EDITORIAL: The ‘Shopian encounter’ exemplifies the immunity with which the Indian forces operate in the Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). It may be recalled that last July three young men, who had gone to Shopian from Jammu’s Rajouri district to work in an apple orchard, were killed in an alleged encounter. The Indian army at the time had claimed that incriminating materials, including arms and ammunition, were recovered from the site of the ‘encounter’. However, after the horrific incident caused a huge uproar the police conducted an inquiry. It has now released its report finally acknowledging that the three ‘terrorists’ killed were actually innocent civilians. Charging an army captain and two others of murder, conspiracy and other related offences the police report says the officer and his two accomplices had “planted illegally acquired weapons and material on their dead bodies after stripping them of their identities and tagged them as hardcore terrorists in possession of war-like stores.”
Indian army men have committed several such crimes before in the hopes of winning rewards and promotions. They do that also secure in the knowledge that they won’t be held to account; in a perverse way extrajudicial killings help the official narrative that lays the blame for the Delhi government’s troubles in the disputed region on Pakistan. In one such widely reported incident in 2000 that took place in Pathribal area of Kupwara, five civilians shot dead by soldiers were dubbed as “Pakistani terrorists”. The perpetrators were never held to account. Similarly, in 2010 three civilians were murdered in Machil sector of IIOJK. Five soldiers indicted in the case were tried by a military tribunal, but only as a charade. Disregarding the basic requirement of credible evidence, the tribunal let them walk free, giving the preposterous justification that it can’t be ruled out that the dead men were terrorists who infiltrated across the border or were crossing over to the other side since they were wearing Pathan suits, usually worn by terrorists. In other words, wearing wrong clothing is reason enough for the security forces to shoot people dead! In such circumstances, despite the irrefutable evidence in the public domain which is supported by the police report, the killers in the present case are also unlikely to be held to account for their horrendous crime.
In its reaction to the latest development the Foreign Office in Islamabad rightly averred that nothing short of an inquiry under international scrutiny will either meet the requirements of justice or be accepted by the Kashmiri people. It also pointed out that more than 300 innocent Kashmiris, including women and children, have been martyred in fake encounters and cordon-and-search operations during the last one year. In fact, since the freedom struggle erupted more than three decades ago, hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris have lost their lives and countless others suffered life-long disabilities in the reign of terror let lose by the Delhi government. Unfortunately, the major international players have preferred to act as indifferent bystanders for the advancement of their own interests. The situation can spark a bigger, uncontrollable crisis unless the international community, especially the self-appointed standard bearers of human rights, act in a responsible fashion and hold India accountable for its crimes in IIOJK.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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