CHIRARI SHARIF

TRAGERDY

Shiraz Sidhva writes in Financial Times London "Charari Sharif nested in a valley in Central Kashmir looks like a ghost town from the hills surrounding it". It writes, "The villagers around Chrari Sharif insist they saw the Army burn down the shrine. Some say Army planes dropped gunpowder over the valley on May 8 and than fired mortars to set it aflame." (Nation, Islamabad-18.05.95)

Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson report to Washington post from Srinagar, "Overnight, everything changed in this Himalayan valley town on May 10, the narrow streets bustled with Muslim Women who'd shed their black burkas for bright Eid holiday dresses"

"On May 11, the Capital of the Kashmir Valley was deserted, its streets guarded by grim faced para-military troops enforcing a street curfew with teargas and rifles"

"A 550 year old shrine built to honour the patron saint of Kashmir valley had been burnt to the ground"

More than 1500 houses and shops in the mountainside of the town is illustrative of how low India routinely approaches its most complex political difficulties

Nawa-I-Waqat Islamabad (16-05-95)

Ajit Bhattacharjia (Indian Commentator) writes in "Pioneer": It is hard to believe that even the most gung ho Commander would order an attack on, or even shelling of, Chrari Sharif on the holy day of Eid. If the militants wanted, they could have set it ablaze any day in the last two months."

(Nawa-I-Waqat Islamabad 26.06.95)

It was followed by yet another fire in Chukur, Bandipur, where a famous shrine of Alhaj Qawsar Naqashbandi, a mosque and a library was burnt to ashes by troops.

This cycle of gruesome tragic events will remain incomplete; unless we recall the Gaw Kadil massacre of January 1990 – Ritu Sarin (Indian columnist) recollects the thread in the "Pioneer, New Delhi in these lines;-

"On January 1990, even as Jagmohan the new Governor of Jammu and Kashmir was making a sort of swearing in speech in Srinagar, troops formed a menacing ring around protesters near the Gaw Kadil Bridge. The unarmed Kashmiris were marching in protest against the arbitrary manner in which their homes had been searched the same morning. At least a hundred people were moved down in the massacre that followed, considered the worst in kashmir's histroy. After the shooting, the bodies were dumped into trucks and taken to the police headquarters for disposal"

Journalist Talveen Singh regards the Gow Kadil massacre as the turning point in the post-

partition history of the Kashmir Valley. In her account titled "Kashmir:. A Tragedy of Errors, : She writes that till the Gaw Kadil incident, the residents of Kashmir could have blamed India of political repression, or denying them their right to self-determination of keeping them forcibly within the Indian Union, but nobody could have accused India of any major human rights violations.

    The Gaw Kadil massacre changed all that. Everyone blamed Jagmohan for its fallout, specially since more than 20o people died in the valley within two months of his arrival. Jagmohan himself was extremely defensive about the killings. But the damage had been done to the collective psyche of the State, the security forces began what is described as their "holding operation in Kashmir". Protests, curfews and Crack downs became part of life's vicious circle there, ad why 40 more protesters were shot in the street as they demonstrated against the atrocities committed by the security forces".

    The present popular struggle coupled with the armed resistance for the liberation of Kashmir, is a great achievement, in our history of freedom movement. Indian occupation troops campaigned ruthlessly with unbridled powers to curb it down, but fortunately each repressive measure of the enemy added fuel to the flame of our peoples national movement. No doubt, India by employing medieval inhuman methods of torture and exercising war time tactic of mass killings, rapes and custodial deaths deprived the movement of some able, honest and dedicated commanders and also created confusion, and doubt but she has not succeeded in shattering the will, pride and confidence of the populace against the Indian occupation, which is really the source of power and courage to our multi party Jehadi movement.