SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
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Political Activists killed by
Terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir
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Year
|
Casualties
|
1989
|
0
|
1990
|
14
|
1991
|
8
|
1992
|
12
|
1993
|
0
|
1994
|
8
|
1995
|
16
|
1996
|
75
|
1997
|
52
|
1998
|
45
|
1999
|
53
|
2000
|
30
|
2001
|
49
|
2002*
|
49
|
TOTAL
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411
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Computed from official sources and English language media. |
* Data till August 3, 2002 |
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INDIA
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Democracy
in the Shadow of Terror: J&K Elections, 2002
Guest Writer: Praveen Swami
Chief of Bureau, Mumbai, Frontline
In the summer
of 2001, Noor Husain Gujjar made the two biggest mistakes of
his life: he decided to stand for election and, even worse,
he won.
Terrorist groups had warned villagers not to participate in
the village-body elections then underway in the State of Jammu
& Kashmir (J&K), but since local members of the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin
(HM)
allowed a well-connected ethnic-Kashmiri neighbour to contest,
Gujjar thought he would give it a shot as well. For his pains,
he was tried by an impromptu HM court, and was punished by having
his ears and nose chopped off, and his hand almost successfully
severed by a single blow from an axe.
On Pakistan's Independence Day this year, General Pervez Musharraf
described the coming elections in J&K as 'a farce'. He's partly
right, but still dishonest. Dishonest, that is, because the
democratic process in J&K has long been distorted by violence
directed at all those who participate in it. In the build-up
to the 2002 elections, assassinations of political activists
who oppose terrorist formations have reached all-time highs,
with 49 political activists in the State killed in the current
year itself [Statistical
Review]. Most, but by no means all, are from the
ruling National Conference (NC). Opposition groupings like the
Congress (I), the People's Democratic Party, the Communist Party
of India (Marxist), and a welter of political organisations
raised from the ranks of one-time terrorists themselves have
also been hit.
Given that the ruling NC is the front-runner in the coming elections,
there is little surprise that its activists have been singled
out for special attention by terrorists. Some of these killings
have been notable for their sheer cruelty. In May this year,
for example, NC members Abdul Jabbar Bhat and Abdul Khaliq Bhat
were ordered out of their home, and marched to the dense Batpora
forest. Both men were tortured, and then beheaded. Nor is the
assault on the party wholly new. Ghulam Mohammad Mir, a National
Conference activist from Chiarkut, near Magam, defied terrorist
posters, plastered on walls and lamp posts through the area,
demanding that no one participate in the local elections held
in 2001. He was executed. Elsewhere, other NC workers were forced
at gunpoint into mosques, and told to proclaim their disassociation
from the party over public address systems.
Even politicians committed to secession from India have not
been safe, witness the assassination of the All Parties Hurriyat
Conference's (APHC's)
Abdul Gani Lone on May 21, 2002. Lone's 'crimes' included a
willingness to engage in dialogue with the Indian government,
opposition to the presence of Pakistan nationals among terrorist
groups active in J&K, and an articulation of his belief that
there was no military solution to the 'Kashmir problem'. Lone's
killing was a clear warning to other 'moderates' within the
APHC not to speak out against the 'global jehad' that Pakistan-backed
terrorists were executing in J&K, and the chilling impact of
his death on political discourse and the possibility of electoral
participation is still intensely felt in political meetings
and discussions in the State. Earlier, in year 2000, the senior
centrist politician Aga Syed Mehdi had met a similar fate. As
in the case of the NC, similar killings have repeatedly taken
place over the last decade, notably those of Srinagar religious
leader Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq and his Anantnag counterpart
Qazi Nisar Ahmad.
For all of Musharraf's supposed commitment to de-escalating
levels of violence in J&K, Pakistan has made little effort to
conceal its direct role in subverting the ongoing election process.
The HM, which has offices in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad, has
issued repeated public warnings directed at potential candidates
and voters. So, too, has the Pakistan-based al-Umar, led by
Mushtaq Zargar, one of the terrorists released by India in return
for the safety of passengers on an Indian Airlines flight hijacked
to Kandahar in December 1999. Neither Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin nor
al-Umar have faced any form of administrative sanction in Pakistan
for their well-documented role in recent killings. The Pakistan-based
Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen (JuM)
has, moroever, clearly articulated this strategy to 'thwart
so-called polls in held Kashmir,' stating that the 'elimination
of activists of the ruling National Conference party was the
initial phase of this programme.' Another group, the Islamic
Front, proclaimed that the 'separatist leaders' in Kashmir were
forbidden from participating in the elections,
adding ominously, "We will never forgive those who will take
part in Indian polls."
Attacks on democratic politicians date back to 1990 - the one-time
National Conference general secretary Mohammad Sayyed Masoodi
was killed by Hezbullah that December. Trend data, however,
makes it clear that the pattern has intensified as mainstream
parties have again begun to assert their influence over civil
society, particularly after the 1996 elections. Indeed, the
assassination of politicians and political activists needs to
be read in the wider context of efforts to intimidate civil
society as a whole. On November 24, 2001, for example, 57-year
old schoolteacher Gulzar Lone was shot dead in front of his
students at the Government Middle School in Alal, near Thanamandi
in Rajouri. His crime was to have taught his own daughter, Jabeera
Lone, how to ride a two-wheeler (scooter). In March 2001, Kashmir-based
businessmen providing supplies to the Indian Army faced death-threats,
forcing many to beg terrorist groups for a reprieve through
advertisements, in which they pointed out that their transactions
were of a non-military character.
Top politicians, naturally, have been under sustained pressure.
National Conference legislator Dilawar Mir's brother, Abdul
Majid Mir, was killed at Rafiabad in January 2001, and the homes
of State Ministers Mushtaq Ahmad Lone and Ali Mohammad Sagar
were subsequently bombed. Both have faced repeated assassination
attempts, as has Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah himself. On
occasion, these tactics have had the desired results. Days after
the 2001 attacks on Sagar and Lone, for example, the party's
provincial president G.N. Shaheen accused India of "ruling Kashmir
by its Army", and of "denying the people their right to self
determination" - both assertions a stark departure from the
party's official line.
Little effort is needed to understand why terrorist groups seek
to intimidate the democratic process and its participants. Governments
and political parties provide channels of patronage, grievance-resolution
and authority, all of which the guns of the Islamist Right had
exclusive control over until 1996. Although those elections
were relatively peaceful, it rapidly became clear to terrorist
groups that the new government posed a very real threat to their
authority and influence. 1996 - the election year - itself had
seen 75 political leaders and activists killed. 1997 witnessed
another 52 such assassinations and, by the end of 1997 alone,
there had been another 39 attacks directed at major and minor
political figures. The tenor and intensity of these attacks
has steadily escalated, from the bombing of an insignificant
political figure's apartment in 1997 to the attempted mass-assassination
of J&K legislators at the State Assembly in Srinagar in October,
2001.
Sadly, there is no international pressure on Pakistan to ensure
action against groups active from its soil engaged in subverting
the democratic process in J&K. Calls from Europe and the United
States of America for international observers to be posted in
J&K suggest that the West just isn't getting it. No election
can be fair unless voters can vote, and candidates can seek
their vote, freely and without fear. Perhaps international observers
need to be looking at what's going on in Islamabad, not Srinagar.
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PAKISTAN
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Balawaristan: The Heart of Darkness
Guest Writer: Abdul Hamid Khan
Chairman, Balawaristan National Front (BNF), Gilgit
Even as the
much-publicized war on terror labours on, the world at large
and the Indian sub- continent in particular, remains oblivious
to the happenings in the occupied mountainous region of Pakistan,
better known as the Northern Areas (NAs) or Balawaristan.
Since the beginning of year 2002, the surviving dregs of the
Afghanistan-based terrorist infrastructure have reportedly
moved over into Pakistan, with the active connivance of the
Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Initially, they moved into
the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan
and have since spread out from there, along with many cadres
of proscribed Pakistani terrorist groups, to Pakistan held
Kashmir (PhK), including Balawaristan (Pakistan occupied Gilgit
Baltistan). President Musharraf's own domestic 'war' on the
jehadi apparatus has remained a non-event thus far. During
July 2002, while there were many raids by Pakistani security
agencies during their hunt for suspected terrorists in Sindh,
Punjab, Baluchistan, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP)
and the FATA, there was not a single raid reported from PhK
and the NAs. There have been consistent indications that,
in order to avoid detection of their presence in Pakistani
territory by the US intelligence agencies, and possible cross
border punitive strikes by US forces operating in Afghanistan,
the Pakistani military regime has commenced shifting important
leaders of the Al
Qaeda network to the Punjab province, PhK, Gilgit
Baltistan and other places, which are now emerging as the
primary hub for the elusive Al Qaeda terror network.
Over June and July, two groups of Taliban
and one of Al Qaeda cadres arrived in the NAs, after entering
the Dahrkoot Valley from Broghol in the Chitral district of
the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), of Pakistan, which
links with the Wakhan corridor, Badakhshan province, Afghanistan.
Each group consisted about 30-50 persons. Their movement was
facilitated despite protestations from the local Ismailia
Muslims by the Wahabi fundamentalist administration of Yasen
Tehsil in Ghezar district of Balawaristan. The first group
of Taliban cadres reportedly stayed at Giyekooshi in the Dahrkoot
valley for a month and were later transported towards Gilgit
to head to the Darel and Tangir valleys of district Diamar.
Unmarked ISI vehicles were used to transport Al Qaeda terrorists
from Dahrkoot Valley to Gilgit City between 1 AM to 5 AM.
There has, in fact, been a steady inflow of Taliban and Al
Qaeda operatives into the Ghezar valley in recent months.
Terrorist training to Afghan mercenaries and various groups
active in Indian held Kashmir (IhK) is being provided in the
remote hilly areas of Hazara, Darel Yashote, Tangir, Astore,
Skardu city and Gilgit city. These Pakistan-sponsored terrorist
camps remain active despite President Musharraf's apparent
crackdown against terrorism. Besides the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
(previously Harkat-ul-Ansar) camp in Tangir, Diamar district,
camps were located in Ghowadi village in Skardu, Juglote near
Gilgit and Konodas, Gilgit. A large camp was established near
Mansehra in the NWFP on the Karakorum Highway (KKH), from
where the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, Kashmiri, Pakistani
and other terrorists are deputed to different parts of occupied
Balawaristan, PhK, and across the borders to Afghanistan and
IhK.
Reports in December 2001 indicated that approximately 12,000
Kalashnikovs had been stored in Skardu city alone. Many Wahabi
youth of Balawaristan had reportedly been recruited by the
ISI to join the jehad, earlier in Afghanistan and subsequently
in IhK. Indeed, in the light of evidence thus far, it would
not be far fetched to say that Pakistan, and not Afghanistan,
has been the center of the 'terror factories.'
After the post-January 12, 2002, 'crackdown' on jehadis, while
the offices of certain terrorist groups have been closed down
in Pakistan, many cadres of banned groups have been shifted
to the NAs. No reports of arrests of terrorist cadres have
been made from this region. As many as 3,000 terrorists are
said to have recently secured training in the HuM camp in
the Darel and Tangir area. Pakistan's mutating policies in
the light of its 'frontier state' status have evidently led
to the movement of terrorist cadres from Afghanistan to IhK
via the NAs.
After Operation Anaconda (March 2-18, 2002) in Afghanistan,
approximately 1,000 Al Qaeda cadres are reported to have escaped
to Pakistan and of these, some 600 are believed to have been
re-located around Gilgit-Baltistan (mostly in Darel and Tangir),
with another 200 pushed into the upper reaches of the Pir
Panjal region in IhK.
Pakistan occupied Gilgit Baltistan is administered directly
by Islamabad as a virtual Pakistani colony. The population
here, primarily Shia Muslims, was brought under one federally
administered territory after Pakistan occupied Balawaristan
on November 16, 1947, in the name of Islam. Balawaristan,
or the Northern Areas, comprises five districts of Gilgit,
Skardu, Ghezar, Diamar and Ganchhe, where basic human, political
and civil rights have not been conferred on the people, and
which are out of bounds to foreigners and journalists, except
for occasional tightly controlled guided tours selectively
organised by the Army or the intelligence agencies. Some nationalist
groups beginning to protest against the prevailing situation
have embarrassed Islamabad, and the response has been a crackdown
against the fledgling political organisations here. The entire
region is governed by a Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas
Affairs (KANA) Division of Islamabad, and the local elected
body, called Northern Areas Legislative Council, has no power
even comparable to that of a municipal body in a Pakistani
city. KANA runs the administration from Islamabad through
non-local officers, including a Judicial Commissioner (Chairman
Chief Court) against whose judgements there is no right to
appeal in any High Court or Supreme Court. The area has been
under virtual Martial Law for almost five decades. Under the
existing Frontier Crime Regulations (FCR), framed during the
colonial era, every resident of Balawaristan has to report
regularly to local intelligence personnel, and all movements
from one village to another have to be reported to the authorities.
The Pakistani administration has also been involved in efforts
to alter the demographic profile of Pakistan Occupied Gilgit
Baltistan, reducing the indigenous people to a minority. In
the Gilgit and Skardu areas, large tracts of land have been
allotted to non-locals, violating the UNCIP resolutions and
the J & K State Subject Rule. Other outsiders have purchased
substantial stretches of land since they are, by and large,
economically better off than the locals. As of January 2001,
the old population ratio of 1:4 (non-locals to locals) had
been transformed to 3:4. The rapid induction of Punjabi and
Pakhtoon outsiders has created a sense of acute insecurity
among the locals. Balawaristan is also a deprived region in
terms of education and infrastructure, and there is only a
negligible presence of daily newspapers, radio or TV stations.
In May 1999, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had ruled that
Balawaristan (Pakistan Occupied Gilgit Baltistan) 'is a disputed
territory and the Government of Pakistan has no claim over
it'. The region has also been used as a battleground for Pakistan's
sectarian agenda, and soured Shia-Sunni relations have claimed
many lives in the ongoing sectarian violence. The military
regime had used Afghan and Pakistani Wahabis, along with tribal
sympathizers, to suppress the indigenous Shia population of
Gilgit in year 1988. Gilgit witnessed widespread unrest for
a fortnight commencing the last week of June 2001, due to
protests by certain religious organizations against a decision
by the Pakistani regime to impose religious text books in
the schools, based on the ideology of a particular sect of
Islam, and neglecting the majority Shia sect. Pakistani authorities
terminated all movement between Gilgit and the rest of Pakistan
and also imposed strict censorship on the publication of details
of the Gilgit unrest during the agitation.
The political and administrative circumstances in Pakistan
Occupied Gilgit Baltistan, with total control exercised by
Islamabad through the Pakistan Army, with no popular freedoms
or rights, and tight censorship of all information flows,
makes the region an ideal and secret place for the relocation
of the dislocated hub of international terrorism. This alone,
if not the neglected rights of the people, or the region's
systematic demographic destabilization and transformation,
should be a matter of urgent concern for the international
community.
NEWS BRIEFS
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|
Security
Force Personnel
|
Civilian
|
Terrorist
|
Total
|
INDIA |
5
|
24
|
24
|
53
|
Assam |
0
|
0
|
5
|
5
|
Jammu & Kashmir |
4
|
7
|
17
|
28
|
Manipur |
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Meghalaya |
0
|
14
|
0
|
14
|
Nagaland |
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Left-wing extremism |
1
|
3
|
0
|
4
|
NEPAL |
0
|
6
|
36
|
42
|
PAKISTAN |
0
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
Provisional data compiled
from English language media sources.
|
Seven infiltrators
killed in Kupwara, J&K: Security forces (SFs) on August 17,
2002, foiled a major infiltration attempt by terrorists, killing
at least seven of them near the Line of Control (LoC) in Keran
sector of Kupwara district. Daily
Excelsior, August 18, 2002.
KLO terrorists kill five CPM activists in West Bengal:
At least five activists of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist
(CPI-M) were killed and 14 others injured in an attack by suspected
Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) terrorists at its local
office at Dhupguri town in the Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal
on August 17, 2002. Hindustan
Times, August 18, 2002.
Jaish-e-Mohammed among 'terrorist underworld' says US Defence
Secretary: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has named
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), proscribed Pakistan-based terrorist group
operating in Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, among the deadliest
organisations in the "terrorist underworld." In his annual report
to the US President and Congress, Rumsfeld attributed the emergence
and growth of JeM and other terrorist groups to "…the absence
of capable or responsible governments in many countries in wide
areas of Asia, Africa and the Western Hemisphere," creating "a
fertile ground for non-state actors to engage in terrorism, acquisition
of NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) weapons, illegal drug trafficking,
or other illicit activities across state borders." The report
added, "A terrorist underworld including such groups as Al Qaeda,
Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Jaish-e-Mohammed operates
in such areas." Rediff.com,
August 17, 2002.
J&K elections would usher in a new era, says Prime Minister
Vajpayee: Addressing the nation from Red Fort in New Delhi
on the occasion of Independence Day on August 15, 2002, Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said the forthcoming State Legislative
Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) would usher in a
new era for the people of the State. Warning that nobody would
be allowed to disrupt the elections, he criticized Pakistan for
continuing cross-border terrorism. Times
of India, August 15, 2002.
14 civilians killed by suspected NDFB terrorists in Meghalaya:
14 civilians were killed following an attack by suspected National
Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) terrorists in Meghalaya. While
12 civilians were killed and 25 others injured on August 13, 2002,
after terrorists attacked a vehicle carrying traders and labourers
near Raksamgiri village in West Garo Hills district. The death
toll increased to 14 on August 14, 2002, with the recovery of
a bullet-riddled body from the Raksamgiri jungles, even as another
person succumbed to injuries at the Dhubri Civil Hospital in the
State of Assam. Sentinel
Assam, August 14, 2002; August 15, 2002.
Tamil Nationalist Movement banned in Tamil Nadu: The Tamil
Nadu government on August 13, 2002, proscribed the Tamil Desiya
Iyakkam (Tamil National Movement) under the Criminal Law Amendment
Act, 1908. In a notification declaring TNM an 'unlawful association',
the State government said the group had the object of supporting
the cause of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri
Lanka, and to promote similar objectives in Tamil Nadu. P. Nedumaran
who is under detention under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA)
heads the organisation. The
Hindu, August 14, 2002.
Al Qaeda waiting to regroup in Afghanistan, says External Affairs
Minister: Addressing a press conference in New Delhi on August
12, 2002, on his return from a three-day visit to Afghanistan,
External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said Al Qaeda terrorists
were waiting to regroup in certain parts of Afghanistan. He said
Al Qaeda cadres were not visible in Kabul or anywhere nearby,
but there was a danger of their regrouping in the peripheral areas
and the Afghan leadership was fully aware of it. He cautioned
the international community against determined attempts by Al
Qaeda cadres to regroup in parts of Afghanistan and once again
spread terror. The
Pioneer, August 13, 2002.
More Al Qaeda
terrorists in Pakistan than in Afghanistan says US General:
Commander of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General
Dan McNeill, said in Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, that there
may now be more of Al Qaeda terrorists operating in Pakistan than
in the original theatre of war. He conceded that his task was
now more complicated as the coalition does not have the right
to conduct combat missions in Pakistan. While pointing out that
sympathy for Al Qaeda remained strong in Pakistani tribal areas,
he added that fewer than 1,000 of its cadres were now in Afghanistan.
"I think in Afghanistan they probably still exist, they could
number in the hundreds. I think just outside Afghanistan's borders
... their numbers could be in the hundreds, maybe even a thousand,"
said McNeill. Dawn,
August 19, 2002.
Bin Laden and Taliban chief could be dead, says President Musharraf:
Osama bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar could already
be dead, President Pervez Musharraf said on August 14, 2002, in
an interview to Russian daily Izvestia. "At this point no one
has any precise information on the whereabouts of Omar and bin
Laden and what they are doing. It is possible that they are already
dead," said Musharraf. Dawn,
August 15, 2002.
Peace talks between Government and LTTE to commence in September 2002: Norway, the facilitator in Sri Lanka's peace process, said in Oslo, on August 14, 2002, that direct peace talks between the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are due to commence between September 12 and 17, 2002 in Thailand. Subsequently, Sri Lanka's Constitutional Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris indicated in Colombo, on August 16, 2002, that, following the first round of talks, there could be fortnightly meetings, each lasting for about three days, and added that Norway would be present at all future rounds as a facilitator. The venue and agenda for the talks are to be announced soon. Tamilnet.com August 14, 2002; Daily News, August 17, 2002.
Data and
assessments from SAIR can be freely published in any form
with credit to the South Asia Intelligence Review of the
South Asia Terrorism Portal
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