Part II: Chapter 5

JKLF - AN OUTFIT OF KILLERS

The advocates of secular character of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front have missed as inconsequential the Jammat-i-Islami background and orientation of the terroristsaffiliated with the outfit. As finished products from the Jamaat-i-Islami-manned front organizations including Islamic Students League and Jamiat-e-Tulba they are in full agreement with the Jamaat-cadres on issues of launching Jehad, fundamentalistation of Islam and its militarisation and inveterate opposition of pluralism, dissent and secular ideology. Zia-ul-Haq and Ayatollah Khomeini harbouring fundamentalist views were proclaimed as the heroes of Islam with visions of revitalizing and restructuring the Islamic movement for a dominating role in the world with its main thrust against the religious enemies. The duo as the proclaimed heroes of Islam were never the protagonistsof any brand of secularism. One Islamised Pakistan and the other preached Islamic revolution with fundamentalist agenda as its guiding beacon. Pakistan and Iran to the terrorists of JKLF were the model states which could be emulated with a view to re-shaping and re-structuring Jammu and Kashmir accordant with the Islamic law and precedent.

Rustum ji and Ved Marwah have floated and publicised the unfounded thesis about the secular character of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. George Fernandes in his talk and discussion at the centre for International Affairs at Harvard university asserted the same fallacy that the JKLF was committed to the maintenance of communal harmony and secular order in the state. Balraj Puri has found reflections of fraudulent Kashmiriyat in the JKLF. To the disquiet of all supporters of the phoney thesis it was Yossef Bodansky who as a putative expert on international terrorism in a seminar in New Delhi spotlighted and exposed the communal substance and motivations of JKLF and its links with rabid organizations globally.

It is amply known that the terrorists operating under the umbrella of JKLF have been wedded to the agenda of liberating Kashmir from the so-called servitude of India and declaring it as an independent state under an overarching suzerainty of Islamic state of Pakistan. In its conceptual frame and ideology the outfit is no different from the Jamaat-i-Islami which is fundamentalist and parochial with deep commitments to Kashmir's annexation with Pakistan as a Muslim state. There is no denying the fact that the JKLF has no well-defined ideological contours which could have set its parameters of differentiation from diverse outfits operating the same fundamentalist agenda. It has been generally observed that the terrorists connected with groupings having rabidly communal orientation and programme have found refuge and patronage in the JKLF and have operated under its aegis. What brings the JKLF terrorists at par with other terrorist groupings is the fundamentalist agenda of Pan-Islamic vintage with its sharp thrust against non-Muslim religio-ethnic minorities. The communal orientation of the JKLF got revealed when its cadres went berserk in putting the Kashmiri Pandits to indiscriminate killings obviously to cleanse Kashmir of infidels who could not be tolerated in the republic that was deemed to be Islamic in form and content. And the treatment that was meted out to the Hindu minority as an acid test exposed its commitments to secularism as fake, false and mere presence.

Yossef Bodansky world-famous expert on Islamic fundamentalism snubbed the former security advisor to the Governor of J&K state pleading for soft-pedalling with JKLF by reminding him that it was JKLF which had initiated and organised killing of Pandits leading to their forced exodus.

Sheikh Abdullah and Mirza Afzal Beg sponsored and floated the Plebiscite Front that upheld and pursued the secessionist programme with its emphasis on right of self-determination. With a view to adding stridency to the secessionist movement an unholy alliance was forged with the Jamaat-i-Islami cadres to break fresh ground for an armed struggle against the Indian sovereignty over the state of Jammu and Kashmir and as an upshot a terrorist outfit Al Fateh surfaced which indulged in destruction and sabotage on a large scale. The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front not only inherited and resurrected the ideological content of Al Fateh but invested it with a new facelift in terms of impetus and orientation. It is a common observation that after 1975-Accord with Mrs. Gandhi, the subversives with a heavy crime record were showered lavish patronage and installed in key positions in government apparatus and National Conference. With the outbreak of insurgency these subversives served the support-plank for the JKLF which established its broad sweep and range with the government falling in line as a matter of sheer connivance.

The drive against liquor shops, beauty and video parlours, cinema halls and other expressions of modern civilisation was carried to the hilt by Allah Tigers which was operating under the cover of JKLF. The outfit continued to Operate independently to kill and torture the Kashmiri Pandits, but its witch-priest, Air Marshal Noor Khan, Joined the ranks of JKLF and propagated extreme strictness in religion and morals for the reformation and purification of the Muslim society. The stance of JKLF vis-a-vis fundamentalisation of Muslim society was the same as that of rabid Jamaat-i-Islami and other outfits which are vociferously communal and brazenly sectarian.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front upholding; independence as an option in opposition to the first two options of nexus of Kashmir with India or Pakistan has trapped a number of wiseacres who pontificates as a mere assumption or concoction that third option is nationalistic in content with commitments to secularism. But the said organisation despite its sham commitments to third option has not at any point of time in its history negated or expressed its opposition to the establishment of Kashmir as a Muslim State with Nizam-e-Mustafa as its ultimate destination establishing Muslim ascendancy and authoritarianism, and brutal discrimination against non-Muslim religioethnic minorities. Pakistan and Bangladesh as avowedly Muslim states have liquidated, converted or herded out the Hindu minorities and have suppressed non-conformity, axed tolerance and accommodation and resorted to an unabated policy of persecution. The expulsion of lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits from their home-land in Kashmir has put the secular ideology in deep freeze and the Indian secularists despite its portents have evaded the consequences ensuing from the Muslim refusal to co-exist with the Hindus even though a small minority. And minus the Indian ostriches the world knows that the expulsion of non-Muslim ethnic minorities was the handiwork of JKLF and its affiliates.

The terrorists of the JKLF brand were the first to wage war on the Kashmiri Pandits. The first hit-lists were prepared, issued and updated by its cadres operating from the precincts of mosques and the first killings were resorted to by the hounds of the same outfit. Tika Lal Taploo, B.K. Gangoo, Navin Sapru, Ashok Kumar Qazi, Prem Nath Bhat, Sarwanand Koul Premi, T.K.Razadan, Nila Kanth Ganjoo et al were brutally massacred by the cadres of JKLF, who took pride in fixing JKLF tags on their bodies, bleeding and writhing in excruciating pain and agony and sadistically footing dances in extreme glee and joy shared by hordes of Muslims present on the scene. The brutal killing of Sarla Bhat who was a nurse on the staff of the Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar was also the handiwork of JKLF. The thigh of a Hindu lady chopped off from the main body was branded JKLF. Noor Khan, Sher Khan, Bita Karate, Showkat Bakshi, Yasin Malik, Dr. Abdul Ahad Guru, Hamid Sheikh, Javed Mir and Ashfaq Majid Wani-all owing allegiance to JKI F-have oiled their hands with the blood of Kashmiri Pandits and their women-folk. Bita Karate in his T.V. Interview shamelessly confessed the massacre of forty Kashmiri Pandits. The total exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley was near complete by October, 1990 and it was brought about by the armed and unarmed activists of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front through ruthless killings, torture and fear psychosis and yet it is secular.

The JKLF in the wake of dastardly killing of the religious minority of Pandits was asked to clarify its position with respect to them and brazenly made it known through the 'Kashmir Times' issued from Jammu that they must play a constructive role in the emergence of Kashmir as an independent state and if they are keen to preserve their cultural heritage, entity and physical existence, they must lend support in full to the JKLF. It sounded funny when Pandits were conveyed that they must prevail upon New Delhi to implement the U.N. Resolutions on Kashmir without any further delay and dither as they are heard in Delhi and have access to the corridors of power. H.N. Jattu broached the subject of Pandit killings with Mufti Bahu-ud-din, Ex-Chief Justice, an ideologue of JKLF and Dr. Abdul Ahad Guru, a Pakistani saboteur planted in the Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar who had set the pace for Pandit migration through his war on M.L. Bhat, ex-Chief Engineer, posted in the Institute as chief engineer. Though rebuffed, Jattu continued to contact them for stopping the killing of Pandits which was fast gaining pace and momentum. He was asked if the JKLF stand vis-a-vis Kashmiri Pandits was clarified to him when Ashok Kumar Qazi who was the organising secretary of his organisation was mercilessly tortured to death.

The secular cloak of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front was torn to shreds when mosques that had mushroomed all over the valley on an uprecedented scale were put to the unholy use of spewing out venom against the infidels dubbing them as agents of India and flaring them to quit and buzz off the so-called land of Muslims. They were threatened and cursed in the classical Muslim fashion. The mammoth crowds of Muslims flitting about the streets rent the skies with stinking and lousy slogans and suffused the environs with communal poison and hatred indicating the collapse of their will to resist the Frankstein of terrorism. That the war waged by the JKLF terrorists was Islamic in content and spirit was established by the fact of mosques having emerged as the focal centres of their struggle. Do secular movements commence with volatile slogans tinted Islamic? Do secular movements target ethno-religious minorities for the religion that they harbour? From its seminal beginnings the JKLF distanced itself away from the ideological concept of a democratic state based on rational modernity. It did not hold aloft the banner of religious tolerance and human fraternity. In its immediate political behaviour it rejected the involvement of all segments of Kashmiri population and the spree of killings and orgy of loot that the JKLF let loose typical in its Islamic frenzy were seen more as a conspiracy than a rational movement. Its calculation and arithmetic were devised in absolute collaboration with the first generation Muslim learners who lacking in dynamics of rational analysis exaggerated the support structures of America, Islamic countries and more than most Pakistan which failed to wage a war on India as per its pledge. Had JKLF been secular it would not have allowed religious bigotry to shade its political calculations and strategies. Resilience of the Indian state with its commitments to secularism was not taken note of in factorial analysis.

The Jammu and Kashmir Students Liberation Front (JKSLF) operated as an Islamist organisation nomenclaturing itself as Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen (Muslim Brothers). Its front ranking leader, Hilal Baig, has unequivocally projected and championed the "Islamicisation of Kashmir" as the dominating objective of the current struggle in Kashmir. He also commands the armed wing of the organisation which has set new records in terrorism and destruction.

The tidal wave of Jehad and religious bigotry that was generated and unleashed by the JKLF flowed into the cesspool of rape and murder, loot and plunder and to the surprise of the admirers of Jehad and Azadi, the Mujjahids of yesterday and hordes of V-flaunting Muslim supporters are seen taking holy dips and in the process commitments to the "Independent Kashmir" have completely thinned and washed out. The tribal Jehad as per the historical tomes launched in 1947 was lost in the rape of the bazzars of Muzzfarabad and the Jehad of 1989-variety launched with the same gusto and contours has been lost in the habitations of Kashmiri Pandits. The rape of Muzzfarabad was complete in three days and the Pakistani army officer setting the goal and direction of the Jehad could rally them back for more ravishing booties but the rape of the Pandit habitations has unceasingly gone on for seven years and no self-styled champion of Islam has re-grouped them for a renewed Jehad as they are all submerged and lost under the ocean of booties and loot of moneys pouring in from various sources.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation front ushering in a tornado of terrorism was backed up by a gendarme of propagandists mostly drawn from National Conference activists at grass-root level. The operations that the outfit evolved and executed were meticulously planned and schemed with a view to drumming up euphoric support for its atrocious killing of Kashmiri Pandits. It banked upon a massive network of propagandists, treacherous and wily, who in the fabrication of lies and their dissemination outstripped and to a large measure excelled even the Nazi propaganda machine. The gory and dastardly killings of innocent Pandits could not be explained even by Muslims and to quench dissent and doubt, the Muslim propagandists hatefully castigated them and commanded that their had been killed after due verification of their anti-Muslim activities and credentials and a stage came with the broadening of their reach and sweep that Muslims fell in line and came to believe that Mujjahids could do no wrong and much against the demands and requirements of sanity they joined the ranks of marauders and killers pledged to wiping out the whole race of Hindu Kafirs. The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits emmassefrom their native abode was maliciously attributed to the then governor, Jagmohan, by the same brand of canard-spinners and to the amazement of everybody Muslims without a difference parroted the same tune and song.

Despite the insidious and spiteful role in the expulsion of Kashmiri Pandits, the JKLF propagandists never contributed to the belief that Pandits had started a new chapter of their life as hapless refugees in tattered tentages and ramshackle hutments. Fearing nation-wide backlash the media perhaps at the behest of powers that be played the migration extremely cool, yet there were patriotic agencies which in sheer defiance of government policy of curbs and distortions splashed the Pandit migration supported by harrowing photographs inside and outside the country. The JKLF supporters connected with media took it yet another canard and mischief innovated by Government of India which in Kashmir passes for an incarnation of Satan. To confirm the truth of camps having come up in the desert lands of Jammu and see the reality for themselves, a group of ardent supporters of JKLF flaunting "V" signs, with a few of them connected with media agencies, paid a visit to the camps at Muthi in the company of a Kashmiri Pandit, whom they found pliant and obliging and had sought his assistance.

Peeping into the first tent etched on one side of the road running through the Jungle of tentages, they were shell-shocked to see a young Kashmiri Pandit lady, wan, sallow and broken initiating her two children in learning how to read and write English alphabets and were wondering with gaping mouths that the tents had not broken their tryst with education and learning. After they were reluctantly received into the tent they again felt shocked that the limited space within the tent was maintained spic and span. On enquiry the lady all soaked in tears informed them that her husband in twenties was killed by the JKLF terrorists and now as a widow at 27 she was maintaining her family on the meagre dole that the government paid her and back home her family had enormous landed assets.

After traversing some distance they through the good offices of the Pandit accompanying them entered another tent and found the inmates sitting on a printed blue sheet of cloth with two pillows decently placed perhaps for the guests who might be paying them a visit off and on. The family was presided over by a lady in sixties who, when asked, informed the visitors not only drawing but appeared to be drawing pathological comfort from their plight that her husband was atrociously killed in his own orchard by the gun-wielding Muslim neighbours who did not permit them to perform his last rites and since then they have been grieving over his death in the tent that was allotted to them after a rigorous battle.

One of them truculently told her that Muslims had also lost their near and dear ones, but Kashmiri Pandits never protested and maintained silence. Tears rolling down her sunken eyes the lady meekly told the Muslim wearing a well-cut beard that if two families suffered deaths, each would mourn separately and grieve over its own losses in terms of human life.

A school-going boy sitting by the side of his grandmother could be seen intently listening to the conversation between the Muslim visitors and his grandma. The same person shot him a question if he would like to return to his school in the native village. With all confidence the boy made a telling reply as tohe could return to the same school because his class-mates mostly Muslims had guns to wield and pistols to fire and had punctuated the whole area with hundreds of blasts.

On enquiry the boy again informed them that he was preparing for 10 + 2 examination and would be joining an engineering college in Maharashtra. It was again a shock to them as it did not fit in the scheme of things that they had planned for the Kashmiri Pandit learners. Though living in blighted conditions they had not joined the ranks of waifs and strays. This is what left them dismayed and disappointed.

The group of Muslims had planned to see all the tents and have an interaction with the exiled Pandits for reasons best known to them. But some Kashmiri Pandits who out of sheer curiosity had collected on the scene politely informed them that they were welcome, but their sons and daughters were busily preparing for examinations and hence it was improper and unwise to disturb them at this juncture. If they could choose to pay a visit some other time, they would certainly talk to them at least about the conspiracy that "V" flaunting monsters of hate had hatched to herd them out of their native places to transform Kashmir into a Muslim inferno.

The Muslims linked with various media agencies pretended to be shocked and took it as a jolt to the newly coined diabolical concept of Kashmiriyat and promised the Pandit who had accompanied them and led them to the camps at Muthi that they would certainly highlight the miserable plight of Pandits living in squalid camps. But, to the shock and dismay of the Pandit, yet not convinced of Muslim diabolerie, they never wrote about it. How could they? This is the destiny that the Muslims perhaps with few exceptions had warily planned in stealth for the Pandits who are stigmatised as Kafirs in Muslim parlance.