Editorial: Controversies in Shopian Case
…the CBI lacks evidence to either prove or disprove whether the women were murdered. Nonetheless, separatists can still not be justified in accusing the CBI and calling the report as a ‘cover up’ on the ground that it let policemen and security personnel go scot free. The same CBI has filed charges against military officers…
In Kashmir valley, everything seems to be politics, be it life, death, or even rape. That’s what Shopian case leads us to believe. Well, the case has two other sides to it besides politics, that is, complications of individual case and lack of trust in valley on the Centre. When it first hit national media way back in May detailing that Neelofar Jan, 22, and her sister-in-law Asiya Jan, 17, was raped and murdered by the Army, it reeked of reapolitik. No, it is not to suggest that the Army personnel had nothing to do with the case (or they had, for that matter), but that Kashmiri separatists left no chance to instantly politicize the issue, to make it completely anti-army, anti-government and pro-Kashmiri issue, instead of attending to the individual case. There were prolonged, severe protests in valley. The very fact that no separatist came forward to even slightly highlight Kashmiri braveheart Rukhsana’s case who gunned down Lashkar militants (rather they maintained silence) is enough testimony that separatists are not interested in neither in the cause of Shopian women nor that of Kashmiris and take more interest in realpolitiking. For them, militants’ deeds (murder of woman by militants in Shopian today) seem more acceptable than Army’s; for them, crimes of terrorists are not objectionable but that of military are. So, after the CBI submitted its report in the case saying that the two women died of drowning and were neither raped nor murdered, all the protests put up by separatists looked political, devoid of public concerns.
Looking at the individual case, it has loose ends, of course. First autopsy said that women were raped. The second one performed after their bodies were exhumed ruled out rape but controversy arose when reports came that the doctor sent her own vaginal swap for the test. The findings of the CBI report is saying that the women died of drowning and were not raped and murdered. Critics of the report claim that nobody can drown, even a child, in this much water as referred to by the CBI report. Also, they argued that why the women had blood all over their face if they died of drowning. The picture that seems to be emerging indicates that the CBI lacks evidence to either prove or disprove whether the women were murdered. Nonetheless, separatists can still not be justified in accusing the CBI and calling the report as a ‘cover up’ on the ground that it let policemen and security personnel go scot free. It can hardly be overlooked that the same CBI has filed charges against military officers for executing five innocent people in Panchalthan and passing them off as terrorists. These loose ends need to be tied.
Kashmiris have supported separatists to a larger extent in the case hitherto. Clearly, it suggests that loose ends in any case work in their favour and against government. Separatists are systematically working to create a lack of trust in Kashmiris about the Centre. Kashmiris overlook the very fact which rest of India recognizes: certain government proceedings take time and may even be biased. Shopian case may be one of them. There is dissatisfaction about system’s drawbacks in rest of India but in Kashmir valley, separatists have turned it into fodder for furthering political interest. Government needs to take timely steps to work towards it.
