Chittisinghpora Massacre

I was in Delhi, when this massacre occured in March 2000. It was horrendous to hear and see, these innocent Sikh men that had been murdered at point blank range by Lashkar-e-Toiba militants. A couple of years later, some newspapers challenged that view and said maybe the army had done it to emphasize the problem of militancy in the valley, on the eve of the U.S. Presidents visit.

For more on the discussion see Sepia Mutiny and Pickled Politics.

Madeline Albright’s book, The Mighty and the Almighty : Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs, has a forward by former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

He pointed out, “During my visit to India in 2000, some Hindu militants decided to vent their outrage by murdering 38 Sikhs in cold blood. If I hadn’t made the trip, the victims would probably still be alive. If I hadn’t made the trip, I couldn’t have done my job as president of the United States”.

Acorn, a blog challenged that assertion.

He’s referring to the Chittisinghpora massacre which was carried out by Pakistani jihadis, none of whom it may be recalled, were Hindus. The most charitable interpretation of Clinton’s mistake is that he was careless and the editors at HarperCollins were either ignorant or couldn’t care less. But this book comes from people who once offered to help resolve the Kashmir dispute. That makes their carelessness deeply disturbing. Conspiracy theorists have shown persistant eagerness to lay the blame for the massacre at India’s door. Clinton’s mistake should come as a godsend for them.

But an investigation by Outlook Magazine, found that everything was not as clear-cut as the army made out.

Security forces operating in the Kashmir Valley are familiar with the term ‘white terrorism’. For the average Kashmiri, it is a form of state-sponsored action with the tacit approval of the authorities to ensure that “the right message goes out”. The skewed idea is to keep the local population terrorised so that they do not extend any help to militants.

Was the killing of five civilians in the early hours of March 25, 2000, by the army following the Chitsinghpura Sikh massacre a case of white terrorism? The chargesheet filed by the CBI, after three years of investigation, raises serious questions about the army’s role and the shocking cover-up. The sordid tale in a nutshell is that on the eve of President Bill Clinton’s visit, militants struck at Chitsinghpura on May 20, killing 36 Sikhs. Five days later, the army responded by gunning down five villagers in Pathribal, Anantnag district, and passing them off as the militants responsible for the May 20 attack.

The CBI chargesheet, accessed by Outlook, exposes the institutional efforts of the army to cover up the incident and to protect the guilty. A series of letters and documents annexed to the chargesheet show that at every stage army headquarters and its lower formations refused to cooperate with the CBI. The army top brass tried to shield the officers involved from being prosecuted by a civilian agency. But what has also angered many is the fact that the army chose to promote all the accused even while the investigation was on.
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All five were disfigured beyond recognition and after several false starts, including reports of samples being tampered with, it was finally established that they were local villagers.

I was in Kashmir, this year and it was sad to see the heavy presence of security barricades, armed army men and fear on people’s faces. It seems that the army and the terrorists are both corrupt. They are embedded with each other and know exactly what the other is doing. The people who really suffer are the poor people of Kashmir, whose children are taken by the army and the terrorists to be tortured and killed.