COUNTERVIEW: Ahmedabad: Saturday, August 02, 2014.
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| The old man who "lost everything" because of army atrocity |
Gujarat-based
NGO Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel’s (MAGP’s) recently-concluded people’s contact
programme in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) has found serious human rights
violations by the army and the police in the northern-most Indian state. While
campaigning for the right o information (RTI) Act on RTI on Wheels, a specially
designed vehicle, with the supported by Sangharsh RTI Movement-J&K, MAGP
activists heard the tale of woe from an old man in Gurvet village of Badgaon
district who said how the army came to their house, fired at his wife and
daughter-in-law, and took away his son.
“My son never
returned. After a few days, the army people once again came to take me. I asked
the officer, ‘Will you spare two minutes?’ I went to the place where sheep and
goats were kept, and opened the door to let them free. ‘I do not know whether I
am going to return or not. This boy will beg for food when he will feel hungry.
But what about my sheep and goats do if they are locked inside?’, I told them.
I was released by the army after a month’s time finding nothing against me”,
the old man was quoted in a report prepared by the MAGP on the yatra.
As do not
want heavens to be built for them. They just want one opportunity to move a
step forward in their life.” The RTI yatra was flagged off by J&K chief
minister Omar Obdullah on June 16.
Another
gruesome story which finally ended with some positive results due to an RTI
application filed by the locals was about the Tosa Maidan Bachao Andolan, a
“magnificent meadow in Budgaon district, which was given to the army on lease
as firing range way back in 1964.” The lease was put up for renewal in 2014.
“In the past
five decades, 63 people were killed and hundreds disabled in several accidents
related to un-exploded shells littered on the meadow’s slopes”, the MAGP report
said, adding, “Information regarding the lease conditions, renewal and deaths,
was obtained under RTI. Under the leadership of Dr. Shaikh Gulam Rasool,
villagers of 16 villages around Tosa Maidan got together to start Tosa Maidan
Bachao Front.”
The report
said, “For centuries, Tosa Maidan had served as grazing land for the villagers’
livestock. But, since 1964, for six months from May to October every year, the
meadow would see scenes of simulated warfare carried out by the army. During
this period, the villages would reverberate with the barrage of shelling and
deafening explosions, forcing the villagers to stay indoors most of the time.”
“Slowly, the
movement gathered momentum”, the report said, adding, “It gave a call for rally
and protests in Srinagar, and Srinagar witnessed one of the biggest peaceful
protests of the past three decades. A large number of people joined the rally.
Finally, the government decided not to renew the lease for firing range. The
movement has now submitted its plan of developing this area for eco-tourism.”
In yet
another experience, at Singpura village in Baramulla district, at a gathering
of RTI users, Ahmad Afzal shared the story of a 2008 agitation against land
acquisition for a road development project. The government, in order to
suppress the movement, lodged FIR. “Many among us were school-going kids. As
many as 253 youths from 10-12 villages of Baramulla even today are being
harassed by police”, Afzal is quoted as saying.
Afzal said,
“The government registered several cases against them. Every month they need to
appear in the court and pay fees to advocates. They also have to appear in the
police station. If they go out of town for two days, police inquire at their
home”, adding, “We have been arrested many times in a year, before any
important day and occasion in the name of maintaining law and order.”
He further
said, “When the police visit our house they damage our property, break things,
misbehave with ladies at home. We approached the DSP, ministers, different
parties. But no one believes us. No one gives us any work. Our families have
been ruined. They earn only to pay bond and fees of advocates. We have seen a
ray of hope in RTI and we all have come to see you.”
At Jampatri, a small village near Srinagar
where 300 households of Gujjar community, a denotified tribe, live, Mohammad
Shafi related the case of harassment by forest department. “Shafi and his
friends filed a series of RTI with the forest department to know about actions
taken by the department in against timber smugglers. The forest department, in
reaction to this, filed cases against three youths with the charge that they
destroyed the forest department’s nursery. When the incident happened, they
were in the village, and the sarpanch could stand witness for their presence in
the village”, MAGP report said.
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