Qaisar Mansoor
India has become a fascist state and a dangerous place for Muslims and other minorities under Narendra Modi who is seeking to shape the country according to Hindutva dictates.
Since the past many decades, India has violated the human rights of ethnic minorities nor only in Indian Occupied Kashmir, but also throughout its own territory. Whether, it is the Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, or Dalits, Hindutva mindset is poised to the cleansing of all non-Hindu communities not only through policy measures but also the use of force through RSS goons.
Chattisingpora, a hilltop hamlet in IIOJK’s Anantnag district, became the site of a massacre the claimed the lives of 35 men and children of the region’s minority Sikh community. On the evening of 20 March 2000, 15-17 unidentified gunmen, dressed in Indian army fatigues, entered the village of Chattisinghpora and ordered all of the Sikh men and boys to assemble at the village Gurdwara, and systematically shot and killed them. Similarly, 27th March 1996, Indian Army martyred 32 members of Liberation Front, Including its president Shabbir Ahmed Siddiqui, and prominent lawyer, Mr Jalil Indrabi, in a single incident at the Harzratbal Shrine In Srinagar. India is continuously denying Kashmir’s right to self-determination in violation of UNSC Resolutions and trying to portray freedom movement as militancy.
IIOJK has witnessed several carnages since 1931 during the Kashmir agitation against Dogras and Jammu and Rajouri Massacres in 1947 after partition of sub-continent and later at the hands of Indian forces in 1990s including Gawakadal, Handwara, Zakoora, Tengpora, Hawal, Bijbehara, Sopore and Kupwara massacres in which hundreds of thousands of innocent Kashmir were butchered by Dogra forces, Hindu militants from Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Indian forces, but in year 2000 when the then President of US Bill Clinton was due to visit India, through its Hindu extremist organization, RSS, turned its attention towards the Sikhs of the IIOJK to not only suppress the freedom movement in Kashmir but also create an impression upon the visiting US president that the Kashmir liberation movement was of a ‘communal nature’. Indian Security Forces operate with pretty much impunity in IIOJK.
The draconian security laws, like J&K Public Safety Act 1978, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1990, Prevention of Terrorism Act 2002, give extraordinary power to Indian security personnel to shoot and kill unarmed civilians. Operation Blue Star, Operation Woodrose and Operation Black Thunder-II were conducted against the Sikhs community, which also assassinated them extra judicially. After these barbaric operation Sikhs organized themselves into an armed power in order to fight Indian state terrorism.
