Collective conscience
Why would the supreme court of India give the army an option to choose? The obvious answer might be that it is a procedural matter. But did the overwhelming evidence of murder not stir its conscience or reawaken its duty as arbiters of the "collective conscience" of India? (Upholding the death sentence against Afzal Guru convicted for his involvement in the Parliament Attack of 2001, the SC while admitting the evidence was circumstantial had said: "Collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender...")
Clearly not, because, quite simply, much like the other arms of the Indian state, it too, on balance, perhaps thinks of Kashmiris as an expendable commodity.
Pathribal and last year's hanging of Afzal Guru in Delhi's Tihar Jail are closely linked. The same principle of the expendable Kashmiri was at work when the same court decided to hang Afzal Guru even though his involvement in the deadly attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 was not proved beyond reasonable doubt. If there was not, according to Indian courts, enough conclusive evidence in either of the cases, why the opposite, and blatantly contradictory verdicts then?
Time and again, India seems to say to Kashmiris that their home is a territory of conquest: We will do as we please. There has never been a more tyrannous mood on display in India's dealings with Kashmir, as there has been in the last few years during which Kashmiris have once again came out in force against Indian rule after a relative lull.
The soldier deployed among a people who have never accepted Indian sovereignty is always seen as an alien aggressor in Kashmir. It is the weight of that otherness, that militarily enforced and tenuous link between the occupier and the occupied, which bears heavily on both the trigger of the soldier, and on the pen of the adjudicator.
Mirza Waheed was born and brought up in Kashmir. His debut novel The Collaborator was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Shakti Bhat Prize, and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/02/fake-encounters-expendable-kashm-20142281139146859.html
India detains Kashmiri activists amid strike
Detentions intended to prevent protests during strike marking execution anniversaries of rebels, say police officials.
Indian troops have detained up to 200 activists in India-administered Kashmir to prevent protests during a three-day strike to mark the execution anniversaries of two separatists in New Delhi, AP news agency reported.
Authorities also placed the leaders of the activists under house arrest on Sunday, a police officer said on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorised to speak with reporters.
Many parts of Kashmir were under curfew on Sunday, with major roads blocked by razor wire and barricades as authorities sought to prevent anti-India protests and possible violence, Inspector General Abdul Gani Mir said.
A few dozen pro-independence activists defied the restrictions and tried to stage a rally in Srinagar, chanting "We want freedom" and "Return the bodies of our martyrs". They have been detained for several hours, another police officer told AP on condition of anonymity.
Refreshed anger
Kashmiri separatists, who have long demanded the region be given independence or be allowed to merge with neighbouring Pakistan, were incensed last year when Mohammed Afzal Guru was secretly hanged on February 9 in a New Delhi jail for involvement in a 2001 Parliament attack that killed 14 people, including five gunmen.
Most people in Kashmir believe Guru was not given a fair trial, and the covert execution led to days of violent anti-India protests in the Muslim-majority region, where anti-India sentiment runs deep.
The execution refreshed anger sparked in 1984, when pro-independence leader Mohammed Maqbool Butt was hanged in the same New Delhi jail after being convicted of killing an intelligence officer.
Since 1989, an armed uprising and an ensuing crackdown in the region have killed an estimated 68,000 people.
Separatists renewed demands over the weekend that the two men's remains, buried within the jail compound, be returned to the region for burial.
"The shutdown is called for pressing our demand for return of the mortal remains of our martyrs," Syed Ali Geelani, a separatist leader, said in a statement issued before he was detained at Srinagar's airport on Saturday after returning from New Delhi.
Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/02/india-detains-kashmiri-activists-amid-strike-20142911020324570.html
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Jammu-Kashmir News Watch/February, 2014