32 bullets, he took 'em all, to shield others from unrelenting guns

(Baba Umar)

It was the morning of January 21, 1990. The sun came up without much sparkle but it shone on young Rauf’s face for the last time. For, by noon, he was lying on the ground in his favourite blue jacket and green shoes, his body pierced by a hail of troopers’ bullets.

And, two decades later, his family and those who saw him getting killed along with 52 other peaceful protesters in Kashmir’s first massacre since the armed rebellion broke out in 1989 against the Indian rule, try to look back on the event that gave birth to a generation of angry youngmen, a violent uprising and a separatist sentiment never seen before in Kashmir.

On that fateful morning, Abdur Rauf Wani (24) and his father G A Wani, a government employee, watched from the window a huge but peaceful procession passing through Maharaja Bazar, triggered by the news of molestation of women in the old city, strict curfews and restrictions.

It was also just a day after New Delhi appointed Jagmohan as J-K Governor in a bid to control mass protests by Kashmiris.

In the street below, men in thousands raised their fists, with slogans ‘Hum Kya Chahte... Azadi’ (We Want Freedom) renting the air. Nothing unusual, as people had grown used to these reminders. But Rauf, unable to contain the surge of emotions within, turned to his father and what followed was a little "more unusual".

“Bauji, this’ll be now begairti (disgrace), should we not join now,” Zulehama Banday, Rauf’s older sister recalls his brother’s conversation with dad.
The senior Wani looked back, waited for a moment and then nodded his head. “Should I go,” Rauf again insisted. “Yes,” his father replied.
Zulehama says it was the first time that the family had okayed Rouf's request to join the peaceful protests. Rauf was soon away, smashing a flower vase in hurry. He stumbled but got up immediately. He performed ablutions, fixed the shoe laces, adjusted his jeans and slid both arms in the blue jacket that he had slung on his right shoulder till then.

Onto the road. “A neighbour tried to stop him but he wouldn’t,” recalls Zulehama, who by now had joined her father at the window to see Rauf disappear in a swarm of youngmen.
The long strip of rally that begun from Jawahar Nagar and Ikhrajpora, Rajbagh to reach Budshah Chowk. Earlier proposed to stopover outside UNO at Sonawar, people in the front decided to drum up more support from inner city. The crowd swerved towards Maisuma that would lead demonstrators to inner city till it reached Gaw Kadal Bridge over the Jhelum.
When the front-liners of crowd were halfway across the Gaw Kadal, the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) opened fire with automatic machine guns from three directions. In the next few minutes, the bridge with littered with corpses and blood. The first day of Governor Jagmohan’s rule would pass in the bloodshed.

Muhammad Altaf Qureshi (50) remembers how the march was stopped with automatic machine guns and how a fearless youngman braved bullets from an unremitting gun nozzle.
“Without any provocation and warning, they fired on us,” he recalls. Qureshi, who was in the third row, says the sounds of unrelenting gunfire triggered a stampede on the wooden bridge. The charge pushed him on the deck and soon blood-stained bodies were dotting the spot. Whosoever tried to stand on his legs would be fired upon.
In this melee of bullets and screams, Qureshi noticed a youngman getting up, pushing aside with his hands both the dead and alive. “A trooper was showering bullets from a short distance and this youngman shielded people by blocking troopers’ view,” Qureshi recalls. “He took all the bullets on his chest.”

The youngster was none other than Rauf. Troopers with faces masked had emptied their carbines by puncturing Rauf’s abdomen and chest. The act of bravery saved scores from getting killed. Rauf finally collapsed, his face upwards; blood painting his blue jacket and green shoes with red.
Qureshi watched silently. He was motionless. The crowd had dispersed. ‘Mayhem’, ‘Massacre’, ‘God’ were the cries he heard from the receding crowd. On the bridge, troops were leaping on the corpses, kicking survivors and finishing them off. Qureshi pretended dead, hiding his face under someone’s blood-splattered torso.
“I preferred to lie with the bodies, knowing for sure I will be shot if I stirred. I closed my eyes and remembered Allah and recited Kalima without letting a sound come out,” he recalls.

Then the image of his three-month-old daughter flashed in his mind. He soon heard policemen speak in Kashmiri, shouting loud if someone was alive.
“For a while I pretended dead,” he says.
As if mere sack of flesh, blood and bones, the scene had deadened his body. He was picked up by a cop of J&K Police who inquired if he was alright. He saw policemen heave the bodies into a truck, over a tarpaulin and disappear from the spot.
“I was taken to a nearby fire station, from where I called up my home. They were waiting for my corpse after a friend and survivor told them about the massacre,” recalls Qureshi.
The news travelled to home faster than the body of Rauf. Zulehama, the other siblings and father panicked. Rauf had wished martyrdom when a funeral procession passed by the family’s house months back. Zulehama watched their elder brother Parvez Wani readying for Police Control Room (PCR), Batamaloo, where the injured and dead were taken.
At PCR gate Parvez struggled hard to enter the premises, as relatives of victims had already started to pour in. Back home, Rauf’s father was restless. He had allowed his son join the peaceful march. A sense of guilt had overtaken him. Others in the family were crying and consoling each other, assuming Rauf might have swum the river below the wooden bridge. Or he must have stayed at someone’s house.

“We were not sure, however,” Zulehama says.
Read More Here:
http://umarblogs.blogspot.com/2010/02/32-bullets-he-took-em-all-to-shield.html

Gaw Kadal Massacre : "I lay motionless..."

By Sana Altaf

Again this year, Moisza did not celebrate her birthday. That day, January 22, once again brought back the memories of her maternal uncle, Rauf Ahmad, who laid down his life to save hundreds of people.

It was January 20, 1990, just a year after the Kashmiri insurgency against Indian occupation began. Faced with massive unrest as the insurgency swelled, the Indian government, unable to restore law and order, dismissed Kashmir's democratically elected National Conference government; the legislature and cabinet was dissolved and governor rule was declared. Indian bureaucrat Jagmohan Malhotra was appointed governor. That night, in response to militant attacks and the kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed - daughter of the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mufti Sayeed - the Indian paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) conducted warrantless house-to-house searches, arresting hundreds of people, beating them and allegedly harassing women.

As word of the night searches spread, enraged mobs began to fill the streets. Unaware of the chaos, five-year-old Moisza (whose full name has been withheld at her request) kept busy with her birthday preparations while the valley simmered.

"It was January 21. The whole city was under curfew. People had gathered to protest against the incident. The protest had started from Raj Bagh [Srinagar], marching toward Lal Chowk and Maisuma [the city center]," remembers Farooq Ahmad Wani, one of the survivors of the Gawkadal massacre.

Farooq, then working as an engineer in the water works department, was heading for the Divisional Commissioner's (DC) office for curfew passes, but when he reached Jahangir Chowk of Srinagar, he was not allowed to move in the direction of the DC office.

"I was not allowed to go to the DC office, where I needed to get curfew passes. The security men directed me towards Lal Chowk. I started walking towards Lal Chowk, thinking of visiting my uncle, who lived nearby, on the other side of the Gawkadal bridge," said Farooq.

In the meantime, the peaceful protesters had passed by Moisza's uncle Rauf's house. As Zulehama, Rauf's elder sister recalls, "I had gone to my mother's place and started packing up Rauf's clothes for his journey to Jammu. He had just returned from his ski course in Gulmarg, so he was dressed in the jacket and sports shoes, which he wore even while he was martyred."

However, Rauf, then 24 years old, had promised his beloved niece Moisza that he would attend her birthday celebration before leaving for Jammu.

"My elder daughter Moisza would spend most of her time with Rauf and my mother. She was the apple of his eye. He had assured her he would attend her birthday on January 22," said Zulehama.

But watching the protesters from the window of his house made Rauf uneasy. Zulehama still remembers his words: "How can we tolerate disgrace of our women? If we stay quiet, they [security forces] will get up to anything. We all should join the protest, or it will be immodest on our part."

Rauf performed ablutions and joined the protesters. A mob of men, women and children marched chanting through the streets and lanes. Farooq, who was heading to his uncle's house, walked casually by the peaceful protesters, but when they reached the Gawkadal bridge in the heart of Srinagar City, Indian security forces opened fire on them.

"As the protesters reached the Gawkadal bridge, one gunshot was heard first, which was immediately followed by indiscriminate firing," recalls Farooq.

The fearful protesters scattered, and the firing continued as the CRPF chased them through lanes and alleys. Some of the protesters jumped into the Jhelum River. Those who could not escape were shot on the spot. Not a single person was spared.

"I had walked amid women thinking that they would not fire on them, but the CRPF men did not spare them either. Those who were injured were again shot in the head by the security personnel to make sure to kill them," recollects Farooq.

In this atmosphere of bloodshed and frenzy, the CRPF resorted to firing on the mob with machine guns. Zulehama sobs as she remembers what happened next. "Watching this, Rauf, who was a part of the protest, turned the machine gun towards himself. It pierced him deep with 32 bullets, saving scores of protesters while ending his life. As Rauf sacrificed his life for his nation and people, Moisza kept waiting for her darling uncle to celebrate her birthday."

As Rauf gave his life, Farooq struggled to live for his children. "I remembered my three daughters and thought of what would happen to them if I died," says Farooq. The girls were all toddlers at the time.

In an effort to save his own life, Farooq contemplated jumping from the bridge into the waters of the river Jhelum that flowed beneath it. But as he neared the edge of the bride to jump, a tall man came rushing at him, struck him and pinned him down to the ground before jumping into the water himself.

"I lay flat on the ground, scores of dead bodies around me. Not a single person was alive. I lay motionless to signal to them [the CRPF] that I was dead," Farooq said.

In the rush of the incident, a kangri, or heating pot, had crashed to the ground. Farooq's face lay on its hot ash as charcoal burned beside him. When he slowly turned his face to escape the heat, his motion caught the eye of a CRPF officer who quickly approached him.

"'He is alive,' an officer said aloud, abusing me in Hindi," remembers Farooq.

As the officer approached him, Farooq rose to his knees, his hands raised, pleading the officer not to harm him.

"Taking no sympathy on me, the officer shot the whole round of bullets into me with his carbine gun, knocking me down. I became half-unconscious, my body burning and feeling thirsty," recalls Farooq as his green crystal eyes dampen with tears.

After a while, Kashmir's local police arrived on the scene. As they surveyed the dead, they grew fierce with anger.

"I could see their faces red with sympathy for us and anger over the incident. Observing the anger of the police officials, one CRPF official slapped some of the local police personnel, asking them to leave or they will be shot, too," said Farooq. The policemen retreated.

Farooq again lost hope and lay back in pain when he was approached by a CPRF officer he assumed to be the subordinate of the one who shot him.

"He came toward me and saw that I was alive. He used abusive words and pointed his gun on my temple and began to press the trigger when the officer who had shot me before shouted from a distance, 'I have shot him enough. He will die on his own. Do not waste your bullet,'" remembers Farooq.

The official withdrew his gun and pushed Farooq to the ground. An eerie silence followed all around, which broke only when a truck landed to take the dead bodies. "A Sikh CRPF personnel stood near me, and I feebly pleaded with him to take me into the truck, as I was alive. He took hold of my muffler and dragged me into the truck along with other dead bodies," said Farooq.

The truck, filled with the dead, reached the police control room, where the corpses were unloaded. The control room doctor was called. The concerned physician examined them all.

"When the doctor saw me alive, he immediately ordered me to be taken to hospital, and I was rushed to hospital and saved," says Farooq, heaving a sigh.

Farooq remembers that besides him, a teenaged boy was also alive. The young man had taken a bullet in his knee and was crying fretfully in pain, but, upon reaching the control room, he ran away.

"The hospital was in chaos as all the dead were brought there. But on seeing me alive, people came to me, kissed me and hugged me. And amid all that, I noted a small boy holding my shoes close to his chest," smiles Farooq.

After two months of bed rest, Farooq recovered and returned to work. But the trauma stayed with him.

"I faced severe depression. I have been since taking antidepressants. When I work too much or think, I get tired. Doctors had even suggested that I relocate outside of Kashmir to overcome my condition. The incident has left a deep impact on my mind. Not a day passes when I don't think of that day," said Farooq.

The Gawkadal massacre left scores of people dead. While police say only 32 people were killed, eyewitnesses put the count at between 100 and 200 people. The most commonly used figure is 52. Since the incident has never been investigated, exact figures are still unknown.

Despite the clear evidence and eyewitness accounts, no known action was taken against any CRPF officials who ordered their forces to open fire at Gawkadal, or against the officers present during the shooting. No public inquiry was ordered into the incident. The police did file complaints against demonstrators who pelted stones at security forces, but even these were not investigated. Without an investigation into the events at Gawkadal, there will be no chance of holding those responsible accountable.

The Gawkadal massacre is regarded as the bloodiest massacre to date in the history of Kashmir. Human rights activists here see the incident as a turning point in the history of Kashmir, and define the killings as the primary catalyst for the mass militant movement. As Human Rights Watch said in a May 1991 report, "In the weeks that followed as security forces fired on crowds of marchers and as militants intensified their attacks against the police and those suspected of aiding them, Kashmir's civil war began in earnest."

"Gawkadal massacre changed the mindset of the people of Kashmir towards India. In that protest, only 10,000 people participated, but it followed mass protests in which hundreds thousands of people thronged to the streets," said Khurram Parvez, an award-winning Kashmiri human rights activist and cofounder of Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.

Khurram said the Gawkadal massacre "pushed people to join militancy and receive training." Khurram's maternal grandfather was killed in the violence that day.

"I was 14 years of age then, and the man behind that massacre lived next door. It was a torture to see him every day. As a young boy, I had decided to take revenge on him, but then, as I grew up, I realized that the greatest revenge would be fighting for justice," says Khurram.

Twenty-one years later, the situation in Kashmir remains unchanged. The security forces' killings of innocents have not ceased, nor has the government's indifference towards such incidents. On January 8, 2010, 16-year-old Inayat Ahmad was killed in a shooting by Indian security forces. Ahmad's killing was followed by the death of 13-year-old Wamiq Farooq, who was hit in the head by a tear gas shell. Death came to 16-year-old Zahid Farooq after he was allegedly shot by security forces, having done nothing to provoke them, while playing cricket on February 5, 2010.

The cycle of killings continued and took an even more violent turn following the killing of 16-year-old Tufail Ahmad Mattoo, who was allegedly hit in the head by a tear gas shell as he was returning home from his tuitions. Tufail's death triggered valley-wide mass protests. Security forces used tear gas, gunfire and pellet guns against the protesters, some of whom observed total nonviolence, while others pelted the security forces with stones. The unrest seized Kashmir for six long months, which were dominated by stringent curfews and resulted in the killing of 112 civilians. Even the funeral processions of the deceased were fired upon.

Shares Irfan Mattoo, Tufail's uncle, said, "They [security forces] thwarted Tufail's funeral procession by using force against mourners. I and many of our relatives, including Tufail's father, could not participate in the last rites due to unwarranted restrictions."

Seventeen-year-old Javaid Ahmad was killed when security forces fired on the funeral procession of another teenager, Mohammad Rafiq.

Despite wide condemnation from human rights organizations and activists, the state government has ordered probes into only 17 of the 112 killings.

As an August 18, 2010, press statement by the Indian human rights organization People's Union for Civil Liberties states: "Repression is bound to further alienate the people and lead to more unrest. The PUCL strongly condemns the continuing killing of unarmed protesters by police firing in the Kashmir valley even if a few from the crowd might have pelted stones at the police or the security forces. The policy of bullets for brickbats followed throughout the country is inhuman even under a dictatorship and is totally unacceptable in a democracy."

The statement adds, "had the state government policy been to punish the guilty policemen or members of the security forces perpetuating these crimes instead of protecting them by subverting the course of justice, people in such a large number would not have risen in the unarmed revolt to which we are a witness today."

Seeking an end to the human rights violations in Kashmir, Delhi-based independent human rights observer and writer Professor Badri Raina said: "I believe human rights violations can diminish, perhaps cease, only if and when an Egypt-like, nonviolent, secular, mass movement is forged and allowed to sustain itself by all sides to the conflict. By 'all sides,' I do mean the state agencies, the local militants, the infiltrating Jihadis, the Hindutva hotheads and all those who make money from mayhem."

Originally appeared in http://www.truth-out.org

Imagining Srinagar - Sarajevo

The City is the memory of massacres. I hope words grow out of Gaw Kadal, Hawal, Burzalla, Zakura – cancerous, as Genet’s love of the Palestinians…

Srinagar is a city in mourning. Who remembers Srinagar in winter? The winter sky is a Hiroshima sky. The city is the martyrs’ graveyard at Eidgah.

The life of Srinagar is mourning,

To recover that memory, or to forget?

The brightness of the sky in Srinagar is cruel.

The midnight soldiers demand forgetting… They promised us flags of Fatah, they tantalised us with Jerusalem? But where did the Palestinians go?

I am a Kashmiri Palestinian; Srinagar Sarajevan. I no longer live in Srinagar but I see Srinagar as the absolute present of freedom. Of Srinagar’s singularities I can never forget the terrible Beauty of the Srinagar Intifada, Srinagar’s Rivers of stones. Why talk about this

Revolution? It too resembles a long drawn out burial, with me following the funeral procession from afar.

Naipaul writes of Srinagar that it sleeps through winter… in the winter of 1990, Srinagar is Berlin-Budapest-Bucharest, and Srinagar is Sarajevo. Naipaul’s medieval city explodes the night of January 20th 1990… on the stroke of midnight. My mother and grandmother are indifferent; they go back to sleep. I put on my phiran. I cross over to my neighbour’s; the women prepare kehava for the men while they are getting dressed. The women prepared kehava for the Sarajevans before they disappeared in the Hills. My neighbour is ecstatic. “I take no chances. I am ready. The UN is coming. Tomorrow is Independence Day”. They call the Faithful to the mosques…

Khoon-e-Shahida Rang Laya/ Fatah Ka Parcham Lahraya/ Masjid-e-Aqsa Roti Hain/ Kyon Yeh Tabahi Hoti Hain ((Blood of the martyrs has born the fruit/ the flag of victory waves from the root/ Masjid aqsa is wailing/ why this destruction is prevailing?)

… The loudspeakers speak to the Muslims. They killed more than a hundred demonstrators that night, the night of the Gaw Kadal massacre. The night of January 20th – the night of massacres.

“Srinagar, my friend, is the most dangerous city in the world”, said the JKLF sympathiser.

“Here the oppressor and the oppressed are too close to destroy”.

The intimacy nurtures Srinagar’s first suicide bomber for 9 years. Afaq, the Jaish suicide bomber who blows himself up outside the Army Cantonment (the ancient Srinagar of King Pravarsena) is just 5 years old in 1990.

January 1990 to March 1990 Srinagar is Prague, The city of demonstrations. They march to the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan. There is a

Demonstration of Srinagar Chambers of Commerce, of students, of auto drivers, of Policemen… the incessant demonstrations last the winter. The March demonstration brings more than 1 million Kashmiris to Srinagar. People offer food to the demonstrators on the roads to Srinagar. Kashmiris turned azaadi demonstrations into an Urs fair. The soldiers open fire on the demonstrators… kill 10, 20, 50 Kashmiris, as many as it takes to clear the streets, the downtown bylanes – the hecatombs of the slaughtered.

The city is Curfewed for 17 days. There is no relaxation in the Curfew for 17 days in Downtown Srinagar, the nerve centre of the Kashmiri revolt. The Army is out in Kashmir, the schools, the hospitals turn into barracks and bazaars into battlefields.

Everybody blames the government. I blame myself. I cross many military checkpoints on the way to school after the curfew days, fearless, in identification with the men behind the sandbags. You carry your identification on you. India’s national emblem emblazoned on

the ID card. Ashoka’s Lions – the symbol of India’s commitment to peace, the sole guarantee of your existence. There’s also the vague assurance: Truth alone shall prevail.

My grandmother blames Sheikh Abdullah for this permanent Revolution, the Inquilab. My mother is overanxious, all Srinagar mothers are overanxious:

Hum Hindustan ka khate hain, Always. I listen to Radio Azad Kashmir. I fight with my mother. I change. Spring is the season of blood. The JKLF militants hide in sewers or shrines before the city opens its doors. Buddhist monks fleeing persecution had sought sanctuary in Srinagar. Now the JKLF marches to Chrar-e-Sharief. They vow liberation. They fail. No one, nothing can put into words the six months, and especially the first weeks, in Srinagar

In 1990, Things get worse. The Pandits leave Kashmir. Srinagar lays siege to Jammu and Delhi as refugees. I am no longer in Green Vale, my school. The Green Vale School is miniature Srinagar; the experimental school humbled by its rival – the Muslim Educational Trust. Green Vale is Albinioni’s adagio, the Romeo-Juliet Bridge in Sarajevo. We study the Ramayana in class. We speak of Yusuf’s Beauty and Yaqub’s Patience. Inallaha ma’al Sabireen. Allah is with the Patient.

I remember my Srinagar… Tushar loves Muslim mythology (Friday sermons to bribe Tushar), Deepu roots for Pakistan in the India-Pakistan hockey matches, Vivek’s father lend me the book on Dialectical Materialism and I lose my religion to Vishal’s 25-paisa Hindu roti, my Kashmiri Shaivism… the city of absences. I’m everything you lost. You won’t forgive me.

“Send him to Bombay with us. We can take care of him. He is quite talented. Yeh yahan is mahool mein kya karega” (What will he do in this chaotic environment?), The Principal tells my mother. I change my school. My new school is New Era, New Era Public School. We dodge grenades for years to meet friends at Hideout Café where I exchange Poetry for coffee and the azaadi

I carry with myself is the moment when I kicked the barricade outside a military bunker.

There is no news of us in the world. People tune to BBC Urdu every evening at 8:30 & 11:00… we become the children of news. "Yeh BBC London hai" (This is BBC London)… we lower the volume so as not to attract any attention and huddle over the radio as if it’d tell our truth to us.

There is no electricity in Sarajevo, no electricity in Srinagar. Srinagar is deserted in winter. Blackouts. BBC London. No electricity for days. Before dying my grandmother looked out the window at the sky and said, “Now I want to be free”.


You can choose your target in Srinagar-Sarajevo, kill the son and then shoot the mother in the stomach so that she can watch him die before her own death. They keep firing to even kill two people you end up firing for minutes. It isn’t easy to kill people.

People hear shouts from interrogation centres. Landmines tore bodies to bits and pieces, severed the limbs and peeled off faces as if they were masks. Five thousand years of Srinagar is ruins, the shatter of shrapnel. The ruins of Beirut. The ruins of the spirit. The spirit is Sabra, the spirit is Shattila.

The relatives of nearly 2,000 people who disappeared are still tracing their loved ones.

“Please tell us whether they are dead or alive”. They destroyed the memorial that the children of the disappeared had built for their missing fathers. They write slogans with the barrels of

their guns, the seven-year-old boy’s splattered brains their ink. The Sikh soldier confesses in the Crackdown… he pulls out this diary to read out names of localities where if attacked they must fire indiscriminately, to kill. “Here on the Airport Road we must be careful”.

In spring as the almond trees bloom, the war tourists come to Srinagar, Journalists from Delhi. They occupy the Ahdoos Hotel on river Jhelum in the restaurant at Ahdoos the air is thick with xenophobia that the journalists carry with them from Delhi. Loss and suffering, just like the global debt, are negotiable and for sale.

Welcome to Sarajevo.

The ubiquitous TATA bus transports dreams to Lal Chowk “ Apoor, apoor” (across, across the Jhelum) to Lal Chowk. Srinagar-Sarajevo is the city of Border Crossings. Crossing over is quite common. The bus crosses Miljacka-Jhelum to apoor apoor Lal Chowk. Cross over to Srinagar-Sarajevo. The Land of Forgetting, Paradise on Earth. And then the boys of the border crossings also get killed… 73 on 5 May 1991… People in Srinagar mourn them in colourful wedding tents.

This then is the Imaginary of my Srinagar,the houses abandoned by Kashmiri Pandits, Pir-e-Rishiyan Nund Rishi, Lalla Ded, Nagarjuna, Abhinavagupta, Left melancholy, the fetishism of Kashmiri nationalists, the hyacinth roofs, fin-de-siècle bricks, the Jewish faces (I too am a bit of a Jew), the Aryan noses, Lal Chowk and other squares, Hideout and other Cafés and saints’ shrines.

The Space in my city is a ribbon of bullets.

Hind Bookshop no longer exists and there are no books in Kashmir Bookshop. Lal Chowk is set ablaze. Palladium cinema is destroyed. Only the facade of the foyer is left…the broken wall frames the singed Srinagar sky as the screen of the Palladium’s past…countless Hindi films fade to flames. I see Dr. Guru’s dead body. There is a hole under his neck… tears flow… this must be madness. My friend, how can I share your grief? They shot Dr Guru in cold blood outside his hospital. We move out with the funeral, they shoot at the funeral procession… I lie buried under people bicycles people… La Illaha Illallaha Muhammada Rasul Allah… this is Death. I run. They killed everybody, they killed everybody…and they killed just one man… I follow him through blood on the road and hundreds of pairs of shoes the mourners left behind, as they ran from the funeral, victims of them firing… “Who remembers who killed whom?”… I turn to psychoanalysis and Buddhism.

Maybe in the words of Fawaz Turki, I am too young to be Kashmiri. I am running away.

How long do I run?

Lest We Forget : Gaw Kadal Massacre

On January 20, 1990 Jagmohan’s first address as governor stunned everybody. It was provocative. H e said:” I have come as a nurse. I will not take any salary. I will just take rupees 1000 to meet my personal expenses. I have promise you a clean administration. But if anybody creates a law and order problem, Meray Haathon say Aman ka patta Khisak jaye ga (the cards of peace I’m carrying will slip away from my hands).
It was clear warning to the people of Kashmir. And in less than 24-hours the threat was carried out.

It was January 21, 1990. The whole city was under curfew, massive search operations were going on in Srinagar city by Indian occupational forces to trace down the Militants. Shocking news spread all over. Many women had been molested and arrest of nearly 400 hundred people sent shock waves through Srinagar. Young and old came out to register their protest.
Allah-o-Akbar Kabeeran Cabrera (Allah is great; greater than the greatest).This slogan was chanted across Srinagar that evening. People gathered to protest against the incident.


In the meantime the peaceful protestors from various areas of Srinagar had reached Maisuma, shouting slogans. As the protestors reached the Gawkadal Bridge, the procession was intercepted by a party of J&K police and CRPF led by the notorious Deputy Superintendant of Police Allah Baksh. The men in uniform opened fire without any provocation. The fearful protestors scattered everywhere, and they were making their way through lanes, CPRF men were chasing the protesters. Those who co
uld not escape were shot, not sparing single man alive. “I had walked amid women thinking that they would not fire on them but CRPF men did not spare them too. Those who were just injured were again shot in head by the CRPF officer to make sure to kill them,” recollects Farooq Ahmad a survivor of the mayhem.

While everyone was running, people saw something that had never happened in Kashmir before. A CRPF trooper with a light machine gun (LMG) was firing indiscriminately on the unarmed people. Young boy Abdul Rauf Wani went to him and tried to snatch his gun. The trooper sensing danger emptied the entire magazine in to his chest. Rauf fell in a pool of blood, but not before he saved many lives of his brethren. Salute to this unsung Hero!



52 people were martyred and 250 sustained bullet injuries. As usual the official death was put to ‘21’. Police registered an FIR (NO.3/90) at police station Kralkhud against atrocious mob. But it makes no mention of the police and CRPF action.
21 years on, the case has been closed and he culprits have been declared ‘untraceable’.

Gaw Kadal Massacre "I saw a dog eating a human arm"

Jagmohan was appointed on January 19, 1990. That night, in response to the kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed and other militant attacks, Indian security forces conducted warrantless and thus illegal house-to-house searches in Srinagar, hunting for illegal weapons or other evidence of support to the militants. They dragged many people out of their beds into the bitter cold. Many Kashmiris complained that they were beaten and abused.Jagmohan maintains that he had nothing to do with the decision.

The next morning, as word of the searches and beatings began to spread, people began to pour out into the streets of Srinagar. From the mosques, loudspeakers urged Kashmiris to come out and fight for azaadi, or freedom. Thousands of Kashmiris gathered to protest the actions of the security forces.

The state government declared a curfew, but few if any Kashmiris observed it.It was early evening when one group of marchers reached the Gaw Kadal Bridge on Srinagar's Jhelum River. They were shouting slogans and some were pelting the soldiers with stones. Troops from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) opened fire into the crowd. Eyewitnesses say the shooting was a brutal and excessive use of lethal force against demonstrators. Many demonstrators were shot from behind as they turned to run away.Kashmiri news photographer Meraj-ud-din described the scene:

"When I reached Gaw Kadal, all I could see were the dead. I saw bodies of children, bodies of women, bodies of men.... Later they brought the bodies to the police compound. I saw them again. There I cried. I shouted, screamed. 'Don't do this to the people.' That day I saw everything."

Human Rights Watch, in its 1991 report on the shootings, criticized the killings and concluded that the use of lethal force was not proportional to the threat.

At least thirty-five people died. Many estimates put the toll near one hundred. Until then, this was the highest number of persons killed on a single day since the violence erupted in Jammu and Kashmir.The killings drew international attention. The London based daily,the Independent, carried an interview with one of the survivors, a thirty-eight-year-old mechanical engineer called Farooq Ahmad, who worked for the government:

"I was just standing watching the procession of Muslims demonstrating against India. It was curfew time and there were CRPF on both sides of the lane. They should have given a warning, telling people to go back to their rooms. But there was no warning, so people thought the procession was allowed. Then there were two shots in the air, and more shots, shots and shots – people were falling down. I also fell down. Someone pushed me down. The CRPF took control of the area. There were a lot of dead and injured. But I was safe, no bullet. Then came somebody, they said I was still alive, and that fellow, an officer, came with a Bren gun, a light machine gun. He aimed at me and started firing."

Farooq Ahmad survived. But few in Jammu and Kashmir have forgotten that incident. Human Rights Watch recently met with an eyewitness who recalled the events at Gaw Kadal.

"I remember that scene perfectly. There were so many people. I remember thinking that all of Srinagar must be out on the streets. They were shouting slogans and calling for freedom. There was a CRPF bunker just near the bridge. Suddenly the soldiers opened fire. It was machine-gun fire and all I could hear is the rat-a-tat sound. At that time, we were not used to the sound of firing like we are today. I think everyone was shocked. No one had expected the troops to start firing. Soon, there were people falling down all over the place. I remember the man standing next to me saying, 'I know I have been shot but I can't feel anything.' I looked at him. And then I saw his foot. There was a bullet stuck inside his shoe... All around people were groaning with pain. Everyone that could ran away. I stayed where I was in case they fired at me. I stood there for many hours. Finally, the police brought trucks and started taking the dead and wounded away. But they had been lying there for many hours before the trucks came. I remember that there were dogs sniffing at the bodies. I will never forget one sight. I saw a dog eating a human arm."

The shooting at Gaw Kadal Bridge and the way the Indian government responded may have been the turning point in the rebellion. As Human Rights Watch said in a May 1991 report, "In the weeks that followed as security forces fired on crowds of marchers and as militants intensified their attacks against the police and those suspected of aiding them, Kashmir's civil war began in earnest".Almost every day there were protests. Teachers, students, and government employees came out into the streets shouting slogans. At the same time, there were increased attacks from militants, now with a religious dimension. Hindu Kashmiris, called pandits, came under attack. Many were abducted or killed. Many received anonymous notes that were threatening and abusive.Thousands of pandits began to flee the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, relocating to squalid camps in Jammu and Delhi. At least three hundred thousand Kashmiri Hindus still remain displaced.

The state administration, led by Jagmohan, sought to end the militancy and the mass protests through the increased use of force. Government forces fired live ammunition on crowds of unarmed demonstrators.Round-the-clock curfews were imposed for days in major towns to prevent protests.Paramilitary troops conducted large-scale searches, called "crackdowns" in Jammu and Kashmir. Residents were forced to gather outside while troops ransacked their belongings, looking for hidden weapons. Informers, in hoods, identified alleged militants to be taken into custody, who were then often tortured and sometimes killed.

No known action was taken against any CRPF officials who ordered their forces to open fire at Gaw Kadal, or against the officers present during the shooting. No public inquiry was ordered into the incident.The police did file complaints against demonstrators who pelted stones at security forces, but they were not investigated. Without an investigation into what exactly happened in Gaw Kadal, there will be no chance of holding those responsible accountable.

The consequences of Gawkadal and the failure to hold the security forces accountable have been far reaching. Many young Kashmiris began to join the militants, whose popularity shot up. One man told Human Rights Watch that he and other parents watched helplessly as their sons enlisted with the militants: "Boys, as young as fourteen or fifteen, crossed the border and came back with guns. No one could stop them."

"Gaw Kadal remains an emotional and sentimental subject for Kashmiris even today".

The Gaw Kadal Massacre

Fifty two unarmed civilians were massacred by the
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers on 21 January, 1990 at
Gawkadal. The memories of the first of a series of bloodiest massacres
by Indian troopers across the Valley carried out to quell the freedom
struggle are fresh in the minds of the survivors and the families of the
victims. And the spot where the people were mowed down like flies is
marked by a granite memorial which has a marble stone inscribed with the
names of the martyrs and a tap from which passersby drink water. The
memorial is hidden from the public gaze for most of the times by a row
of auto rickshaws. The accused killers, as a norm, were exonerated a

long time back.

Not knowing how to respond to the mass uprising, New Delhi deputed governor Jagmohan to Kashmir. He took the charge on January 19 and on the same night the troopers searched homes in the Guru Bazaar area during crackdown operations, and randomly arrested 56 civilians, beat up and abused people.
On January 20, the families including a large number of women, took to streets demanding the release of their kin who had been pulled out of their beds. They laid siege on the divisional commissioner's office for the whole day. Eventually, by the evening 50 of those arrested were set free as nothing was found against them.
Next day, a huge procession was taken out from Mehjoor Nagar and thousands of people from civil lines areas joined it. The protesters were marching toward Chota Bazar where the troopers had molested some women a day before. But when it reached Gawkadal the CRPF troopers fired at the unarmed peaceful protesters killing 52 of them and injuring scores of others.
Prominent journalist and columnist Zahir-ud-din witnessed the massacre. He says, “I was in the middle of crowd, when they started firing started. First they fired a shot in air and then at people. I just ran.”
“Next day we buried twelve bodies in our martyr’s graveyard at Magarmal Bagh without knowing the identities of the dead. I think some of them were never identified,” Zahir-ud-din said.
A Shopkeeper at Gawkadal wishing anonymity said, “The bodies were scattered on the road. The Imam Sahib of our mosque mustered up courage and walked among the bodies, trying to see if someone was breathing. How can we forget that day?”

But for Abdul Rouf Wani’s courageous act the death toll would have been much higher than 52. Rouf stood in front of the barrel of a machine gun from which a CRPF trooper was firing at the procession.
Rouf was 20 years old and the results of his matriculation exam were declared three months later.
His elder sister, Zulehuma, said, “Who would rejoice at the exam results of a dead brother. When he was martyred my younger brother said Rouf was not made for this world. He was always different from all of us.”
“When he was young he once told me that he wanted to die a martyr’s death. Every breath he took was in the way of the Allah,” she said. Rouf had spent the night before the massacre in a mosque reciting Quran, Zulehuma said, adding, “He had returned home two days before from Gulmarg where he had spent a month along with many other preachers of Tabligh movement, preaching Islam.”
Zulehuma belives that her brother’s sacrifices would not go waste. “Today we are in the same situation as we were in the 1990. People have sold the blood of those who offered sacrifices which will not go waste,” she said.
Zulehuma has only one question for the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, “Has he ever asked himself where thousands of people of his age in Kashmir are? They have been killed.”
The massacre changed the life of Showkat Ahmed Khan. He built the memorial at the Gowkadal crossing. He joined the JKLF which spearheaded the struggle at that time. On 12 March 2002 he met the same fate as those killed at Gawkadal. After his arrest by the dreaded Special Task Force, his body was found from Shalteng. His father-in-law, Nazir Ahmad says that Showkat’s face “had nearly split into two with bullets.”
Showkat left behind a small baby girl who was barely three months old at that time. His wife has remarried since, but his daughter lives with his Showkat’s family. Nazir Ahmed says that she calls Showkat’s brother as his father.
And Showkat’s neighbor’s remember him as the “man who made the memorial.”

Source: GreaterKashmir Newspaper