IS PAKISTAN SENDING DRUGS VIA LOC TRADE?

A Pakistani driver arrested by Indian authorities in connection with alleged smuggling of narcotics worth Rs 100 crore  at LOC.

http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2014/Jan/21/cross-loc-bus-service-halted-19.asp


Also please read this editorial from a leading J &K English daily.

http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/drug-haul-at-loc/

It is the second time that drugs have been seized from truckers at Salamabad point of LoC. A truck coming from PoK was detained by the police at the Salamabad Trade Facilitation Centre, Uri and 114 kilograms of narcotics were recovered from it. Obviously the truck was detained and the driver taken into custody. In August 2008 the police had recovered from a truck going from our side to PoK ten crore rupees worth cocaine. This was supposed to be delivered to the militant organization in PoK who would tranship it further to markets.  The simple inference that one can draw from it is that the trans-LoC trade is being misused for transhipment of drugs and narcotics. There are agencies on both sides who are involved in this clandestine trade. Apart from authorities, it is the Chamber of Commerce on either side that should be much worried about the misuse of trade.
The objective behind opening trans-LoC trade at two points in J&K was to lend support to confidence building measures. But the way things are being misused the very purpose of the programme is defeated. We can express regret that this clandestine exercise is being undertaken on both sides. It is detrimental to both countries, India and Pakistan and none should be happy with this kind of situation. It has to be reminded that when talks were going on for opening trading points along the LoC, critics had at that time raised the apprehensions that the facility might be misused. But those who were responsible for regulating the trade gave ample assurances that nothing of clandestine activity would be allowed. How come that this deviation and floundering of rules and regulations has happened.
We believe that no higher ups are involved in the exercise. We also believe that Pakistan is seriously interested in promoting good relations with India and exchange of trade and commerce is a very important measure. Only two days back trade delegations of two countries have met and talked in New Delhi. They have exuded confidence that there could be good scope of expanding trade. This has sent a good and satisfying message to the trading community on both sides of the dividing line. But incidents like the one certainly do much damage to the peace talks.
We would not like that this incident should become a stone wall between the two countries and trade should not come to a standstill. As we know it remained suspended for so many months after the clashes on the border between the security forces. It is with great patience and effort that the two countries have resumed talks. Therefore incidents like this should not be allowed to become a major obstruction. But at the same time, it is important that authorities on both sides of the line become more alert and take extraordinary care that such attempts are thwarted. In particular, we have reason to condemn this clandestine drug trade because the terrorist organizations feeling the sting of cash deficit are using many ways to replenish their financial status. They want to fuel insurgency through money earned clandestinely. That is what we cannot accept. Therefore the culprits should be dealt with in accordance with the law of the land and no sympathy should be shown to them. That is of much importance to deter others following suit.
It is also important that the arrested driver and the person for whom the consignment was meant in Kashmir are thoroughly subjected to interrogation. The trail of this activity should be traced to the last man and a report of the same should be forwarded to Pakistani authorities. The two sides can also meet to discuss this important issue and jointly try to find the ways and means to plug this practice. For quite some time reports have been coming that drug addiction is on the rise in Kashmir. Many youth are reported to have become addicts. From that point also, it is important that authorities mount vigil on the LoC and elsewhere and nip the evil in the bud.

The Store Room - Sanjay Peshin

Jan, 1990, I was still a child, living in the valley of Kashmir. Shivers spill down my spine when I remember the dreadful night of 19th Jan, 1990. Mom woke me up in middle of the freezing night, I could hear people on the streets shouting slogans and they suddenly started pelting stones on our house. Our back door was being broken and my father was keeping a watch by peeking out the drawn curtains of the window. Mom with eyes full of fear and tears, whispered slowly in my ear "Woth..Chapayen thav syenith" (Wake up & wear your slippers), we may have to run. Dad double locked both of us in wood & coal store room & I spent all night on Mom's lap. She was continuously weeping and praying. By morning, her tears had made my pheran completely wet. Its been 24 years now, but I am yet came out from that dark store room. It seems that I am still in that store room, my childhood, my home, my life has been snatched from me. The memories haunt and my struggle against them continues   Author - Sanjay Peshin

We’re a forgotten community: Kashmiri Pandits(The Hindu)

A group of Kashmiri Pandits gathered for a silent sit-in at Jantar Mantar here on Sunday to campaign against the community’s forceful eviction from the Kashmir Valley 24 years ago.

They demanded that their human rights be restored. Led by a youth group, Roots in Kashmir (RIK), protestors said they had faced discrimination over the years and were given step-motherly treatment. “We have been made a forgotten community. Our entire culture is fading,” they said.

The protesters said Kashmiri Hindus were forced to flee because they were a minority. “Minds were imbibed with fear and insecurity and they were made to forcefully flee their native land in the wake of a freedom movement. Not only were they living under the sustained threat of ethnic cleansing by the terrorists, over five lakh Kashmiri Hindus were forcefully evicted, defamed, killed and their wives raped brutally simply because they were Hindus.”

The youth group has also been associated with commemorating the ‘Kashmiri Pandit Exodus Day’ for the past six years. “This day marks the 24th anniversary of the forced exile on the fateful day of January 19, 1990, when hundreds of thousands of violent protestors, along with armed militants, occupied the streets of Kashmir, which led to the exodus,” said Amal Magazine , coordinator of RIK.

“That dreaded night was possibly the longest night of our lives. Mobs from all over the valley had occupied every single road in Kashmir. They shouted slogans against Pandits asking us to either join them, perish or leave the valley,” he added.

Demanding a concrete effort by the government to rehabilitate these people and restore their dignity, Amit Raina, a member of the group, said: “No single conviction has taken place against the people who have widely admitted that they were a part of the killings”.

He added: “Besides, these cases should be made to come out of the Kashmir region and brought to the forefront so that our community, which is on the verge of extinction, gets national attention and receives adequate justice.”

 

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/were-a-forgotten-community-kashmiri-pandits/article5595539.ece

 

That 19th January - Rashneek Kher

Posted on invadecafe.com

Invade Cafe - That 19th January

When my daughter turned eight last year, I asked her what present she would like for her 8^th birthday. She said let us visit the Shrine of Rajyna (popularly known as Kheer Bhavani) when it snows in Kashmir. For a child born in exile and having grown in an atmosphere that she doesn’t quite sync with it would only be natural for her toask her father to take her home. What however surprised me was her urge to visit the shrine of our Isht Devi when it snows in Kashmir. I left the conversation at that and hoped that she would soon forget all about it. As winter approached she reminded me of her birthday present. Her winter holidays were scheduled from 1^st to 20^th Jan. I asked her to sleep and promised her that we would go home during her vacations.

I knew I had made her a promise that would be difficult to keep. It isn’t that I have not been to Kashmir since we were forced to leave; it was just that these dates brought me terribly bad memories. I somehow wanted to avoid being in Kashmir during exactly the same period, the events of which led to our being uprooted from the land of our forefathers.

                                               

Bagat-i-Kanipora is now a bustling city skirt of Srinagar though it falls under District Budgam. Back then in 89-90 it used to be a small hamlet 13 kms from the stone which read Srinagar 0 kms. We lived on a connecting road which connected our village to another called Kralpora. Kralpora was a bus stop en route the holy shrine of the mystic poet Nund Reshi. The village lay scattered close to the road and presented a poignant picture of pastoral Kashmir. A Small Rivulet ran through the village.There were orchards the prominent being the Pomegranate Orchard near the Green Mosque,big Chinars, and willows of all kinds would co-exist with tall Poplars. Our home was a little outside what would constitute the main village. A small habitation of five-six houses had cobbled up around our home. All around this small habitation were fields that came alive in summer to the songs of men and women sowing and reaping paddy.

One October 89 evening, Mrs. Kaul a neighbor of ours, the only ones who owned a phone in our village, knocked a tour door to inform us that my father’s cousin living in the Fateh Kadal area of down town Srinagar had been shot .She possibly knew that Tathe of Aima’s had not just been shot but shot dead. A month later a MES man was shot at close range in Kralpora and left to die. Meanwhile JKLF cadres went around killing people,mostly Pandits, the convenient alibi was to brand them Mukhbirs or Informers of the State. This winter was very different from any other winter in my or even my father’s living memory. Every day we would hear stories of this or that boy going for training across the border. Yet no one ever thought that the events happening around were just a precursor to something more sinister.

Behind our home an empty piece of land was used as a playground by us. One day as we were going about our usual bat and ball, when our neighbor screamed at us for playing cricket when the “young of the nation” were organizing a Tehreek. From that day onwards our Muslim friends would not turn up to play. We stopped playing too. The winter was setting in.

                                       

 

Television sets were beaming out images of the Romanian revolution and the taking over of Bucharest by rioting crowds. Many in Kashmir were getting ideas and inspiration from this. Since theRomanian uprising lasted not more than a fortnight and had brought victory to the protestors a belief had taken home in the minds of the terrorists that a similar “mass uprising” if organized could bear propitious fruit for them a swell.

On 4^th Of Jan, 1990 Aftab published a Press Release of Hizbul Mujahideen asking all Hindus to leave.Another news paper Al-Safa published the same press release. Soon notices to leave were pasted on the doors of Pandits. A notice on our door read“Ralev,Galev ya Chalev”.Join,Die or Leave.Through all this there was “news” ofMujahideen having made hit-lists of all those who were “against” the Tehreek.The list , we were told, is compiled by “Mehman Mujahids” read foreign terrorists in consultation with local civil society. Thankfully no one in your family is recommended to a hit list yet a “concerned” neighbor told my uncle.

                                             

During one of these days my brotherhad gone to get some air into the wheel of his cycle when suddenly two young men carrying guns killed a man in the Kralpora Bazar. Both men lived close to our village and my brother was naïve to tell someone that he knows one of them.A well wisher visited us that evening and told us to send him out of Kashmir.This advice fell on us like a pack of bricks. My grandmother cursed my brother for being stupid and my mother started sobbing. It was too late to do anything.My brother thankfully knew how to ride a scooter. We had some petrol in the fuel tank of the scooter which would have been enough to take him to Lal Chowk.My father put some money into the pocket of his Pheran and told him, if there is a knock on the door just jump from the back window and don’t stop the scooter till you reach Tiku’s who lived near Central Telegraph Office in Lal Chowk. We kept awake all night hoping against hope that no one would come asking for Rinku, and no one did.

Strange diktats started appearing on walls. Some would tell us how to dress, others what not to drink but the most interesting were the ones asking us to time our watches with Pakistan StandardTime. Mohalla Committees were made to check vice. It was like a Taliban Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prohibition of Vice. What constituted vice included watching something as harmless as Doordarshan. Everything Indian was the new untouchable. During all this time the writ of the terrorists went unchallenged.The National Conference government had run away and abdicated all its responsibilities. There was no administration at all.

The timing was just right for the“mass uprising” to be engineered. From here on I write the account that my brother had written in his dairy many years after that fateful night.

“We were about to have dinner when the final call for prayers was heard. It was normal for us to hear the call to the faithful. A soulful Allah-u-Akbar rendering went up in the cold mist ofJanuary. As soon as we finished dinner the soulful voice of our pious localMuslim priest was replaced by someone who sounded not just hoarse but uncouth too. He didn’t sound like a Kashmiri .At first his words sounded like cacophony but it took us little time to realize that he was provoking the people of the village to come to the mosque and hit the streets. The nearest mosque was almost seven hundred meters from our home. People were possibly awaiting the call. A song blazed out of the loudspeaker and went something like this.

 

Jago Jago Subah Huyee;Rus ne Baazi Haari Hain,Hind par larzaan tarehain,Ab Kashmir ki baaree hain

 Wake Up,Russia has fallen and India eyes defeat,It is the turn of Kashmir to be freed.

We looked at each other in complete silence. No one even had the guts to move from his/her place. The song was played for a long duration, many times over and as soon as it ended it gave way to sloganeering of a different kind, the kind that did not just target the establishment of India but the one which targeted the Pandits directly.

The slogans that were now filling the air left us in no doubt that we were about to be defiled or killed.

Hum Kya Chahte Azadi…(We want freedom)

Azzadi Ka Matlab Kya,La Illah Il lallah(Freedom means La Illah Il Laalh)

Agar Kashmir Main Rehna Hoga,Allah-u-Akbar Kehna Hoga(If you want to live in Kashmir,you have to sayAllah-u-Akbar)

Ae Zalimo Ae Kafiro,Kashmir HamaraChod Do(Oh Cruel people,you the Kafirs,Leave our Kashmir)

Yahan kya Chalega Nizam-e-Mustafa,

The rule of the Prophet will reign here…was still resounding in our ears when we started hearing; We want Kashmir to become Pakistan without Pandit men but with their women. It is then that we realized that the Kaul’s were in real danger because they had two grown up daughters. It wasn’t as if we were not used to dirty limericks of Muslim men sounding out to our women. The one that was most common was…Batni batni wale gachav dal,ye karev tikarav bistaras tal …O Pandit woman let us go to Dal,whatever we will do  ill be under the quilt.

                                              

At one point my father almost opened the door to go to their house, but all of us prevented him for doing so. Never before and never after in my life did I feel so impotent and helpless as I felt at that moment. Since I had no sisters of my own the Kaul sisters had quietly filled in that space yet neither me nor anyone in our family could do anything for them. We were too scared for our lives to be able to do anything for the ones we truly loved.

Though we could hear the roar of the crowd now, they still seemed at some distance from where our home was. There were chants of Azaadi…Azzadi and they kept growing louder. We moved to the room from where we could see the road. My aunt peeped through the partly drawn curtain and shouted “Trath Haye Paye” Lightening has struck.. Thousands of people shouting slogans against India and Pandits in particular were approaching our home. My father locked all the doors and shut all the windows.We switched off all the lights of the house. All the women were moved to the kitchen, a canister of kerosene placed next to them just in case the crowd barged in, they were to immolate themselves.

It was past midnight but the frenzy refused to die down. One wave of screaming and shouting gave way to another asif a strange kind of adrenaline had been pumped into our village. The crowd was putting up a spectacle right outside our gate. A man climbed on top of another man’s shoulders and started shouting, Pakistanse Rishta Kya,La Illah Il-lah, and the crowd responded with the vigor thatI had never seen before. In sometime the crowd moved on and the voices died down a little.My father told us to recite Indrakshi Mantra. We were reciting the Mantra barely audible to each other, when the noises grew up again. The crowd from some other village seemed to have merged with the mob from our village. If it is the crowd of Machov,(a village 2.5 kms from ours) my father said, then the signs are ominous. There seemed to be no end to this night. At around 3.30 am in the morning my father opened the door of the kitchen to find all the women huddled together, wide awake, scared,still and almost soulless. The last surge before the first prayer of the next morning happened outside the house of Kaul’s. Many in the mob kicked their main gate and hurled abuses at them in such loud voices that even we could hear.”

Tarini prevailed upon me and I booked two tickets for a return trip to Kashmir. We have been here since 2^ndof Jan and shall go back to Delhi on 18^th Jan. Dressed in our traditional Kashmiri Pandit attire,a pheran with a ladh (a peculiar kind of stitch at the fall distinguishes a Pandit Pheran from a Muslim Pheran) we have walked together, the by lanes of downtown Srinagar and been to villages where lie the Mazars of the great masters of Kashmiri poetry.We drank water from the same spring where Nund Rishi was given his first bath,but not before the maulvi,who could not recite one verse of Nund Rishi telling us to do a Vuzoo(ritual cleaning) because our foreheads were marked by vermillion.We alsoheard a teacher in Srinagar museum showing the diversity of the state pointing out to a mannequin showing a Pandit women, telling his students,look that’s a Batni and she wears no yezzar(pyjamas).

Not to be deterred we went around and looked for signs of our past.The crumbling Habbakadal locality represented the city of Djins,as did the prosperous village of Haal in South Kashmir.The falling houses stand as a testament to who lived there once. Many temples on ceresplendent in their glory were dying for want of attention; the others had simply been erased from the land and the memories of the people. We drove pastmy village to Swoch Kral’s Mazar and then onwards to the sacred shrine of Rajnya Bhagwati in Badipora to find a beautiful Kashmiri art painting of the mother goddess at the site of what used to be beautiful idol. I enquired and was told that it was also broken to pieces by the iconoclasts.

Not everyone who we met in Kashmir was a fanatic, not everyone seemed happy at what happened to Pandits, not everyone said that it was right to destroy religious places of Hindus, not everyone liked the idea of encroaching the property of the Pandits, yet almost everyone who we met said that it was Jagmohan’s plan to drive Pandit’s out and almost none seemed not to have participated in that orgy that drove the Pandits to exile.

It is beginning to snow again……

 

Silent Sit-In Protest on occassion of Kashmiri Pandit Exodus Day

Roots in Kashmir, observe a silent sit in protest to commemorate the Kashmiri Pandit Exodus Day on 19^th Jan. The Kashmiri Pandits mark this day as a grim reminder of their 24th year in exile, as refugees in their own country.

 

In a silent sit in they will remember all those who were lost to the 1^st wave of fanaticism which was followed by targeted killings, rapes, arson, massacres and destruction of their religious places which forced Kashmiri Pandits to exile.

Venue: Jantar Mantar,New Delhi

Day & Date: Sunday, ,19^th Jan,2014

Time: 3.00 PM

 

For Further Information contact:

Amit Raina-98999972462

Amal Magazine-9873900479

Huma Asli Maheshwar Bood by Ali Mardan Khan

 

 

The collage painting by  Claudia Dose represents the 36 tatvaas of Kashmir Saivism. One can clearly see the influence of the great Kashmiri Master of Neo-tantric art Ghulam Rasool Santosh.

Not many people in Kashmir would have known the name, Ali Mardan Khan, had it not been for the small area in downtown Srinagar that is named after this Afghan Governor. Despite this he would have remained a name in the books of history like many others rulers but for the verses that immortalized him in Kashmiri Folklore, despite him not being a Kashmiri. The verses were written at a time which was clearly our dark ages. It was forbidden for non Muslims (read Hindus) to read their scriptures or practice their religion openly. I am not sure if it is entirely true but it is widely believed that the Hindus were ordered not to recite Sanskrit verses thus forcing them to make Persian as their language of connect to their deities. Whatever may be the historical accuracy of this “order”, to this day we recite Bhakti verses in Persian and there is one in particular which I remember and goes something like this:

 

Chakreshwari Hajat rawa,Sajath gada ra padshah

Vaah Vaah chi Lakshmi Thapna,shree sharika devi nama

That Goddess Chakreshwari, who can turn a beggar into a kingShe who listens to our prayers and answers themI salute, thee, Seat of Lakshmi, who incarnates in the form of Sharika (in Kashmir)

 

To cut a long story short, one evening Ali Mardan had a vision which took the shape of a beautiful Persian Devotional Poem .Most of us keep rendering them at religious and social festivals with fervor & devotion. Thanks to the oral tradition that has helped carry this poem in its totality to us. It also is a commonplace in most of our Leela* renditions. I am using the version published in Sahaj Kosam (compiled by Moti Lal Saqi) for Mast Bab Ashram. It is slightly different from the version (the last verse differs) that comes down to us via the oral route .I make an attempt to transliterate the verses.

 

Huma Asli Maheshwar Bhood,Shab Shahi ki Man Deedam

Ghazanfar Charma-e-barbood,Shab Shahi Ki Man Deedam.

It was Shiva, the real God, the King I saw that nightAdorned was his body with Lion Skin, the King I saw that night

 

Ze  Basmash Jam-e-bar-tan,Zunar-ish mar-e-bar garden

Ravanish Gang-e-bar sarbood,Shab Shahi…….

Besmeared with ash, Instead of the scared thread a snake coiled around his neckUn ebbed flow the Ganga from his locks, the King I saw that night

 

Sah Chashmash bar-jabee-daarad,Zi mahro maaha roshan tar

Se Karan Daste-Bastah Bood,Shab Shahi…….**

Brighter than sun and moon, shone his three eyeIn Salutations to him stood Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva (the 3 causes of the universe), the King……….

**This verse needs a little explanation, the three reasons though commonly understood as Shiva, Vishnu and Mahesh are seen in a different way by the Saivities of Kashmir. The Will (Iccha Shakti of Citi-Supreme Consciousness) in itself has the triple process of manifesting, maintaining and dissolving the universe. So the three reasons could also be understood as attainment of Swantraya (Freedom from Bondage of Ignorance)

Be Dastash AAb-e-Kaunsar,Ve bekh Nakoosay Nilofar

Hilalash Taj Bar Sar Bood,Shab Shahi…….

With a conch of Lotus Shoot in one hand and the pitcher of nectar in anotherThe Crescent Moon embellished his forehead, the King……….……

Uma az soi-chip-binger, Zi Sad Khursheed Taban-tar

Savare Kulb-e-nar bood,Shab Shahi…….

Uma on his left, effulgent, like a thousand sunsBeseated on Nandi, I saw the king that night……

Ajab Sanyasa deedam,Namo Narayanay Guftam

Be Khakhay Paye Bosidam,Shab Shahi….

Wonderstruck I said Namo Narayan, incredible sage he was In reverence, I bowed to touch the specks of dust at his feet, the King……….

 

 

Nighahay bar mane Miskeen,Namud-e-az- chasme taaban-tarMakanash La maaken tar bood,Shab Shahi……

With his divine grace (Anugraha) ,he showered his radiance Immersed me in the universe of consciousness, the King……….

 

Manam Mardan Ali Khanam,Ghulam-e-Shahe-Shahanam

Ajab Israr Main Beenam,Shab Shahi…….

I Ali Mardan Khan who is the servant of the king of the kingsIs witness to a mystic experience, the King……….

Another version of the last verse is Manam Mardan Musalmanam,Ali Khanam Namee Dhanam,which means I Ali Mardan a devout Muslim , who owes every breath to Ali (the Caliph).

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This poem is also a reiteration of the Kashmiri Saivate standpoint of the world being real as against the Vedantic concept of it being Maya (unreal).That the poet’s vision is not of a formless deity but one that he describes in great detail with its physical attributes and iconography reinforces the Kashmiri Saiva thought of the creation being real when Unmesh (broadly translated as opening of eye/thought )happens.

Note:  I would welcome improvements in translation. Persian is not a language I am well versed with. I thank my friend Geetika, without her help this translation would not have been possible.

*Leela is a Kashmiri Devotional Poem.

 

Author of the post - Rashneek Kher  http://nietzschereborn.blogspot.in/