Though Kashmir witnessed a large scale massacres of Kashmiri Hindus in 1990, but it was a day before Republic Day 1990, on the morning of 25 January, car-borne militants opened fire on a group of IAF personnel on the outskirts of Srinagar, killing Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna and three colleagues and leaving several injured.
A high-profile case involving the killing of four IAF personnel in Kashmir by militants, led by Yasin Malik reportedly, remained stuck for almost three decades.
Till thirty years since, charges couldn’t be framed in the case, though the CBI presented its chargesheet in November 1990, owing to a series of factors. During the subsequent investigations, several eyewitnesses identified Malik, among others, as being responsible for the firing.
It was finally on 26 April 2019, the Jammu & Kashmir High Court lifted its stay on the trial, imposed in 2007, and rejected his plea to shift the trial.
“Now non-bailable warrants have been issued to produce Malik in court on 11 September,” advocate Pavittar Singh Bhardwaj, the special public prosecutor for the CBI, told at his Jammu residence. “Finally, things are moving.”
A month before the IAF killings, he is believed to have played a role in the abduction of former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya during the latter’s stint as Union home minister.
Writing about Congress is a waste, but you can be rest assured that this wouldn’t have happened had it been the case in old grand party during its peak, when they had good to great leadership during 50s or even 60s. The JKLF waged a guerrilla war with the Indian security forces, kidnapping of Rubiya Sayeed, the daughter of Indian Home Minister, and targeting attacks on the government and security officials. In March 1990, Ashfaq Wani was killed in a battle with Indian security forces. In August 1990, Yasin Malik was captured in a wounded condition. He was imprisoned until May 1994. Hamid Sheikh was also captured in 1992 but released by the Border Security Force to counteract the pro-Pakistan guerrillas. By 1992, the majority of the JKLF militants were killed or captured.
Farooq abdulla presided over the Kashmiri Hindu genocide, he wants power but not accountability, he and his family looted kashmir for decades and you think its not right to put PSA on him.
Ironically, the draconian Act of 1978, which allows the central government to detain a person for two years without trial, if he or she is perceived to be a threat to public safety, was enacted by the NC chief’s father, Sheikh Abdullah.
As the peak of the Kashmir insurgency, the two episodes together helped Malik build an aura around himself, and take on the mantle of leader among Kashmiri “boys” involved in militancy through the JKLF. Over the years, however, Malik had managed to reinvent himself as a non-violent separatist leader and marry a Pakistan national, though he was still photographed with 26/11 mastermind and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba chief Hafiz Saeed in 2013.
‘The wheels of justice’
By the end of 1990, the CBI had gathered evidence, witness statements and filed its chargesheet in a TADA court at Jammu since Malik and fellow accused had been booked under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA).
“The chargesheet was presented in the designated court on 24 November 1990 but there has been no movement in the case since then,” said Bhardwaj.
“These people (Malik and his supporters) had powerful backers among the mainstream. It won’t be wrong to say that Malik and his fellow accused had supporters in positions of power. The wheels of justice were not allowed to move by vested interests,” he added.
Bhardwaj, a retired district and sessions judge, has been waging almost a lonely battle to ensure that Malik and other militants are brought to justice.
But the prosecution’s job to get a conviction against Malik, who is currently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail in connection with an NIA terror-funding probe, may be easier said than done.
Of the 67 witnesses that the CBI had planned to present in court, several are dead while others have indicated that they are not available to testify.
Apart from Malik, others accused in the IAF case include B.A. Sofi, Mohd Rafiq Pehlu alias Nanaji, Javed Ahmed Mir and Showkat Ahmed Bakshi. At least three of the accused, including JKLF founder Amanullah Khan, the suspected mastermind of the attack, have passed away while four, who were declared absconders by the court on 17 September 1990, are yet to be arrested.
(Excerpts from an article by The Print on 6th September, 2019)
Because the victims were Hindus, these incidents won’t be any sensation if they show that Hindus are being mistreated in India. Sensation and TRPs are created when the news is concerned about minorities. 5 star activists and left-liberals take interest in minority exploitation. It’s really painful to see such double standard behaviour of people. Even some of the film-makers only show one side of the aspect e.g. Haider. One more reason for such negligence is that those Kashmiri pandits are very small in number for media TRPs. The sold out media will show Muzaffarnagar encounter but will not show the exodus done by Yasin Malik.
The simple reason is because the ones who actually can instigate, have been more or less put at a place where they can’t do that.
See, but coming to Kashmir, the thing is somewhat like this. For example, ever wondered anytime on how come you won’t find any personal family member of Geelani, Yasin Malik, Shabbir Shah, Mirwaiz Farooq, Masrat Alam, Asiya Andrabi, ……………… coming on streets for a stone-pelting session?
Or have you ever wondered on how come you won’t find son of Syed Salahuddin (leader of United Jihad Council) ever have his own son picking a gun? Fun fact is that his son happens to be a doctor for government, last that’s what I heard of him on TV.
Or have you wondered, on how come the typical Kashmiri who spends a lot of their time penning rubbish articles for domestic or foreign media and going as far as legitimizing terrorism and India-hatred or Hindu-hatred, often guess what, has a history where none, I repeat, none in the family come from poorer strata, or even the common person strata of society.
However if one digs on other side, the average terrorist who at somewhere got indoctrinated in a error camp in PoK, is your average commoner more or less. In a similar way, the average soldier in Kashmir with origins in Kashmir alone, once again, is an average commoner with zero connection to the political class or the separatist class of the state. Wonder why?
Well, let me tell you how. The whole Kashmir mess is a classic example of sheep mentality, all thanks to a section of the typical high-class section of society who are too drunk on power and wouldn’t really mind if a lot of their own kind (who unfortunately aren’t as privileged as they are) would end up dead. The modus operandi is same as how the Pakistan movement was in its days. Unless you don’t know, a large number of people who were part of this were more or less, either had origins in a highly educated and aristocratic section of Muslim population, or became member of this section later in life. Now in this flock of sheep, some of course are the wolves, and wolves, as all know, are cunning unlike sheep.
Who’s the sheep here? The separatists? The ISI of Pakistan? The privileged aristocrats who once had their hands deep into all the muck in Kashmir? Terrorist groups? You decide.
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