By K Govindan KASHMIRI militants holed up inside the Hazratbal mosque surrendered last week to the Indian troops laying siege to it.
The one month long standoff in Srinagar cast an all too brief media spotlight on the four year long intifada against Indian domination which has claimed 12,000 lives.
Human rights groups have documented frequent rights violations by the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) who are among the 500,000 military and para-military forces stationed there.
These violations range from unprovoked firing into peaceful demonstrations including funeral processions, the razing of shops and homes to the ground, cases of torture and acts of gang rape.
On 22 October a demonstration of 5,000 at Bijbehara against the mosque siege was fired upon by the BSF killing 40 and injuring 76 people.
The militants in the mosque are members of the Hizbul-Mujahedin, a group favouring the unity of Kashmir and Pakistan. They control Anantnag, Baramulla and Srinagar districts in the Kashmir valley. Like other Muslim fundamentalist groups they are armed and financed by Pakistan.
These groups have widespread popular support because they are leading the fight against the Indian army. However there is not much sympathy for joining Pakistan or for fundamentalist Islam.
Most Kashmiri Muslims belong to the Sufi faith, quite different to the radical Shi'ism of the Muslim militias.
In Pakistan-held Kashmir, a nominaily independent state, there is no genuine political autonomy. The Kashmiri language and culture are suppressed.
Forest, water and mining resources are exploited by the central government in Islamabad with only little of the revenue trickling back.
The other major militant group is Ladaich plateau. successful. the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), a secular Kashmiri nationalist group which aims to unify the Kashmiri nation embracing the Hindus of Jammu and the Buddhists of the India.
The Indian government has done its best to whip up communal anxieties about a Muslim majority state driving many Hindus from the Kashmir valley to Jammu, under Indian control.
Far right The prime beneficiary of this policy is the far right Hindu revivalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who urge the government to take a 'get tough' attitude towards the militants. Meanwhile the ment. JKLF has leafleted Hindu areas encouraging many to stay in the valley.
Recently an alliance of 32 groups formed the 'All Kashmir Freedom Front' to co-ordinate peaceful protest against Indian atrocities. A general strike call made by them in response to the mosque siege was extremely Much of the left, such as the social has retreated to the comparative safety of Jammu. Like the ruling Congress-l Party, they bleat on about de- WORLD NEWS fending the 'unity and integrity' of In contrast, the JKLF rightly calls for the demilitarisation of Indian-occupied and Pakistan-held Kashmir and for the right to self-determination.
The arrest last month in Belgium of JKLF leader Amanullah Khan is an issue European supporters of the Kashmiri struggle can rally around.
Ironically Khan had been invited by the European Parliament to participate in a conference on a peace settleIt is vital that the attempt by the Indian government to extradite him does not succeed. in 1982 Magbool Butt, founder of the liberation struggle was extradited and hanged. Please write letters demanding Amanullah Khan's release to Baron d'Hennin, Belgian Embassy, 103-5 Eaton Square, London, SW1W 9AB.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 53, November 27 1993, Page 12