Shopian: A Year After- Song Of The Caged Birds
By Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal
29 May, 2010
Kashmir Times
UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi would have chosen the most inappropriate time to visit had she kept her date with Kashmir on May 29.
A year ago on this day, two women Asiya and Neelofar went missing from their orchard around 7.00 P.M in Shopian. Their bodies were found in the wee hours next morning in the Rambiara nallah, a small trickle of a stream, between their home and their orchard. The two women were alleged to have been raped and murdered by men in uniform. But till date there has been no justice, not even a fair investigation that would unravel the truth. Shopian, a year on, has become a symbol of not just human rights violations but also of travesty of justice, of suppressing voices of peaceful resistance, of indifference to demands for justice and democratic dissent.
One year of Shopian is littered with remarkable stories of an unprecedented campaign for justice launched by the people of Shopian under the banner of Majlis-e-Mashawarat and the Shopian Bar Association. It was totally peaceful and apolitical. The government response to the same during this period has been marked by lies, deception and debauchery. This trajectory of deceit is what makes the tragedy of Shopian graver.
Just for a quick recap of the events in the last one year: After the two bodies were found, two post mortem reports confirmed sexual assault and ruled out death by drowning. Their deaths sparked anger and protests culminating in two months long shut down in Shopian and sporadic incidents of violence and hartals in rest of the Valley. The anger was fuelled by the police’s deliberate bid to tamper evidence and the government’s total recklessness in acknowledging the wrongs. Chief minister Omar Abdullah’s ill advised press conference four days after the incident acted as an agent provocateur. Omar, at the press briefing, admonished journalists for using the word ‘rape’ and not ‘alleged rape,’ informed that preliminary findings said that the two women had drowned but announced a one man commission headed by retired high court judge Justice Muzaffar Jan to probe the incident. Two parallel investigations by the police’s Special Investigation Team and the Justice Jan Commission of Inquiry began their probes. The first made precious little efforts, other than sprucing up the entire controversy with rumours, fed mostly through willing sections of the media. The second came up with a report within a month, confirming rape and murder as also indicting police officers for tampering evidence and maintaining that this was deliberate. However, it did not mention any culprits. Based on these findings of Justice Jan Commission of Inquiry, Jammu and Kashmir High Court stepped in and sought arrests of the indicted policemen, observing that either these cops know who has done it or they themselves are the culprits. The court also asked the SIT to complete investigations.
Anger in Shopian continued to build because the SIT was simply dragging feet over the probe coupled with reports of DNA samples of the victims being fudged. The government instead of taking the initiative to ensure that the SIT begin some action, decided to call in the CBI to investigate the entire case. The CBI cover up started with exhumation and autopsy of bodies, four months after they were buried and finally culminated in chargesheeting 13 persons including doctors who confirmed sexual assault and ruled out drowning, besides members of the Shopian Bar and a brother of Asiya. The Shopian rapes and murders were officially declared as cases of ‘drowning’. The cops indicted of tampering with evidence have been given a clean chit. Perfect sense of justice: Ignore the wrong and punish the whistle blowers. If you can’t silence voices of resentment, intimidate them, gag them and demonise them by using a willing media. That appears to have been the inspiring tagline of the CBI during its Operation Lies in Shopian. The chronology of events is indicative of how official agencies and packaged lies were used not only to deny justice but also to save the necks of the men who apparently had some involvement in the incident.
Though it is difficult to say with certainty, in absence of concrete evidence (the CBI having demolished and confused whatever little of it existed) whether the two women indeed were raped and killed. There are plenty of reasons to doubt the CBI version of the story – of drowning, of innocence of the cops and of people fabricating evidence.
CBI’s volumes of statistics on the flow of the Rambiara nallah have not been able to prove in any way that the water of the stream was more than ankle deep at most places, or at best knee deep. It is not plausible for two women to drown in that much water, without even any sign of struggle, without being noticed at a time when it is still not pitch dark and some signs of activity remain. Besides, the well lit area, in view of three security camps in the vicinity, is supposedly under surveillance round the clock. How come such a huge posse of security men did not notice the two women being consumed by waters that were not even quite drowning friendly?
Even more intriguingly, the bodies could not be traced between 8.00 p.m. and 2.00 a.m on the intervening night of May 29 and May 30. But they miraculously appeared next morning in the area that was just adjacent to the road and was well searched by the family members and a police search team. How come the drowned bodies were partially dry? The eye witness accounts in the CBI report mention this but CBI has not bothered to cross-check.
No questions have been asked about the cops’ dereliction of duty in gathering evidence from the site or other forensic evidence necessary in such mysterious deaths. Then how did they get a clean chit. Simply on basis of polygraph test, even though researches have shown that lie detectors are not essentially accurate. The results can be misleading. In this particular case, the cops indicted by the Jan Commission of Inquiry and then the J&K High Court have not even been asked specific questions.
The CBI bases much of its conclusions on the autopsy reports post exhumations, which can be easily questioned on scientific parameters. Several experts have pointed out to the impossibility of any signs of hymen three months after the bodies are buried. The bodies of Asiya and Neelofar were exhumed exactly after four months.
The CBI in all probability came to Shopian with a pre-meditated conclusion and gradually weaved a story to reach that – whether it was through perpetuation of lies planted in selective media, volumes of its report which hardly clears the cobwebs, rather only raise more questions.
In pursuance of manufacturing a suitable story, it has only ended up branding and labeling the entire Majlis-e-Mashawarat and the Shopian Bar Association as ‘violent’, under ‘separatists’ influence’ and ‘mischievious’. Infact such a description is just the contrary of what the campaigners of justice in Shopian have done. Both the MMS and the Shopian Bar had set an unprecedented example of spearheading a consistent campaign in the most peaceful manner, with inclusion and participation of a cross section of people from Shopian belonging to different political affiliations and yet it remained totally apolitical. By choosing to turn a deaf ear to such voices, the government and its investigating agencies have not only outrightly denied justice to the Shopian victims, they have simply shut their doors to the trust and faith reposed by these campaigners for justice in Indian democracy and its legal system. In fact by choosing to punish them, instead of rewarding or even acknowledging their patience and faith in non violence and the legal system, the government and its CBI has made every effort to push them to the brink. It’s a typical case of devil quoting scriptures.
Shopian rapes and murders may not be extra-ordinary. They are ordinary events that have happened by hundreds, probably thousands, in the twenty years history of Kashmir conflict. Kashmir has a gory track record of human rights abuse with cases of tortures, arbitrary arrests, killings, enforced disappearances, molestations and rapes. But justice has not been delivered even in one case till date. Shopian stood out only for its sustained and peaceful campaign for justice, the only two other parallels in Kashmir’s recent history being the Bomai campaign in February-March 2009 and the over decade long struggle of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons. Unfortunately, none of them have been responded to by the government in the way they should have.
Not more than a fortnight ago, the National Commission for Women’s team was in Srinagar to talk about women empowerment but there was no whisper about any of the women victims or the peaceful campaigns being spearheaded by women. No mention of Shopian either during that visit or the year before that. When it comes to human rights violations at the hands of the security forces, the NCW, official sources in Delhi maintain, has no mandate.
Sonia Gandhi may have cancelled her visit to Kashmir for whatever reasons. But her intentional or thoughtless choice of a day, in the first instance, that coincides with the first anniversary of an incident that has shaken the conscience of not just Shopian but entire Kashmir like never before is yet another manifestation of New Delhi’s insensitivity. Sonia would be visiting Jammu tomorrow, as she gives valley the skip. But will she dare to make a departure with the mention of an incident that happened a year ago and holds a special place in the hearts of a vast population of this state. Or will she blindly follow the bluff of the CBI and continue to wishfully believe that her prime minister’s promise of zero tolerance to human rights violations, made several years ago, is being kept? Most probably, the latter. Rulers in Delhi and in the state are happy with fairy tales and blissful ignorance like the owners of birds in cages. When caged birds sing because they are complaining, the owners happily believe that these are noises of happiness.
