In less than three weeks' time there have been two major incidents of senseless violence in Occupied Kashmir. At least eight people were killed and 25 injured in Occupied Srinagar on Sunday when gunmen wearing police uniforms attacked a Congress party rally with gunfire and hand grenades.
The rally was being held by the Youth Congress to mark the 15th death anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, and hence did not particularly constitute an act of provocation to any of the Kashmiri groups fighting against the Indian rule. However, Al Mansurians, an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, later claimed responsibility for the attack.
In the earlier incident, even more chilling for its cold-blooded targetting of innocent civilians, unidentified gunmen had dragged 22 Hindus, including a nine-year old girl, from their homes in two villages of the Doda district and shot them dead. Lashkar-e-Taiba was suspected of having committed that carnage as well. The incident was condemned, as it should have been, by Islamabad, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) as well as the Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest group of Kashmiri freedom fighters.
The timing of the two attacks was significant. The first one came just two days before Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was due to meet, in New Delhi, with an APHC delegation headed by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq. The other has happened three days prior to the second round table conference that Dr Singh is scheduled to hold in Occupied Srinagar on May 24 and 25.
There seems to be a method to the madness of the perpetrators of this fresh spate of violence, which is apparently aimed to sabotage the on-going peace process. For a time, they seemed to have attained some success when the BJP used the Doda outrage to criticise the Congress party's Kashmir policy and its 'out-of-box' thinking on the issue.
Needless to say, however, state policies are the outcome of well thought-out consideration of self-interest rather than reactive responses to events such as the present ones. Hence, while the country's Home Secretary described the attack as an effort to derail the Pak-India peace negotiations, a government spokesman averred that such incidents would not hamper the process. As per schedule Dr Singh is to proceed to Occupied Srinagar to hold the second round table conference. For his part, he observed, "it is only through dialogue that a lasting solution can be found."
Unfortunately, however, Dr Singh's side is yet to undertake any major step towards a lasting solution of the Kashmir issue. He did hold a good meeting with the Kashmiri leaders in Delhi earlier this month to the extent that Mirwaiz later indicated the APHC might participate in the Occupied Srinagar roundtable as well. But he now says his group is unlikely to participate in the second roundtable meeting, which, according to him, looks more like a semi-circle since as most of "those that matter would not be there.
And if India wants to talk to India's supporters they can talk on any table of any geometrical shape." Talking to India's supporters cannot resolve anything. In fact, New Delhi too realises the necessity to engage "those that matter" which is why it has been indicating it is not averse to inviting the military leadership of the Kashmir fighters for talks as well. It is about time it holds a meaningful dialogue with the political and military leadership of the Kashmiris and, of course, Pakistan, in order to resolve the Kashmir dispute.