A week of riots

Fifth column

For more than five days following the hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto rampaging mobs in Indian-Occupied Kashmir (IoK) hauled the region into endless anarchy, plunder and destruction.

Thousands of properties belonging to members or sympathisers of the JI were targeted in attacks that were organised and provoked by the Indian official machinery headed by the then chief minister, Sheikh Abdullah. The mob violence killed three people, injured over a hundred others and rendered thousands of people homeless. There was no official inquiry and no one was ever held accountable.

Prior to Bhutto’s hanging and this incident, the official Kashmiri news bulletins from Radio Kashmir and the federal All India Radio (AIR) continuously manufactured a public perception that posited General Zia as a JI member and provoked fantasies that the local representatives of the JI were in league with Zia to eliminate Bhutto. Sheikh Abdullah even made a public claim that Mian Tufail, the then amir of JI, was Zia’s maternal uncle.

On April 4, 1979, the AIR Kashmiri news bulletin at 9:20am announced Bhutto’s hanging. It also claimed that the then amir of JI had foretold that Bhutto Sahib’s issue would soon be solved. The bulletin also stated that as a public reaction against the hanging, the district headquarters of the JI in Anantnag (Islamabad) was set on fire. Soon after the news, crowds started to form in towns and villages. Subsequently, for reasons unexplained, the police were suddenly withdrawn from the streets. This was a clear signal and the mobs went on a rampage that went unchecked for five long days until they exhausted all their targets.

On this day, Kashmir witnessed a mass organised, officially-sanctioned sacrilege of the Islamic symbols of faith and fraternity. Libraries, madressahs and mosques were attacked. Interestingly, the violence was instigated by the so-called saint lovers or Sufis, who claim to profess non-violence and are increasingly funded by the Indian agencies as a bulwark against political Islam and pro-freedom Kashmiri nationalism that demands freedom from India.

Although there were anti-Jamaat protests throughout the Kashmir Valley, South Kashmir – comprising the Islamabad (Anantnag), Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama districts – was the worst hit. Mufti Sayeed, the former chief minister and his extended family which had a significant political or clerical influence in the area were involved in the riots.

Among the bunch of mullahs, two stand out for their role in provoking and promoting the riots. Ghulam Rasool Imam, a part-time preacher and a relative of Mufti Sayeed, and Ghulam Ahmad Qazi, the brother-in-law of Rasool Imam, called for a direct action against the Jamaatis for they were a “cancer against Islam”. More than a decade later, a retired senior police officer claimed both Imam and Qazi were galvanised by the Intelligence Bureau (IB), a premier Indian intelligence agency, for a measly sum in lieu of their services.

Ghulam Ahmad Qazi was father of a renowned Kashmiri preacher Qazi Nisar who was killed in 1994 by the suspected militants of the Hizbul Mujahideen, a group that was informally affiliated with the JI. Nisar was felled for his alleged role in organising an anti-Kashmiri counter-insurgent movement that later came to be known as Ikhwan. His brutal death provoked the first mass anti-Pakistan demonstration in Kashmir’s history – a unique feat since Kashmir remains a strong pro-Pakistan bastion. There was an uncanny similarity between the frenzied mobs at Qazi Nisar’s funeral and the marauding hordes that obtained on the streets following the hanging of Bhutto. With the demise of Qazi Nisar, the Ikhwan appeared openly and under the direct tutelage of the Indian Army murdered many pro-freedom Kashmiris.

Many years later, anecdotal evidence and my personal conversations with several retired bureaucrats, police personnel and pro-India politicians as well as some Kashmiri pandits – who traditionally form the bulk of the Indian intelligence community in Kashmir – would suggest the April 1979 operation was the brainchild of the IB. It wanted the JI to be uprooted for it was increasingly assuming the role of the main political voice of dissent against the Indian occupation. The IB, therefore, brought together pliable politicians and clerics to manufacture a public outrage and carry out an assault on it.

Postscript: A week after the violence, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, the chief minister, visited Arwani, a village in Islamabad district that was completely destroyed by the rioters. When the people demanded action, he curtly responded: “Shall I invite a hanging for myself by acting against these rioters?”

Twitter: @murtaza_shibli