Kashmir - From Heaven To Hell

The current crisis in Kashmir has its roots in the .1980s, when the Pakistani army began recruiting young radicals to take up arms against India. Five former militant commanders, who were part of the early years of insurgency, reveal the inside story of how Kashmir became a killing field

- Tariq Bhat

Last year was the bloodiest in a decade in Jammu and Kashmir. As many as 520 people—234 militants, 144 civilians and 142 security personnel—were killed from January to November last year, according to the NGO Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.

Dilbagh Singh, director-general of police in the state, said on December 31 last year: “We (the security forces) have killed 257 terrorists this year— the highest in the past 10 years. The dead include top commanders of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. We lost 91 security personnel, including 45 policemen.” He did not reveal the number of civilians killed.

Once known as heaven on earth, Kashmir is now one of the deadliest killing fields in south Asia. The body count has gone up drastically in the past few years, especially after the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014, and the coalition of the BJP and the Peoples Democratic Party came to power in the state in 2015. The strained partnership collapsed last June, sparking a political crisis that has left the state under president’s rule.

The ongoing conflict in Kashmir has roots in the 1980s. THE WEEK spoke to five commanders of militant organisations who were part of the early years of the insurgency in Kashmir. Their stories make for an illuminating and unheard narrative of the conflict.

It all began when Kashmir was still a tourist paradise. In 1984, when Indira Gandhi was in power, the founder of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Muhammad Maqbool Bhat of Trehgam in Kupwara, was hanged to death. He had been convicted of killing an officer of the police’s intelligence wing in 1966, and his sentence was carried out after JKLF kidnapped and killed an Indian diplomat in London, in an attempt to secure Bhat’s release.