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Mohammad Yunus who cried the most when Sanjay diedIt was Mohammad Yunus who cried the most when Sanjay died who fathered sanjay ? Mohammad Yunus?
Jammu & Kashmir’s ruling National Conference (NC) has averted a potentially destabilizing split with alliance partner – the Congress – following intervention of the top leaders. The alliance was reported to have been on the verge of collapse over chief minister Omar Abdullah’s insistence on going ahead with the contentious proposal of creating new administrative units from the block level.
NC patron and Union minister Farooq Abdullah was reportedly forced to fly back from abroad to avert the crisis. He met Congress president Sonia Gandhi to sort out the matter on Wednesday. The urgency to prevent the split could have something do with the speculation in the political circles of a possible alliance between NC’s arch foe People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Congress.
NC patron and Union minister Farooq Abdullah was reportedly forced to fly back from abroad to avert the crisis. He met Congress president Sonia Gandhi to sort out the matter on Wednesday. The urgency to prevent the split could have something do with the speculation in the political circles of a possible alliance between NC’s arch foe People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Congress.
If only India’s other stats – on economy, poverty alleviation, healthcare – grew at the rate crimes against women are climbing up in this country. At an increase of 31% it is exponential. It is also shocking, amazing and ridiculous. A 2006 report by the National Crime Records Bureau said in India a woman is raped every half hour and is killed every 75 minutes. And this is according to 2004 data. Factor in a one-third jump and do the math. Also, make space for the large number of women, perhaps larger than the ones reporting their violation, who keep quiet and bury their shame forever in their hearts for fear of another round of abuse, this time from family, society, police.
The alliance between the two parties had ended with its disastrous handling of the 2008 agitation over the allotment of forestland to the trust that runs the Amarnath shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas. It ruled Jammu & Kashmir when India-Pakistan relations were uncharacteristically good from 2004 to 2008 as the two countries started a peace process. The relatively good ties allowed the PDP-Congress government to rein in draconian elements of the state besides pushing for important CBMs like the reopening of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road. Omar Abdullah in contrast did not have a similar luxury and his record in comparison looks way dismal than his immediate predecessors – PDP’s Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress.
Such barbarism in a country that dreams to be a world power and demands every seat at every global high table should indeed be humiliating not only for its leaders but also its people. But few are moved by the plight of half the nation’s population, still living in such dread, such suffocating coexistence. And this in 2009 – the 21st century.
Where do the perpetrators get such courage and confidence from that they stop a running bus, pull out a woman and leave her by the roadside after raping her, that they trap a foreign diplomat and rape her in a car, that they catch hold of a college student and violate her atop a building even as heavy traffic passes by a few feet below? How is it that a cop instead of protecting a young girl shuts her inside a police post and does the unthinkable?
The arrogance mostly comes from a knowledge that in a society like India’s the victims will be silenced “naturally and culturally”. It comes from the deadly and deeply ingrained dynamics of a feudal nation that treats women as second class citizens. And it comes from hundreds of years of brainwashing of the male mind after Manu said women were little better than cattle. Importantly, it derives an insidious power of its own by the silent suffering of women themselves, by their own reluctance to fight for the space they rightly deserve and are perpetually denied.
Top police officers say the number of rape cases reported may not even be a fraction of the one that’s actually committed. Social activists echo this. For every woman who reports her violation, there are 10 who will not speak up. Somehow, the Indian male – and a predominantly male-dominated police and administration – continues to put the onus of the crime, rather incredibly, on the victims: you must have sent some signal; you must have been dolled-up and dressed provocatively; maybe you are crying rape because you have been caught; why did you have to answer nature’s call when you know there could be thugs lurking around; what shame you have brought on us; why you.
This is enough to kill the spirit of most women and for those that can transcend this psychological brutality there is the crude questioning by cops and lawyers, something many victims say is like going through a second rape. Not surprising that they prefer to seal their lips and kill their sense of dignity and honour. And we are not even talking about the numerous others subjected to molestation, groping, eve teasing and degrees of verbal and physical abuse – at the movie hall, in the bus, in crowded bylanes, markets, trains, almost everywhere. As one female colleague who used to take the metro in Kolkata to commute said, “The first time I was groped, I created a ruckus. And fought like mad. But after a few times, it got hard. In any case, the stares you get after that is almost, like, killing. If you are a working woman in India not rich enough to take your own car to office, groping is a routine reality.”
A group of informed citizens have started a cyber campaign against rape, clamoring for stricter laws, including death sentence if it involves minors and handicapped. It’s already got robust support and, clearly, many think it’s a step in the right direction. The courts will have to get stringent – many still persuade the rapist to marry his victim – but there is urgent need for another three-pronged effort. One, investigating agencies will have to be sensitized on how to deal with such cases. Two, society at large will have to change its attitude towards victims and make the leap from judgemental censure to empathy. Finally, women themselves will have to fight their demons and come out in the open about their various abuses.
India, as an article in TOI recently said, is now one of the most dangerous places for women to be in. We can do without this dubious distinction.
he Congress could be inclined to replicate the alliance again as the previous tie up worked out reasonably well in a state known for successive misrule. Omar may have been talked out of his insistence to quit for preventing the possible realignment, which could be disastrous for an unpopular government. The polarisation of the electorate on regional lines — Jammu and the Valley – makes it impossible for either PDP or the NC to rule on its own. Both parties are largely confined to Kashmir, while Congress gets its most seats from the Jammu region.
In this backdrop, it is understandable why Omar has apparently gone back on his threat to quit and end the alliance if the creation of 700 new units does not materialize. The NC has touted it as a ‘bold step’ for taking ‘administration to the people’s doorsteps’ ahead of the Lok Sabha and assembly polls later this year. But, Omar would evidently continue to dig his heels in over the issue with elections in mind. Otherwise the tech-savvy leader would have understood he was insistent on furthering an archaic model of decentralization. Technological advancement has created more options to cut through the red tape which the creation of new units is bound to further add.
Despite practical objections, Sonia seems to have boosted Omar’s position for the time being. She is understood to have asked her state party leaders to cooperate with him over the issue. But it could lead to a more impractical solution involving creation of around 2,000 units, which the Congress is insisting on.
The two parties have agreed to factor in Congress’s objections to the proposal, which related to the costs involved and its ‘Kashmir-Centric’ approach. If the Congress leaders have their way, it could lead to creation of administrative units across the state. The initial proposal was estimated to cost Rs 800 crore and the revised one over two times the initial cost.
Experts wonder if the initial proposal was financially unviable, how could the revised one work. The state depends heavily on the Centre’s financial assistance and has been unable to get additional funds as well. It has even failed to pay salaries to employees of some departments for months. Where is the money going to come from is the common question?
The two parties are aware that the new units are unviable also due to financial crunch, but would continue to ‘shadowbox’ to salvage some support in their respective strongholds – Jammu for the Congress and the Valley for NC. The Congress could sell the creation of more units in Jammu region as a triumph of a party that champions the regional cause despite being a ‘national’ party.
This apparent ‘eyewash’ underlines the ruling alliance’s acceptance of grim electoral prospects. Omar has been unable to keep his promises like the phased revocation of the hated Armed Forces Special Powers Act despite remarkable change in the security situation. He had in 2011 promised to have it revoked in a few days. The draconian law, which gives sweeping powers to armed forces to kill, detain and carry warrant free searches besides immunity from prosecution, has come under sharp focus with the Army’s move to close the alleged extrajudicial killing and mutilation of the bodies of five Kashmiris at Pathribal in 2000. The case was closed after the Army insisted on trying it own men after challenging a local court’s jurisdiction to prosecute them despite compelling evidence citing the draconian law’s provisions.
Further, the government’s iron-fisted response to the street protests killed over 120 people in 2010 summer alone. ‘Non-lethal equipment’ used as a result in the following years to quell protests has blinded people and left many with grievous injuries. Besides the fatalities involved, the government has clamped down on protests by blocking internet services and locking down cities and towns. Issues related to governance along with broken promises have not gone down well with people either.
In this backdrop, it is understandable why Omar has apparently gone back on his threat to quit and end the alliance if the creation of 700 new units does not materialize. The NC has touted it as a ‘bold step’ for taking ‘administration to the people’s doorsteps’ ahead of the Lok Sabha and assembly polls later this year. But, Omar would evidently continue to dig his heels in over the issue with elections in mind. Otherwise the tech-savvy leader would have understood he was insistent on furthering an archaic model of decentralization. Technological advancement has created more options to cut through the red tape which the creation of new units is bound to further add.
Despite practical objections, Sonia seems to have boosted Omar’s position for the time being. She is understood to have asked her state party leaders to cooperate with him over the issue. But it could lead to a more impractical solution involving creation of around 2,000 units, which the Congress is insisting on.
The two parties have agreed to factor in Congress’s objections to the proposal, which related to the costs involved and its ‘Kashmir-Centric’ approach. If the Congress leaders have their way, it could lead to creation of administrative units across the state. The initial proposal was estimated to cost Rs 800 crore and the revised one over two times the initial cost.
Experts wonder if the initial proposal was financially unviable, how could the revised one work. The state depends heavily on the Centre’s financial assistance and has been unable to get additional funds as well. It has even failed to pay salaries to employees of some departments for months. Where is the money going to come from is the common question?
The two parties are aware that the new units are unviable also due to financial crunch, but would continue to ‘shadowbox’ to salvage some support in their respective strongholds – Jammu for the Congress and the Valley for NC. The Congress could sell the creation of more units in Jammu region as a triumph of a party that champions the regional cause despite being a ‘national’ party.
This apparent ‘eyewash’ underlines the ruling alliance’s acceptance of grim electoral prospects. Omar has been unable to keep his promises like the phased revocation of the hated Armed Forces Special Powers Act despite remarkable change in the security situation. He had in 2011 promised to have it revoked in a few days. The draconian law, which gives sweeping powers to armed forces to kill, detain and carry warrant free searches besides immunity from prosecution, has come under sharp focus with the Army’s move to close the alleged extrajudicial killing and mutilation of the bodies of five Kashmiris at Pathribal in 2000. The case was closed after the Army insisted on trying it own men after challenging a local court’s jurisdiction to prosecute them despite compelling evidence citing the draconian law’s provisions.
Further, the government’s iron-fisted response to the street protests killed over 120 people in 2010 summer alone. ‘Non-lethal equipment’ used as a result in the following years to quell protests has blinded people and left many with grievous injuries. Besides the fatalities involved, the government has clamped down on protests by blocking internet services and locking down cities and towns. Issues related to governance along with broken promises have not gone down well with people either.
SRINAGAR: J&K CM Omar Abdullah didn’t go to meet governor N N Vohra first after he left the assembly. He drove back home, drafted his
resignation — which is apparently so worded that it can be said to be ambigious about his insistence on immediate resignation — and reached Raj Bhavan with state finance minister Abdul Rahim Rather and political advisor Devendra Rana to hand it in.
Vohra is said to have reasoned with the 39-year-old chief minister, urging him not to act emotionally. He is learnt to have told him that he would not accept the resignation until the allegation was probed and determined one way or the other and Omar should carry on with his work until then.
Omar has finally agreed to stay on provided a clear time frame is given for the probe. The CM hasn’t made a statement after that but he bared his mind — and anguish — in the assembly: “I know it’s a false allegation. But I want to resign until I am cleared of this false charge. I cannot work till I am proved innocent. This is a blot on my character…Under the law, one is innocent until proven guilty. But that’s for routine crimes. Since the allegations raise questions on my morality, I consider myself guilty until proven innocent.”
His resignation letter is said to be a little more nuanced. It said, “I will be grateful if you could inquire into the allegations against me in a time-bound manner and…if you are satisfied that there is any basis in these allegations please accept my resignation immediately.”
His tormentor Muzaffar Beig appeared unmoved by the drama. Reacting to the CBI’s denial of his claim, he said, ‘‘The agency is trying to cover up the issue as it has been doing since it was formed.’’
He added PDP leaders named in the CBI list had been denied party tickets in 2008 assembly elections. Beig said Farooq Abdullah’s name, too, figured in the list as entry No. ‘C-38’.
Already the CBI has arrested G M Mir and Raman Mattoo, both ministers in the former PDP government, besides Iqbal Khandey, the former principal secretary to then chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.
Meanwhile, Vohra has reached Delhi to discuss the simmering crisis with government leaders.
Army’s decision to ‘close’ the infamous Pathribal case involving alleged extrajudicial killing of five innocent Kashmiri civilians in 2000 is yet another confirmation of how blatantly impunity thrives in Jammu& Kashmir (J&K). It comes despite compelling evidence of the brutality involved. Justice S R Pandian, who inquired into killings of seven people demanding a probe into the case, noted this when he concluded the ‘security forces had deliberately obliterated’ evidence of the Pathirabal operation by completely charring three of the five bodies. The head of one of the bodies was missing along with the entire upper portion above the chest. This, he said, was done with a malafide ‘intention of getting rid of even the last traces of physical identity’ before the disfigured bodies were eventually buried at various places within a radius of over two-km from the encounter scene.
The mutilation worked initially. The killings were declared a ‘major breakthrough’ and the five dubbed as foreign terrorists, who had ‘killed’ 35 Sikhs on the eve of US president Bill Clinton’s visit to India in March 2000. As usual, the story was reproduced verbatim in the media and the ‘encounter’ was sought to be painted an end to the story. But it was only the beginning. The story turned on its head within days. The complacency with five accused Rashtriya Rifles soldiers allegedly went about the ‘encounter’ underlined the sense of invincibility sweeping powers gave them. They had not even bothered to cover their tracks properly. The Army unit allegedly coerced villages into burying the five before leaving the scene without ensuring their belongings set alight were fully burnt. The belongings proved to be the first major breakthrough in unravelling the plot.
More lives had to be sacrificed before the government agreed to exhume the bodies of the five civilians. The paramilitary CRPF fired and killed seven people demanding a probe into the ‘encounter’.The slain included the one, who had identified his father’s belonging among those of the five killed and exposed the encounter drama. This mounted pressure on the government, forcing it to order a probe into it. Initial DNA testing to establish the identities of the five was sabotaged before it was established the five they were indeed innocent civilians — Zahoor Ahmad Dalal (22), Bashir Ahmad Bhat (26), Mohammad Yousuf Malik (38) Juma Khan (50) and Juma Khan (38). Their corpses were found dressed up in Army fatigues. The nose and the chin of one of them were found in separate graves. Another was initially identified by his trouser as his head was missing. Zahoor’s body was completely charred without any bullet injuries. A portion of his charred sweater was all that was left of a handsome youth.
The CBI, which later probed the case, eventually indicted Brig Ajay Saxena, Lt Col Brijinder Pratap Singh, Maj Saurabh Sharma, Maj Amit Sharma and Subedar Idrees Khan for killing the five in 2007. It described the killings as ‘cold blooded murder’ and presented a chargesheet against the five soldiers before a Srinagar’s court. The Army unsuccessfully challenged the move before the J&K high court before moving the Supreme Court (SC). It challenged the CBI’s jurisdiction to file the charges. The Army argued its men cannot be charged without the Centre’s permission under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). It cited the draconian law’s immunity clause knowingly as the Centre has never granted permission for trying armed forces in J&K including in rape and murder cases in the last two decades despite all its protestations about ‘zero tolerance to rights abuses.
The SC presented the last hope at least in the Pathribal case. But that too was dashed when it upheld the Army’s contention and allowed it to decide whether to try the five in a civil court or have them court-martialled in April 2012. It came surprisingly two months after the apex court questioned the extent to which the Army can claim immunity under the AFSPA. It had noted that rape and murder should not be considered as ‘normal crime’ and ‘there should be no question of sanction’ from the government to prosecute soldiers in such cases. The Court noted AFSPA gave ‘very limited protection’ in the ‘discharge of duty’ while hearing a CBI petition challenging the Army’s invocation of the draconian law to ‘bury the case’.
The five were not killed in the line of duty, but were abducted and murdered in cold blood as the CBI established. The option given to the Army to subject the Patribal accused to in-house proceedings reversed the unprecedented gains that had been made in the case. It reinforced the cynicism in the average Kashmiri Muslim that no arm of the Indian state could be trusted to be just to his/her community.
The Army predictably chose the easier path. As it is clear now, the brutal killings and mutilation of the bodies was too serious an offence to be left for the opaque military tribunal to adjudicate.
It would have been a potential game changer had the justice been allowed to prevail in the Pathribal case for it was perhaps the first time that a case, the one among thousands, was allowed to be investigated freely. But the way even institutions, otherwise the last hope for helpless masses, have acted in this case would make Kashmiris more real about their actual place in the world’s largest democracy.
The mutilation worked initially. The killings were declared a ‘major breakthrough’ and the five dubbed as foreign terrorists, who had ‘killed’ 35 Sikhs on the eve of US president Bill Clinton’s visit to India in March 2000. As usual, the story was reproduced verbatim in the media and the ‘encounter’ was sought to be painted an end to the story. But it was only the beginning. The story turned on its head within days. The complacency with five accused Rashtriya Rifles soldiers allegedly went about the ‘encounter’ underlined the sense of invincibility sweeping powers gave them. They had not even bothered to cover their tracks properly. The Army unit allegedly coerced villages into burying the five before leaving the scene without ensuring their belongings set alight were fully burnt. The belongings proved to be the first major breakthrough in unravelling the plot.
More lives had to be sacrificed before the government agreed to exhume the bodies of the five civilians. The paramilitary CRPF fired and killed seven people demanding a probe into the ‘encounter’.The slain included the one, who had identified his father’s belonging among those of the five killed and exposed the encounter drama. This mounted pressure on the government, forcing it to order a probe into it. Initial DNA testing to establish the identities of the five was sabotaged before it was established the five they were indeed innocent civilians — Zahoor Ahmad Dalal (22), Bashir Ahmad Bhat (26), Mohammad Yousuf Malik (38) Juma Khan (50) and Juma Khan (38). Their corpses were found dressed up in Army fatigues. The nose and the chin of one of them were found in separate graves. Another was initially identified by his trouser as his head was missing. Zahoor’s body was completely charred without any bullet injuries. A portion of his charred sweater was all that was left of a handsome youth.
The CBI, which later probed the case, eventually indicted Brig Ajay Saxena, Lt Col Brijinder Pratap Singh, Maj Saurabh Sharma, Maj Amit Sharma and Subedar Idrees Khan for killing the five in 2007. It described the killings as ‘cold blooded murder’ and presented a chargesheet against the five soldiers before a Srinagar’s court. The Army unsuccessfully challenged the move before the J&K high court before moving the Supreme Court (SC). It challenged the CBI’s jurisdiction to file the charges. The Army argued its men cannot be charged without the Centre’s permission under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). It cited the draconian law’s immunity clause knowingly as the Centre has never granted permission for trying armed forces in J&K including in rape and murder cases in the last two decades despite all its protestations about ‘zero tolerance to rights abuses.
The SC presented the last hope at least in the Pathribal case. But that too was dashed when it upheld the Army’s contention and allowed it to decide whether to try the five in a civil court or have them court-martialled in April 2012. It came surprisingly two months after the apex court questioned the extent to which the Army can claim immunity under the AFSPA. It had noted that rape and murder should not be considered as ‘normal crime’ and ‘there should be no question of sanction’ from the government to prosecute soldiers in such cases. The Court noted AFSPA gave ‘very limited protection’ in the ‘discharge of duty’ while hearing a CBI petition challenging the Army’s invocation of the draconian law to ‘bury the case’.
The five were not killed in the line of duty, but were abducted and murdered in cold blood as the CBI established. The option given to the Army to subject the Patribal accused to in-house proceedings reversed the unprecedented gains that had been made in the case. It reinforced the cynicism in the average Kashmiri Muslim that no arm of the Indian state could be trusted to be just to his/her community.
The Army predictably chose the easier path. As it is clear now, the brutal killings and mutilation of the bodies was too serious an offence to be left for the opaque military tribunal to adjudicate.
It would have been a potential game changer had the justice been allowed to prevail in the Pathribal case for it was perhaps the first time that a case, the one among thousands, was allowed to be investigated freely. But the way even institutions, otherwise the last hope for helpless masses, have acted in this case would make Kashmiris more real about their actual place in the world’s largest democracy.
Indira Gandhi was a tough cookie coming from a very high profile family in India. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto said that Indira Gandhi was not a very good student at Berkley. By all accounts circulating in the media Mrs Indira Gandhi had a list of lovers. There are the known ones:February 1, 2014
PLOT THICKENS GREAT INDIAN KAMASUTRA PLOT THICKENS
Mohammad Yunus who cried the most when Sanjay diedIt was Mohammad Yunus who cried the most when Sanjay died who fathered sanjay ? Mohammad Yunus? Jammu & Kashmir’s ruling National Conference (NC) hasRead More …
