Gandhigiri in Kashmir

For the first time, a prominent separatist leader is contesting the polls. Sajjad Lone’s inspiration may lie in the non-violent struggle of the people of Bomai

For the first time, a prominent separatist leader is contesting the polls. Sajjad Lone’s inspiration may lie in the non-violent struggle of the people of Bomai

THE 15,000-ODD residents of Bomai are not leaving their houses now, as they had threatened to do. There is word that three soldiers of the Army’s Rashtriya Rifles will face disciplinary action for what happened in this little Kashmiri village on 21 February, 2009. What’s more, an Army camp, which had been set up next to the local girls’ high school here in 1997, has been shunted out. The relief is palpable.

There have been no incidents of stone pelting, no attacks on security personnel, no slogans raised in favour of Pakistan. Not that there was no agitation. There was. But the residents of Bomai did it their own way. They did not let any politician from the mainstream, let alone the separatist camp, set foot in their village. And what they achieved could serve as an example for everyone in the trouble-torn state, all the more so for hardline separatists. Something is already astir, by the sound of it. Separatist leader Sajjad Lone’s decision to contest the Lok Sabha election from Baramulla, the constituency that counts Bomai’s ballots as its own, seems to suggest that this village’s voice has been heard farther afield as well.

It all began on the evening of 21 February, when soldiers from the local Army camp fired at three men near the main entrance of the village. Mohammed Amin Tantray, 23, and Javid Ahmed, 20, lost their lives to Army bullets, while Nazir Ahmed was seriously injured.

Word spread quickly across Bomai. The villagers called it cold-blooded murder. A senior police source, however, termed the firing a “genuine mistake”. It so transpired that there was a scuffle between two groups of youth at a local festival. Alerted to trouble, the Army approached one of the groups of men as they were returning from the festival. The youngsters, failing to recognise the soldiers’ uniforms and fearing that it was their rival group trying to waylay them, broke into a run instead of stopping. Fingers at their triggers, the soldiers fired immediately.

Tantray’s elder brother, Mohammed Sultan, a post-graduate in mathematics who teaches at the local high school, remembers that evening all too clearly. He was not feeling well, and the urging of a friend to have another cup of the salty Kashmiri tea was interrupted by a phone call. Dropping everything, Sultan rushed to the site. He rushed his bleeding brother to the hospital, but Tantray was declared brought dead. “I still can’t believe that he is gone,” says Sultan, “With his death, my father’s backbone has broken.” The father has nothing to say or add. He simply cries in silence.

The people were furious. This was not just about two men dying. It was about the soldiers’ invasive presence, particularly the Army camp to which the soldiers had fled after the firing. It had been an eyesore for years. The soldiers had erected bunkers on the wall along the school. Worse, the holes in this wall had exhaust pipes jutting out, sending smoke inside the classrooms. Sumayya, a school student, recalls that some of the soldiers would shine mirrors at the girls, often making obscene gestures to make their point clearer. All this, with impunity.

That night, the villagers formed a coordination committee to spearhead their agitation. “We were very clear that we won’t allow any separatist leader to hijack our issue,” says Hakimul Rahman Sultani, head of the people’s committee. The idea was to launch a peaceful movement, their protest being a symbolic threat—to vacate the village en masse if the camp wasn’t shut down. It was either them or the soldiers.

The protest lasted as long as 13 days. There was no violence during this period. Ultimately, the authorities had to bow down. It also helped that a young chief minister had just taken over in Srinagar, the 38-year-old Omar Abdullah, who took up the issue with New Delhi. “But he could only pursue the case because the agitation was entirely non-violent and apolitical,” says a local observer. A single incident of violence could have made Omar Abdullah think twice.

Anyhow, the battle was won, and that was the important thing. Encouraged, the residents of Bomai are now gearing up for other things as well. “We still haven’t been informed officially about the status of the inquiry or the quantum of punishment meted out to those responsible for the killing,” says Sultani. The villagers are also hoping that apart from the shifting of the Army camp, other things in the village would move as well. “We will now push for the development of our village through the people’s committee,” says Ghulam Hassan Shah, a local resident.

For the village’s tragedy-stricken families, those that have lost their loved ones, there is little to cheer about, though. Tantray’s young niece Anika trots around the house trying to locate his whereabouts. The elders sigh in the knowledge she won’t be able to see him, ever. Tantray’s brother, Mohammed Sultan, hangs around the school yard, aimlessly as it appears. He has taken to heavy smoking. “I think almost five packets a day,” he estimates, forcing the sad smile of someone trying to look emotionally brave.

It is recess time at the school, and there’s a cricket match being played in between classes. This is happening for the first time in many, many years. A girl hits the ball hard, and another scampers after
it. Like all the other girls around, this fielder is in a headscarf. She grabs the ball from a patch near the wall where the bunkers once stood, just in time to save a boundary.

It’s a victory for girls school cricket, if not anything else…yet.

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Rahul Pandita

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