A few years ago, this correspondent was driving his Maruti 800 along the Jehangir Chowk-Hyderpora stretch of the airport road during the late afternoon rush hour. A police vehicle behind me got the impression my car was obstructing its way. I couldn’t possibly crash into vehicles in the lane to my left, or jump the road divider on my right, as the police probably expected me to do.
As the traffic eased after crossing the Barzulla intersection, I deflected to give way to vehicles behind me. But instead of taking over, the police vehicle almost banged into my car. A police official dismounted, and in the blink of an eye came to me brandishing his service revolver. “You idiot, why did you obstruct our way?” he shouted as I tried in vain o explain what had happened.
The policeman asked for my driving licence and the car registration papers. These I quickly handed over. While he was flicking through my papers, all the while hurling foul invective at me, a passer-by came close and whispered “don’t get into an argument with these types”. I took the advice, and escaped physical assault, which is how such face-offs often end in Kashmir.
The police official announced he was seizing the documents and if I was interested in having them returned “you may come to the task force (a dreaded police unit) headquarters in Anantnag (a town fifty kilometres away)”.
I then mentioned the name of a senior police officer who was incharge of the infamous special police force and is now serving as the police chief in neighbouring Punjab, and dared to ask if I could collect my papers through him. Fortunately for me, this had the desired effect. The policeman threw the documents in my face and left. I heaved a sigh of relief.
David Devadas, the author of In Search of a Future: The Story of Kashmir and a journalist of repute who has reported Kashmir for several publications, was not so lucky. He was assaulted and abused by J&K policemen in the security detail of a high court judge after he was accused of blocking the judge’s convoy with his car.
“Those who were in the convoy (behind me) had apparently got the impression that my car was obstructing their way, and became angry with me. The car was hit from behind,” Mr Devadas wrote in a letter addressed to chief minister Omar Abdullah.
According to Mr Devadas, he was taken to the nearby Sadar police station where he was allegedly assaulted by policemen. “Then, the men from the security that had first hit my car rushed into the room and battered me again. They demanded again where the pistol was which they alleged I possessed. I was bleeding by this time as I was hurt on my face, elbow, hand and leg,” he wrote.
Mr Devdas has also written to the Chief Justice of India saying he fears for his life as a false case has been registered against him. “After my first-hand experience on Monday (September 5) of attempts to fabricate the sequence of events that led to my being bodily battered, I now fear for my life,’’ Mr Devadas wrote to the CJI.
He said one of the men in the escort party later told him that the judge had instructed them to stop his car. “...I have been deeply distressed and dismayed at the involvement in any way of an honourable member of the higher judiciary in an incident that led to my being deprived of basic human rights, including my right to liberty.” Such harassment or threats to life are a common enough ordeal for ordinary citizens in Kashmir (and to journalists). There have been numerous incidents in which people, irrespective of their standing, have been at the receiving end of beatings, arrests and worse.
The more crucial question being asked in Kashmir for long is this: Is Jammu and Kashmir police a private, unaccountable, militia, with no apparent leader, that can go about beating up anyone they like in the name of saving the state for India? Or, has the absolute authority and power they enjoy — under special powers in force in the state since the Kashmiri separatist campaign burst on the scene- gone to their heads?
It is the mind-set of the “absolute monarch” of the security forces that from time to time churns out those referred to as “trouble-makers,” and “miscreants” by the authorities, young men who occasionally pour out on the streets of Srinagar, and elsewhere in the Valley, to raise their fists against the men in uniform.