Chapter 2
Muslim Militancy

The militant violence in Kashmir is an ideological struggle which is fundamentalist in outlook and basically communal in character and which is aimed to:

• disengage the State from India, and secure its integration with the Muslim homeland of Pakistan.
• demolish the secular, social and political organisation of the State and convert it into a Muslim theocracy governed by the precept and preredent of Islam.

The ideological commitments of Muslim movement in Kashmir include:

• Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir form a part of the Muslim nation of Pakistan and since they constitute a majority of the population of the Jammu and Kashmir State, the State must form a part of Pakistan;
• the integration of the Jammu and Kashmir State will complete the process of the Indian partition, which was thwarted by India, inspite of the United Nations intervention in the Kashmir dispute;
• the Muslims in the State do not accept accession of the State to India and since India has denied them the right to exercise their option to join Pakistan, they have taken up arms to force India to withdraw from the State;
• in their struggle against India they are aliied to Pakistan, the Muslim homeland in Indian subcontinent;
• while the religious war against India is in process, social, economic and political organisation in the State must be transformed to correspond to Nizam-e-Mustafa or the state governed by the law and precept of Islam;
• the Hindus and the other minorities should be eliminated because: 
• they form the frontline of the resistance to the secession of the State from India and its integration with Pakistan.
• they do not accept that Jammu and Kashmir forms a part of the Muslim homeland of Pakistan;
• they do not accept the reorganisation of State of Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of Muslim law and precedent into a Muslim polity the Nizam-e-Mustafa;
• they are not prepared to subject themselves to the social, religious, economic and political preeminence of the Muslim majority in the State;
• they refuse to participate in the Jehad against India.

• Building a campaign, supported by the press and the electronic media of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir and the vernacular press inside the State; distort facts about the demographic, economic and political organisation of the State; its history and its political culture; malign India by accusing it of aggression and arouse the feelings of the Muslims inside the State and exhort them to rise in revolt against India;
• take advantage of the Muslimisation of the State Govermnent its political isolation from the rest of India to destroy the framework of the political institutions established in the State and demolish all power structures like the political parties, pressure-groups and other alignments of interest articulation;
• capture the security structures of the State by infiltration and undermine their normal function to compel the Government of India to deploy national security forces and the army in the State;
• to use the deployment of the national security forces in the State to :

• prepare the Muslim psyche for an ultimate battle with India;
• arouse international opinion against India by charging its security forces of oppressing the Muslims in the State;

• eliminate the Hindus in Kashmir in order to:
• destroy the most stable support base India had in the Kashmir province;
• wipe out all communication linkages, feedback channels and flow of information to the Government, a process in which the Hindus in Kashmir played a factoral role;
• to demolish the balances of population and convert the province into a purely Muslim populated region and consequently remove the traditional patterns of religious coexistence which formed the basis of the social organisation of the province;
• complete the process of fundamentalisation of the Muslim masses in the State to forge them into a monolithic communal force against India;

• extend the militancy to the Muslim majority districts of the Jammu province, and consolidate the Muslims to the west of Chenab into another militant flank against India, and use it as a lever for a probable settlement on the division of Jammu and Kashmir along the river Chenab;
• unleash a low profile civil war in the State to exhaust India and force it to surrender and simultaneously solicit intervention of the third powers to compel India to accept a settlement more favourable to Pakistan.


By and large, Pakistan and the secessionist forces in the State succeeded in achieving their targets. The media mechanics in Pakistan as well as in Azad Kashmir manufactured volumes of false stories about the bloody battles the Muslim Mujahidin fought with the Indian troops and the heavy casualities the latter suffered. Inside the State the secessionist forces, already in a state of preparedness picked up the cry Pakistan raised and launched a virulent attack on the security arrangements. The local vernacular press, which depended for financial support on the Muslim middle class and which had always supported Muslim separatism, communal precedence of the Muslim majority and a settlement with Pakistan, joined the tirade against India. A large section of the vernacular press controlled by the secessionist partisans, mainly the Jamait Islami, openly committed themselves to the unification of the State with Pakistan.

As the militant violence increased towards the fall of 1989, the security structures of the State, heavily infested by the secessionist elements, crumbled rapidly. Partly because of the inadequacy of the local security forces and partly because of their ineffectiveness to deal with the terrorist violence, the State Government was compelled to deploy the Central security forces in the State. Both by consititutional precept and agreement, to which Jammu and Kashmir is not an exception, the federal police forces are deployed in the Indian States on security duty to deal with any law and order situation, which the local police is unable to control. Besides, the contingents of the Central Rescrve Police, the State Government deployed Border Security Force and elements of Indo-Tibetan Border Force on internal security duty. That was actually, what the secessionists aimed at. They sought to force a confrontation between the Indian security forces and the militants in order to create the psychological impression of a state-wide Muslim revolt against India. The two news journals,owned by the National Conference and the Congress had no credibility. At this juncture of crisis when these news journals should have been toned up to rebut the false propaganda poured in from Pakistan, their columns uere filled by self-condemnator profiles which sought to explain why the state power had failed to attain the state of Islamisation promised to the people of the State by the Indian leaders.

The Muslimisation of the various political and economic processes had begun during the tenure of the First Interim Government, constituted in 1947, and continued even after. Within the broad framework of the special status envisaged by Article 370, which isolated the State from the rest of India, it was far easy for the secessionist elements to infiltrate into the administrative cadres of the Government. In fact, the entire administrative organisation of the state had since been undermined by the secessionists and converted into a major bulwark of resistance against India.

The Muslim bureaucracy played a major role in the demolition of the power structure of the State to pave the way for the functional atrophy of the State Government. Right from the time of the Interim Government, the Muslim bureaucracy had been built as a flank of the National Conference, but after the disintegration of the Conference, it had grown into a powerful instrument of Muslim separatism. It was actively assisted by the secessionist flanks in the political parties, which constituted the Government and the nexus between them completed the destruction of whatever semblence  of institutionalisation had survived the ravages of the movement for plebiscite in the State.

The strategies adopted by the militants to demolish the security structures of the State achieved their aim with devastating effect. With the onset of the militant violence in the State, the security structures in Kashmir, heavily infested by secessionist elements and led by personnel, deeply indoctrinated by Muslim fundamentalism crumbled rapidly. The flanks of Kashmir armed police recruited mainly from among the Muslims of the border districts of both the provinces of Jammu and Kashmir, struck work and mutineed, allegedly on being treated indifferently by the Government. This happened at a time when the militant violence had entered a decisive phase.

The obdurate strike of the State police forces, aroused fears of an internecine scuffle between them and the Indian troops and many rumours spread that the State police forces had fraternised with the militants, distributed arms among them and attacked the Central Reserve Police personnel and dealt heavy damage upon them. Rumours also spread that the State police had been ordered to be dlsarmed but it had refused to lay down arms. Whatever happened behind the scene, the elements of the local police, stoodbye, every where indeliberate indifference, without any meaningful direction, to deal with the situation.

The media machines in Pakistan as well as Azad Kashmir along with the vernacular press in Kashmir, poured out volumes of abuse and invective against the Indian security forces. Allegations were made that they were being used to oppress the Muslims, who were fighting for their legitimate right of self-determination. Stories were floated about the inconvenience, imposition of curfew caused to the people, about the shortage of cooking gas and soaps the failure of the State Government to provide transport for the export of fruit, the breakdown of the industry etc. But there was little or no reporting of the death and destruction and the atmosphere of fear and terror, which was rapidly prevading the life in the State. Kashmiri Hindus killed by the militants, were condemned as traitors to cause of the Muslim struggle and informers of the Government of India, who had been justly punished for having betrayed the Muslim Jehad.

While the secessionist forces consolidated their hold on Kashmir, they extended their operations to the Muslim majority districts in the Jammu province. The secessionists aimed to militarise the Muslims in these districts, in order to provide wider conduits for infiltration of the trained rnilitants from Pakistan and secondly, to drive out the Hindus, who formed a more sizeable minority in these districts. If the Hindus in the Jammu province were isolated in the two districts of Jammu, Kathua and the fringes of the Udhampur and Doda Districts, lying east of the Chinab, a basis could be provided for Pakistan to accept the division of the State along the Chinab? A widespread campaign of subversion was launched in these districts, to consolidate the secessionist forces and organise the despatch of Muslim volunteers for arms training, across the Line of Control. Evidently, with the Hindus thrown out of the Muslim majority districts, the secessionist operations could easily command the features behind the Indian defences.

The terrorist violence in the district of Doda intensified with the induction of the foreign mercenaries into the State. The administration in the district did not take long to crumble, leaving the terrorist flanks operating in the district, to establish a militant regime there.

The Doda district was carved out of the Hindu majority district of Udhampur by the National Conference Government, to seggregate the Muslim rnajority regions of the Jammu province, contiguous to Kashmir. It is situated in the outer hills of the Jammu province and is bordered in the north by the valley and in the south and south west by Udhampur and Kathua districts. In the east and south east Doda is contiguous to Ladakh. The total population of the Doda district is 4,25,262, of which the Muslim constitute a majority of 55 percent.

The militant operations spread to Doda from Kashmir and followed the same tactical pattern to fundamentalise the Muslim society in the district that the militants had adopted in Kashmir. The public address system, in the mosques, were used to exhort the Muslims to prepare for the crusade against India. The State government reluctant to recognise the spread of terrorism to the Jammu province, took no effective measures to meet the threat the terrorists posed in Doda. As planned, the terrorist offensive in Doda, unfolded in several phases:

• the terrorist launched a widespread man hunt of the Hindus, killing than wantonly in large numbers;
• they warned the Hindus to evacuate from the district to complete their ethnic extermination;
• they smothered the last resistance against secessionism, among the Muslims who were opposed to Pakistan, by force and intimidation;
• after the Hindus were eliminated and the society fundamentalised they launched a major military offensive against the Indian security forces;
• having established a terrorist regime in the district, they extended their operations to the entire Jammu province.
The Hindus were subject to torture and barbarity, which do not have a parallel in the annals of history. The following local account gives a description of the inhuman practices, brutal torture and physical assault to which the Hindus in the district were subjected.

Two youths named Shri Rakesh Kumar (24) and his brother Rattan Lal (22) were taken as hostages for raising the alarms. After four days their dead bodies were found near a nallah. They were brutally killed - the breast of Shri Rakesh was opened to take out his heart. After slaughtering Shri Rattan Lal, his skin was removed from the face; private parts of both the brothers were cut off.

After a week of this horrible incident of gruesome killings, the "Mujahids" killed another youth of Kishtwar town. His name was also Rakesh Kumar. He was also kidnapped alongwith another youth Gambhir Chand who managed his escape despite being hit by a bullet. The dead body of Shri Rakesh was found near Bhagana village 40 kms.  from Kishtwar town. His eyes were removed and different parts cut before killing.

On 25/26 March 1994, two Hindu youths from village Puneja (Bhaderwah) were kidnapped and tortured to death.

On 30. 4. 1994 an Ex-Serviceman, Shri Om Raj R/O Sinerra (Bhaderwah) was gunned down in his house and his property looted.

On 2.5.1994 Rangil Singh, Gulab Singh and a gujjar boy Abdul Gani were kidnapped and mercilessly tortured by Afghans at village Sumbar. Their parents were forced to eat the flush of their children and some of the villagers were forced to take beaf.

On 27.5.1994 three Harijan boys were killed mercilessly in Adall village of Kishtwar. They are Shri Kishore Lal, Jeevan Lal, and Ravinder.

Two militants were killed by villagers at Kote village. Later the whole village was burnt and the inhabitants forced for migration to Himachal Pradesh. Thousand of terrorists, including foreign mercenaries, were camping at the higher reaches of Doda district.

Militants have looted all the police posts at Chatru, Marwa, Warban, Dacan, Paddar and Thathri and hence snatched 118 rifles (303), 14 pistols, 16 uireless sets and a large quantity of ammunition from Jammu and Kashmir police without firing a single shot - later on State government withdrew these police posts, which have been recently restored after protests.

14 Jawans of B.S.F. were trapped and killed in Desa area because of the misguidance of local guide who had informed the militants before and the guide was the S.H.O. of the area. Militants laid ambush and killed all of them.

A steady exodus of the Hindus from the Doda district and several Muslim majority regions of the Jammu province is now in progress. The objective is to push out the Hindus from the regions east of the Chenab, to prepare ground for the separation of the Kashmir valley and the larger parts of the Jammu province from India, more or less on the basis of a modified form of the plan, when Sir Dixon, the united Nations representative, proposed as a basis for settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

This was what the secessionist forces were able to accomplish in Kashmir. The Hindus in Kashmir, hundreds of them killed and tortured to death and thrown out of their homes by terror tactics, were eliminated as a factor in the process of resistance against the secessionist movement in the State. If the Hindus from the Muslim majority districts of the Jammu province were also uprooted from their homes, they too would cease to be a factor in the resistance against secessionism?