara, who was allegedly killed in a fake encounter in the forests of Rainawari by Indian army and was later dubbed as a foreign militant, he said that justice would be done to the deceased. One fails to understand these so called commitments by our leaders. When you know the power is being operated by somebody else then why do you talk of power? When you know you are bound to abide by the Indian constitution then why do you say that which disrespects the constitution. Our politicians are bereft of actual power. They do have the power but just nominal. They can not send any trooper behind the bars because it is not in their hands. Their powers fell idle before central government. The central government has provided license to forces to kill innocent Kashmiris one by one and this right of killing innocent Kashmiris by forces is backed by some black laws which include the draconian Armed Forces special Power Act (AFSPA) and Disturbed Area Act and proviso 549 of the criminal procedure code. These harsh Acts make Indian troops eligible for executing barbarism. If an innocent person is shot at sight deliberately by a trooper in Kashmir, no one cares of him and no one can muster the courage to sue the trooper because everyone is better known to the consequences. Similarly if the same case comes about in some other state of India then the concerned government has to be on toes till the culprit is booked. History stands testimony to the oppression used by Indian troopers in Kashmir. There have been innumerable tortures, assassinations, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings by Indian army, CRPF, BSF even in few cases JK police were found involved. More than 70 thousand people have killed since 1989, has any government succeeded since 1989 to provide justice to any amongst the 70 thousand families? How many innocent Kashmiris are languishing in jails? Did anybody care about them? How many Kashmiris were killed by forces in fake encounters and later on dubbed them as militants associated with LET militant outfit or else. What for this all? The answer is only and only to quench their lust for power and just to take their ranks up. I was once in my life when SSP Hanas Raj Parihaar was booked on charges of his involvement in a fake encounter of Abdul Rehman Padder. And the credit must go to the then Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azaad, who remained adamant in bringing the culprit behind the bars. From last two years we have been witnessing rampant human rights violations-whether Shopian Rape and murder case or the recent killing of a 14-year kid Wamiq Farooq or the other killings -we have witnessed justice nowhere prevails. Justice once promised but never delivered. If Omar Abdullah is certainly of the view that justice should be done then it is the high time for him the get the killers of 70-year old Habibullah Khan punished. The police have done its job. It has identified the culprits. So the Chief Minister must go ahead. Let justice prevail. The unnecessary delay can lead only to denial of justice. The unbridled and unaccounted misuse of the AFSPA should be curbed so that the human rights violations can be brought down to naught. The AFSPA gives forces enough powers to gun down an innocent person in the name of National Security. It also guarantees them the right to arrest an innocent person on suspicion just for the sake of maintaining law and order and later on the arrest is followed by custodial killing. The unrestricted use of this dreadful law has always failed to maintain the law and order instead it has succeeded in augmenting the mayhem. It has only resulted in mounting human rights violations. I entreat worthy CM Omar Abdullah to put an end to human rights violations once and for all. I beg him on behalf of 70000 victims to make Kashmir free from this bloodshed. It is time to show the resolve and unflinching defiance to these black laws. They are not meant for maintaining law and order but for committing human rights violations. Every one is expecting you to wash away the wrong doings of former reigns. I wish Omar Sahib yours words will turn into deeds and bear fruits for the hapless people of Kashmir. Hope you act upon what you said. Hope that Kashmiri blood will not go waste now. And hope that you will bring conflict torn Kashmir back on the path of peace and prosperity. Author can be mailed at pir.mudasir@gmail.com