Author: Randeep Singh Nandal
Publication: The Times of India
Date: October 2, 2011
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/JK-House-CM-mum-on-soldiers-deaths/articleshow/10202795.cms
Far from the drama in the assembly over Afzal
Guru, another story was being written in the hills of Kupwara in blood. For
three days, a firefight raged on freezing heights. The final toll was nine
killed - four of them securitymen and five militants of the Pakistani group,
Jaish-e-Mohammed.
But these deaths did not cause even a ripple
in Kashmir as MLAs went through convulsions on Guru's clemency hanging. They
did not waste a minute on the four securitymen who died. The CM, usually quick
on twitter, didn't have time for a 140-character homage. The MLA who sat on
dharna's for Guru didn't waste time to move a resolution condoling with the
grieving families. In Kashmir, it's sometimes the fate of people to die unsung.
Of the four securitymen killed, three were
from J&K. Lieutenant Sushil Khajuria of the Army and Shiraz Ahmed and
Gulzar Ahmed of the special operations group, state police. Sushil (26) was
from Samba in Jammu, while the SOG men were from Kupwara. The fourth dead
was a soldier from the hinterland. Why did these four men die? They died "battling
militants"- the militants who are no longer a part of the discourse since
militancy has officially "ended".
"The basic reason is nobody wants to
take sides. Politicians, mainstream or separatist, have become insensitive
to sacrifice. They react only if a death has political implications,"
said a senior newspaper columnist.
The jawans died because their ilk are doing
a job that is "no longer needed". So Khajuria went on that lonely
journey, his consolation, a personal letter from the governor to his parents,
the only civilian official in the entire state to notice the event, and a
montage of his funeral on a TV channel. The SOG men didn't even get that:
no letters, tributes or thanks from the people who sit in the assembly only
because people like Gulzar and Shiraz are ready to die for them. "This
is the pattern here. Nobody came to pay respects to Khajuria. It was an all-Army
affair, even though he was from Jammu & Kashmir. How many times do leaders
here pay homage to dead security personnel? The other day, a policeman was
shot dead a few hundred metres from the assembly, but not one politician even
mentioned it. It is disheartening," said a security officer.
What about the other five young men who died
on the ridge in Kupwara, the young boys who left their families in Pakistan
for jihad in Kashmir? Their fate was even worse with their identities erased
into a collective "five militants". The men and the cause they fight
for didn't grieve either. They were buried in hastily dug graves that, maybe,
shall one day draw notice. They died without realizing that the "essentially
secular and political nature" of the Kashmir cause has no place for Mujahideen.
They crossed the LoC without knowing that the Tehreek has now switched to
a peaceful phase because Kashmiris have "rejected militancy".
They left their madrassas in Pakistan, to
liberate Kashmir for Pakistan, whereas in Kashmir, Pakistan is now seen as
a failed state full of "militants". Yet, this war shall continue,
as it has for years now, the armymen who man the LoC will continue to die,
the Lashkar and the Jaish will continue to send across young boys from poor
families to wage jihad, and the graves and the funeral processions will continue
to multiply.
And Kashmir will continue to watch impassively,
its leaders too scared, too careful to ever let go of their police guards
and its people petrified of telling the "mehmaan" Mujahideen, that
they have overstayed their welcome. The nine dead have become statistics,
each catalogued into a neat separate section. But across three villages in
J&K, in a small house in UP, and in five villages across the border in
Pakistan, nine women cry for their sons.
