NAYANA BOSE

My dear father, mother, brothers and sister. If you really love me, you should bear the news of my martyrdom with courage and be thankful to God.… I request my father to send my brothers for military training and also to educate them about jehad. It is an excellent path which leads straight to paradise....You should not pay heed to those who say that these people (the Lakshar-e-Taiba) get our children killed in Kashmir.

Abu Marsad*

 

 

THEY come fired with a fanaticism completely alien to the Kashmiri. A passionate zeal to spread Islam, to cleanse Kashmir from Hindu oppression. They come armed with Kalash-nikovs, sniper rifles, anti-tank mines, rocket launchers and explosives. Supported by Pakistan – by its religious schools and individuals, trained by private institutions and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), funded generously by the Kashmiri diaspora, particularly from the UK – Kashmir is host to approximately three thousand or more guest militants. The mujahi-deen belong to Pakistan, Azad Kashmir, Afghanistan, some to Saudi Arabia and Libya. And they are here to stay.

Regardless of the growing resentment among Kashmiris to their presence, they continue with their mission – jehad, to create an ummah, an Islamic world without frontiers. Mindless of how incongruous their mission might be in a state struggling and yearning for normalcy and a population fatigued by violence, the mercenaries fight their war on an alien land, for a people alienated from them and their goals. The commander of the Lakshar-e-Taiba perhaps speaks for all mujahideen when he says that the Kashmiris consider the mehman mujahideen (guest fighters) to be angels that bring God’s blessings. Their presence gives moral support to the Kashmiri and their woes are mitigated.¹

Nothing could be a greater travesty of the truth. But once a society (in this case Kashmir) has been embroiled in a situation of conflict for some time, a self-sustaining momentum to continue that conflict builds up. Over time ideologies change, there may even be a genuine desire to end the conflict, but a cycle of violence sets in. A societal pattern of civil disorder becomes entrenched. And there will always remain those hardcore few who exploit the remnants of conflict, who keep the wheels churning.

 

 

The motives and agendas of those Kashmiris who joined the now mercenary-led struggle were seldom ideological. Local militants were motivated by the lure of power and quick money rather than by any religious zeal. Findings from a psychological study conducted by the army on captured militants who voluntarily participated, confirms the same.

‘As in the case of Ganai, for the others too the gun had become a potent weapon to fight the system which, they felt, had left them frustrated. Most of them talked of corruption, the rich having got richer and they having been denied their dues, says Lt. Colonel D. Saldhana, the psychiatrist at Srinagar’s base hospital. Many of them, in fact, were drawn by the improved lifestyle of their militant "friends". This was how they ended up in one group and not another – not for ideological reasons, but because their peers were in that particular group.’²

The large number of foreign fighters are better trained, better equipped and mentally fired by a fanaticism which is hard to quantify. As a senior bsf officer commented: ‘The only difficult insurgent is the man who has been trained in Afghanistan.’³

These are the militants left in Kashmir. Men who are committed to their cause. Men who would rather die than surrender. Initially, the struggle for azaadi which has now been hijacked to a jehad did have considerable local support and sympathy. Inspired by the intifada of Palestine and by the break-up of the once-invincible Soviet Union into smaller Islamic states, Kashmiris began to believe in their tryst with destiny. But caught between the security forces and the militants, they were a wretched lot. The admiration for the mujahideen slowly turned to despair. The increasing number of the non-Kashmiri fighters who dominate militant groups and the rapid criminalisation of the entire struggle alienated the average Kashmiri. Today, their struggle for independence has been transformed by non-Kashmiris into a conflict that exploits religion, trying once again to create permanent divisions where none exist.

 

 

The following table from the Indian Army, detailing the number of foreign mercenaries killed by the army from 1990 till September 1998, reveals that (i) the influx of foreign mercenaries has increased in the last 2-3 years; (ii) that these professional fighters keep terrorism alive in the state and are the most active: the number of those who are killed in action are therefore higher.

 

 

Year	Pakistani	POK	Afghan	NK (nationality Not Known)	Total Killed
1990	0	0	0		0
1991	1	0	1		2
1992	1	3	0	2	6
1993	27	2	44	6	79
1994	32	3	26	16	77
1995	45	0	22	0	77
1996	69	11	69	64	213
1997	46	14	18	183	261
1998	107	9	9	105	230

Note: These figures do not include those killed by the para-military forces who operate in the urban areas. This is, however, not a significant omission as the foreign mercenaries are rural based.

 

Compare 1991 and 1992, a total of six foreign mercenaries killed to the numbers killed in 1996, 1997 and 1998: 213, 261 and 230 respectively. The figures speak for themselves. This is Kashmir’s imported intifada.

 

 

Since its inception, the militant movement has had its glaring weaknesses. For one, it was always deeply divided between the pro independence and pro-Pakistan groups. It remains divided between Kashmiri militants and the guest mercenaries. The closely knit Kashmiri society began to resent the intrusion that the predominantly Pakistani and Afghani groups such as Harkat-ul-Ansar, the Lakshar-e-Taiba and the Hizbul Mujahideen, make on their customs and traditions. The Kashmiri groups – other than the JKLF which successfully rivals Hizbul Mujahideen – Lakshar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Ansar are Muslim mujahideen: Al Umar, Al Barq, Muslim Janbaz Force and the Ikhwan-e-Muslimoon. The last group now works in tandem with the security forces. It is headed by Kuka Parrey, a renegade backed by the Indian government who is now an MLA.

With an elected government in power and film crews returning to shoot in the Valley, is Kashmir turning the corner? Could a democratic, political compromise be in the offing? Not if Hafiz Mohammad Saeed Khan, Commander of the Lakshar-e-Taiba, based in Muridke, Pakistan has a say: ‘Democracy is among the menaces we inherited from an alien government. These are all useless practices and part of the system we are fighting against. Many of our brothers feel that they will be able to establish an Islamic system while working within this system. This is trash and you just dirty your hand by dealing with it.’⁴ The Lakshar-e-Taiba is easily the most powerful and well equipped – a group of 1500 mercenaries, of whom less than 20% are local recruits. The rest are Pakistani and Afghani.

 

 

Based on sprawling campus of 190 acres of land, 30 miles north of Lahore, the Markaz-Dawa-wal-Irshad is a centre for education, preaching and jehad. The Lakshar-e-Taiba, ironically translated ‘the army of peace’, is its militant wing of highly trained mercenaries. The Markaz-Dawa-wal-Irshad was founded in 1987 by three university teachers, two from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore and the other from the International Islamic University. The campus includes the opulent Jamia mosque funded by a Saudi donor, a garment factory, an iron factory, a woodworks factory, a stable and a swimming pool. The construction for the Dawa University is underway. The organisation runs 30 schools where 5000 students are enrolled. With its impressive network of schools and social service groups, recruitment is guaranteed.

Its annual three day jamboree is a fertile recruitment ground for the Lakshar-e-Taiba. Close to 100,000 people, including relations of those who have been killed in Kashmir, attend the largest religious congregation in Pakistan where the virtues of jehad are preached to the common man. Emotional speeches, rhetoric and ideology win over thousands of converts every year. It is difficult to remain aloof from graphic, though highly suspect accounts such as these: ‘I slaughtered five members of my family with my own hands because they were informers for the Indian Army,’ relates Abdullah from Srinagar. ‘I was a Hindu, yet I joined the path of jehad. What keeps you away from it?’ Or, hear out a fighter from the Lakshar-e-Taiba, based in Kashmir, whose speech is relayed through a wireless: ‘The Hindu army is taking measures of extreme cruelty against the Muslims, sisters are being denuded in front of brothers. Has jehad not become mandatory?’⁵ Has it? On whose behalf? Deafened by the sound of martyrdom, who is listening?

 

 

The Lakshar-e-Taiba is India centric. Although the Lakshar was initially involved in Afghanistan as well, its activities are now restricted to Kashmir. Today it is Pakistan’s largest so-called jehadi organisation.⁶ At any given time, the Lakshar-e-Taiba trains many more men than the number required to fight in Kashmir. The training is carried out in isolated parts of Azad Kashmir: a 21-day standard course, the Daura-e-Aama, followed by an intensive three-month special programme, the Daura-e-Khasa on guerrilla warfare, the use of small arms, survival and ambush techniques.

The Harkat-ul-Ansar, internationally the best known mercenary group in Kashmir (for its targetting of foreign tourists) was declared a terrorist organisation by the Americans as per the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Harkat-ul-Ansar was founded in Muzzafarabad, Pakistan in 1993 by Pakistani political activists, with the objective to internationalise jehad. It later came under the patronage of the Jamaat. The group is well structured and possesses some of the most advanced weaponry, including light and heavy machine guns, assault rifles, mortars and rockets. More than half of its 600 strong members are foreigners, including mercenaries from Algiers, Egypt, Tunis, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in addition to those regularly recruited from Pakistani madrasas.

This is a group that enjoys unofficial Pakistani government support and is heavily backed by the ISI. It would need such support if the ultimate objective of the group is indeed the liberation of Indian Muslims, i.e., a break up of the Indian state, through a programme of terror.⁷ Whether that is the avowed goal or not, what matters is that the jehad in Kashmir continues regardless of the changing political reality.

 

 

Lastly, the Hizbul Mujahideen, six months ago perhaps feared even more than the other two Pakistani-Afghani groups. But with the killing of its deputy supreme commander, Ali Mohammad Dar and four of his closest aides, the group fell apart. It is a pale shadow of its past – in 1992, the Hizbul Mujahideen was 6000 strong. Today, most of the militants who approach the Indian government for rehabilitation are those from Hizbul Mujahideen.

The Hizbul Mujahideen was formed in 1982 as the armed wing of the Jamaat-i-Islami. They fought the jehad in Afghanistan for ten years; its recruits were among the most experienced and hardened mercenaries when they made their presence felt in Kashmir. The ISI gave it full-fledged support until it began to resemble a state army.⁸ The training camps are in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Funded by the Jamaat-i-Islami, the objective of the Hizbul is that Kashmir becomes part of a more Islamic Pakistan. Decision-making within the Valley was under the control of foreign mercenaries.

Despite the presence and now dominance of well over 2000 foreign mercenaries, mainly veterans from the Afghan war working with the Harkat-ul-Ansar and the Lakshar-e-Taiba, Kashmir as in the past, is resisting the clarion call of Islam. The mercenaries have now spread their activities beyond the Valley, south of the Pir Panjal range in the Jammu districts of Doda, Poonch, Raijouri and Udhampur – areas with mixed populations though Rajouri and Poonch are predominantly Hindu.

 

 

The militants have been forced to export their brand of terror, their selfish ideology beyond the Valley, as their presence there is being challenged, not just by the security forces, but by popular will. The mercenaries are restricted to rural areas; their actions in urban areas are designed to have a high impact. Hindus are being targeted mercilessly, as the killings in the districts of Jammu prove. Even the day before the historic Delhi-Lahore bus service, 20-odd members of a Hindu marriage party were massacred in Doda. There is no doubt that militancy in Kashmir is being kept alive by the Punjabi-speaking Pakistani ex-army regulars and Afghani mercenaries, who are increasingly driven to desperation to target defenceless, unarmed Hindu villages. Well done, this is jehad at its best. Kill the ultimate enemy: the Hindu.

Figures from the Indian Army confirm that mercenaries persuaded by extreme fanaticism are keeping terrorism alive in Kashmir. What is frightening is that these men are committed beyond rationality to their cause. God’s Angels, aren’t they? Unfortunately, they are well equipped to do so: they have excellent channels of communication and there is no dearth of weaponry at their disposal. With the kind of high frequency sets the militants in Kashmir use, they can easily communicate with Karachi and Kabul, says a Signal Corps official.⁹ Weapons picked up from the bazaars of Peshawar are brought across by the fighters or by arms dealers who often ferry drugs across the border. These are also the people who have a vested interest in keeping the conflict going. Not because of ideology but because organised crime is their source of livelihood.

The following figures (valid till September 1998) are from the Indian Army; they do not include figures from the paramilitary forces: the BSF, CRPF or the ITBP. Weapons recovery – AK-47 Rifles 13,332, UMG/LMG 762, Sniper rifles 454, Sten guns 26, Pistols 4820, SB/DB guns 769, Anti-personnel mines 5349, Anti-tank mines 354, Hand grenades 33, 557, RPGs 832, Explosives 10,314, Radio sets 1310, Ammunition 264,7031.

 

 

Quite a haul. The power of gun is a heady aphrodisiac. Unemployed youth are given instant respect, a position in society, a regular income. Unchecked, they run amok with scant respect for human rights. Mercenaries have no compunctions in killing, kidnapping, extorting, raping or looting. In 1995, even Amnesty International, no friend of the Indian government, was forced to issue a strongly worded statement:

‘Amnesty International condemns the deliberate and arbitrary killing, torture and hostage-taking by armed opposition groups in Jammu and Kashmir. There is no moral or legal justification for the arbitrary or indiscriminate killing of civilians. Many of the victims are selected for peacefully expressing their conscientiously held views, because of the political views of their relatives, or for belonging to a particular religious community. Hostage-taking does not further, in any way, the protection of human rights.’¹⁰

 

 

The recent Amnesty report, as published in the Times of India, (15 March, 1999) reiterates that there is evidence that Pakistan has provided men, training and military support to some groups seeking accession to Pakistan. The complexion of the militancy has undergone a serious change. It is no longer an urban phenomenon. Trained Islamic fighters from a range of Muslim countries, including Sudan and Afghanistan, believing themselves to be holy warriors, engage in some of the most brutal abuses, especially targetting the Hindu community. Painting Kashmir in communal colours cannot work with a people where Kashmiriyat forms the foundation of civil society. This is an old trick, a card played often in a hand that has always lost.

Amnesty International also commented that while the state government has the responsibility to restore and maintain order, in an extreme security situation of this kind, it also has the obligation to promote and protect human rights at all times. A tall order!

‘What azaadi, what militants? This is azaadi’ – Bhat, a shikara-wallah.¹¹ The freedom from fear. The freedom to pursue an occupation by choice. Bhat earns Rs 150 for two shikara rides, which is twice what he was earning a few months ago. The tourists are trickling back, slowly. Times are changing. Kashmir is in a twilight zone. Mired in a recent past of violence, there is hope, genuine hope for a peaceful future. God willing – rather, God’s Angels willing.

 

 

The mercenaries have retreated to the mountains, to the rugged rural areas, where shelter is guaranteed. But even here, local Kashmiris, often coerced, are spilling the beans, cooperating with the army and security forces, who are now seldom referred to as the forces of oppression. Kashmiris are fatigued. Tired of senseless loss of life. Resigned to their fate within India, most Kashmiris long for the times when schools, hospitals and shops functioned as they should. When children could be sent to school secure in the knowledge that they would return. That there would be no curfews, no cordon and search operations, no disappearances. That life would be normal again, that tourists would return, that the Pandits would return. That Kashmiriyat would triumph.

The government is stumbling along. Farooq Abdullah’s impulsive style of governance continues. Ratan Irani’s film unit was gifted Rs 10 lakh for being the first film crew to return to the Valley. The first national winter games were held in January 1998 in Gulmarg at a cost of Rs 10 crore. While it was symbolic to project normalcy through holding the games in Gulmarg, it was unnecessary to showcase the event by introducing ice-hockey and skating. There was little need to import German snow-beating machines, French engineers to operate the cable cars, or even spend the Rs 70 lakh to refurbish the Gulmarg golf course. But that is Farooq: flamboyant.

He remains India’s only credible link in Kashmir. The National Conference has created 13,000 jobs out of the 26,000 it promised in its manifesto. But recruitment for the jobs has been plagued by corruption. The administration remains corrupt, lethargic even. Essential services – water, power, health – remain neglected. Farooq’s open lobbying with the central government, particularly after Pokhran II, is seen with some suspicion. Particularly as the BJP has consistently advocated to abolish Article 370, which gives Kashmir the special status it enjoys.

 

 

The people voted for an end to violence. There is now an open opposition to militancy. But will corruption ruin this chance for peace again? Will Kashmir forever be at a crossroads of simmering violence or compromised peace?

Or should we leave that to the Angels of God? They cannot and will not give up. Though fewer in number, the foreign mercenaries remain dedicated, committed warriors of jehad. Funding for the Lakshar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Ansar, perhaps even the Hizbul Mujahideen, is unlikely to lessen; on the contrary it is likely to increase, to combat the normalcy that is threatening to break through the years of violence. These are men with a mission – a mission that must continue, in a movement that has diverged widely from its original goal of azaadi.

There will always remain the few hardcore local supporters who arrange for shelter, food and hideouts. Even some members of the Hurriyat Conference, for lack a better definition the opposition in Kashmir, are known to make arrangements for the mercenaries. The drug runners cum arms dealers need the conflict to continue. The Gujjar tribesmen who guide mercenaries through easier infiltration routes must make a living. Society is entrenched in a system, in a cycle. A fringe will always keep this cycle going. With some help from Angels!

 

 

*Signed statement from a militant killed in Kashmir, published in Majla-ad-Dawa by the Markaz-Dawa-wal-Irshad (a religious centre for preaching and jehad, 30 miles north of Lahore: the base of the Lakshar-e-Taiba). The Herald Annual, January 1998, Karachi.

 

Footnotes

1. Z. Khan, ‘Allah’s Army’, The Herald Annual, January 1998.

2. H. Baweja, ‘In the Mind of the Militant’, India Today, 31 December 1994.

3. A. Davis, ‘The Kashmir Conflict’, Jane’s Intelligence Review (7)1, January 1995, Surrey: Jane’s Information Group.

4. Z. Khan, op cit., p. 133.

5. Ibid., p. 127.

6. Ibid., p. 125.

7. T. Kartha, Tools of Terror, IDSA and Knowledge World, New Delhi, 1999, p. 223.

8. Ibid., p. 221.

9. R. Vinayak, ‘Wireless Wars’, India Today, 14 September 1998, p. 24.

10. Amnesty International, Torture and Death in Custody in Jammu and Kashmir, AI Index, New York, 20 January 1995, p. 60.

11. H. Baweja, ‘Out of the Mists’, India Today, 6 July 1998, p. 22. See also, H. Baweja, ‘Jammu and Kashmir: Grand Designs’, India Today, 1 December 1997.