Author: Reuters
Publication: The Indian Express
- Internet Edition
Date: August 30, 2001
A wave of grisly killings of Hindus
by militants over the past six weeks has terrorised the minority community
in Kashmir. The latest victims were two Hindu priests who were dragged
from a temple by militants and beheaded, police said. No group has claimed
responsibility for the attacks.
The brutal slayings on Monday brought
the Hindu death toll to at least 34 since last month's India-Pakistan peace
summit focused on Kashmir issue collapsed. "Villagers are scared to death,"
said Purushottam Lal, a resident of the Jammu region, home to over two
million Hindus in the state.
"We're struggling to organise ourselves
to prevent attacks," Lal told the agency by telephone from Poonch where
a curfew remained in force following the priests' deaths. The fear gripping
the region has forced shops to down their shutters as soon as the sun sets
and scared shepherds from venturing into the hills to graze their flocks.
The killing of the two priests came
on the heels of the massacre earlier this month of 17 villagers who were
dragged from their homes, lined up in a field and shot. Last month, militants
abducted and shot dead another 15 Hindu villagers.
Authorities say the militants are
trying to drive a wedge between the Hindus and Muslims in the region and
force the Hindus out of the state through violence. Hindus, they say, are
being targeted as they are seen as being in favour of Kashmir remaining
within India.
"The strategy of the militants is
two-pronged," Jammu's police Inspector General R.B. Raju said. "The first
is to cleanse the place ethnically by evicting Hindus from the hilly pockets
of the region." "The second is to stretch the security forces and divert
their focus from offensive operations against the militants."
During the last decade, thousands
of Hindus have fled the Srinagar region since the bloody revolt against
Indian rule erupted in 1989. But until recently, the Jammu region, with
its large Hindu population, was relatively free of violence and considered
safe for the minority community.
Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah recently
sought to woo Kashmiri Hindus to return, guaranteeing a government job
to at least one male in every family. Over 30,000 people are estimated
to have been killed in the revolt which India accuses Pakistan of fomenting.
Islamabad denies the charge and says it only provides moral and diplomatic
support to Kashmiri freedom fighters.
Hindu residents accuse Indian security
forces of failing to protect them. "Security forces can spot militants
on the higher reaches of the hills in Kishtwar but they don't seem to be
doing anything," said a resident. "The government doesn't seem to be taking
a tough stand against the militants."
"The village defence committees
haven't succeeded as their old weapons are pretty useless against the militants'
automatic weapons," he said.
A Central government decision this
month to give security forces sweeping powers to arrest or shoot suspected
lawbreakers have achieved little apart from creating more public fear,
he added. But security forces said it was impossible for them to protect
every single Hindu home as they were spread out widely across the mountainous
region.
"We're trying to bring the remote
Hindu villagers closer and organise them into clusters so we can provide
them security," a state government official said.
