Abused, traumatized, neglected: Why Kashmir’s ‘troubled’ youngsters are getting high on heroin

The piece first appeared in Free Press Kashmir on October 16, 2018.

By Sheikh Saqib

When Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) seized heroin worth Rs. 10 crore in Srinagar this past September, it inadvertently highlighted the quantum of the substance abuse in the valley. As an accessible dope meant to trigger an escapist trip, heroin is now apparently being consumed in Kashmir like never before.

On a bright autumn day in Srinagar, two friends—a boy and a girl—move to their secret spot, called Zilla, soon after their classes are over. The space is sheltered from wind and weather, with low chances of coming on the cop radar. The duo finds it as an adequate place, where they come with their inebriated equipments, without caring about intrusions, interruptions or unwanted observers. Shortly, they get ready to inject the ‘illicit’ drug to get high.

“We use this secret place for the fear of being rejected or judged by people while getting high on heroin,” says Amaan, 22, a college student from Srinagar.

As they pull off their clothes to inject the drugs, Hina, 22, Amaan’s mate says, “It has become a routine for us.” Even before one could dismiss them as some deviants on a wild trip, they share the method behind their madness.

“We both have faced childhood abuse which affected our thought process and pushed us to take salvation in drugs,” Hina adds.

Hina was a school-going kid when a domestic servant at her house started abusing her on a daily basis. As she would come back home after her day at school, she says, the servant would undress her and sexually abuse her till her parents would be home.

Once she was old enough to make sense of things, she felt ‘disgusted and dirty’. And to overcome the depression, she started taking refuge in drugs.

“I was only 16 when I made sense of things and started taking drugs,” she says. “The servant eventually moved on with his life, but left me with tormenting memories. I could not share the trauma with my parents and kept it to myself.”

Her parents are doctors while Amaan’s father is an engineer and his mother a teacher. The duo met at a friend’s place, where they came to know about each other’s common ache, and the addiction.

As both of them dissolve the “Heroin-powder” on a spoon filled with water, they draw their drug solution from the spoon into a syringe through a piece of cotton.

“I was a kid when my father’s driver would come to pick me from my school,” Amaan takes on the conversation. “While driving home, he used to touch my private parts. He would first drop me home and then go back to get my father. Sometimes my mother would come home after me and the driver used to take advantage. He used to get over me and sexually abuse me.”

Unlike Hina, Amaan’s parents came to know about his addiction lately, and are mulling a course-correction for their son. But as of now, the duo regularly meets at Zilla to take their shot, and temporarily forget about their troubling past.

Inside SMHS’ Drug De-addiction centre in Srinagar, 18-year-old Ryan is battling with withdrawals. Being the youngest child in the family, he used to sleep with his elder brother. For four consecutive years, Ryan’s elder brother would rape him during night.

It took him time to make sense of his repeated abuse. 

And once Ryan made sense of it, the ensuring bad blood between him and his elder sibling further took a toll on his mental health. In desperation he approached his friend, who pushed him to drugs—Heroin.

“My friend who himself is a sexual abuse victim used to sniff heroin powder to get high and feel nothingness for a certain time,” Ryan says. “I approached him and took some heroin to get over the abusive nights my brother put me through. This is how I got into this.”

As Ryan hopes to overcome drug addiction sooner or later, another drug victim Fiza is grappling with the menace at the moment in the de-addiction centre.

Hailing from a remote village in Kashmir, she has been injecting heroin since she was 15. Behind her addiction too was her childhood abuse.

After her mother died when she was a child, Fiza’s father would keep her under a neighbour’s watch while going for work. “But my next-door neighbor would come to my house and sexually abuse me,” she says. “I suffered that abuse for 5 years and then I started taking drugs to overcome the trauma.”

Like Fiza, there’re many drug addicts who want to overcome the addiction, but because of the societal fear, they don’t open up to their associates and keep feeding on the habit.

Most of these drug addicts take heroin, says Dr. Yasir Rather, at IMHANS, a Drug De-addiction centre in Srinagar. “The heroin was not on the scene in Kashmir two years age. But we cater to more and more heroin-addicted patients now. The illegal supply of heroin is increasing rapidly.”

Heroin has the tendency to make one an addict in just the first few shorts. And its addicts are afraid to tell their stories because they fear the police, and this keeps them from reaching out for the desperately needed help.

“But one shouldn’t wrap these addicts in prison chains,” believes Dr. Rather. “It’s an old concept to confine the patient in the four walls. Punishment is not an approach. An addict is not a criminal, he’s a patient.”

But the fear of social boycott is still running high among the heroin addicts, like Saleem.

As he comes for his check-up to SMHS, his father takes me aside and tells me, “Mere bete ki kahani suno, ismai nasha be hai, love be hai, aur bhi buhut kuch hai.” (Listen to my son’s story which is about dope, love and many more things.)

Saleem was in Chandigarh pursuing B-Tech, where he ended up injecting heroin in his veins. “My college friends would come to my room and take heroin during the night,” he says. “That’s how I got addicted to the illicit drug.”

He and his friends once overdosed, which resulted in the death of his friend. “We were shocked and shouted, but he didn’t respond,” Saleem says. “We immediately took him to a hospital where he was declared brought dead.”

He managed to escape from the hospital along with his friends, before he was caught at a check post in Chandigarh with packets of heroin, and was put behind bars for a month. He eventually returned home, where he’s grappling with withdrawals.

“I first took drugs to overcome my childhood heartbreak,” he says. “My girlfriend at school left me and I went into emotional trauma.”

To begin with, he started smoking cannabis and left in a year. When he went to Chandigarh for studies, he started taking heroin.

“It would help me overcome the childhood trauma and make me feel like some romantic hero nursing heartbreak,” he says. “But I was wrong! I ruined my life. Heroin devastated me and now, I want to overcome it.”

But the larger tragedy with heroin remains its easy availability, which is now pushing more and more ‘troubled’ youngsters towards imaginary Nirvana trips, and ends up tormenting them further by leaving them high and dry.

Throat slit and left to die: Victim of state torture in Kashmir tells his story via pen and paper

Feroz Hajam with the notebook through which he communicates

The story first appeared in TwoCircles.net on October 13, 2018

By Sheikh Saqib

Srinagar: Feroz Hajam, 25, is lying on bed number 32 inside Srinagar's famed Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS). Unlike other patients in the ward, however, Feroz is not suffering from medical ailments. He is a victim of torture, whose throat was slit by security forces 

Feroz is unable to speak and reaches for a notebook when asked about the reason behind him being in the hospital. “I was picked by the Indian armed forces from Khanabal and was driven to the Joint Interrogation Center (JIC) where the Special Task Force (STF) of the Jammu and Kashmir Police tortured me and slit my throat,” Feroz writes on a notebook which helps him communicate with people.

Feroz is stuck to the hospital bed with his stitched throat and stares with haggard eyes at each passerby. While doctors fear he might not regain his voice, Feroz lives in hope and writes: “Don’t insist with my family members to talk about the incident; once I am able to talk, I will give you all the details.”

He fears that his family may face the wrath of the Indian armed forces if they talk about the horrifying experience he faced and directs his siblings not to talk to the media personals and writes, “They will kill you,” he writes.

‘I want justice’

“Feroz Ahmed Hajam, a resident of Khretti village in Kokernag area of Anantnag district, has been brutally assaulted by slitting his throat and is lying almost dead at SMHS Hospital,” stated a petition filed by Muhammad Ahsan Untoo, chairman International Forum For Justice and Human Rights (IFJHR) on September 13.

Later, the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) directed the Deputy Commissioner and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Anantnag to file a report regarding the incident.

Earlier, the Jammu and Kashmir Police had issued a statement that on September 5, 2018, one Jaish suspect Feroz Ahmed Hajam, son of Ghulam Rasool Hajam, and a resident of Iqbal Pora Kherti Larnoo wanted in connection with case FIR number 125/2018 of Police Station Kokernag was brought for questioning.

“During the course of questioning the suspect went to attend the nature’s call and while in the washroom attempted to take his own life by slitting his throat. He was given immediate medical attention and shifted to a hospital in critical condition. He is under treatment in a hospital now,” the statement further reads adding that the necessary legal actions have been initiated.

But Feroz denies all the allegations and writes, “Muje Insaaf chahiye (I want Justice).”

“On September 5, at around 10 in the morning, Feroz was on his way to Kulgam to meet a customer who had purchased some clothes from him,” says Feroz’s brother, Tariq Hajam, who work together to manufacture shirts and trousers in a small shop in Anantnag.

After reaching Khanabal area, Feroz writes, he was stopped by Indian-armed forces, who bundled him into a police vehicle.

Later on the afternoon of September 6, Hajam was found near Nodura Army camp in the Dooru area, 20 kilometres from Feroz Hajam’s residence in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district.

While talking to TCN, doctors who attended Feroz said on the condition of anonymity, “When the patient came his throat was badly slit, he wasn’t talking and we couldn’t make out if it was a homicidal or suicidal injury. We had to perform an emergency surgery to repair the throat, and an artificial tube (tracheostomy) was placed to help him breathe. The patient is fine now, his life is safe, but we can’t comment with surety if he can speak again or not, it will depend on how badly his vocal cords were damaged, we will review him regularly.”

The notebook on which Feroz writes in order to convey his messages has many torn pages. The first page that was cut from the book was when Feroz narrated the whole incident to his family. “Since some strangers came over to check the medical certificates of Feroz, we try to hide every detail related to Feroz,” says Feroz’s sister.

She said that after “roller torture”, police stubbed cigarettes on his legs and shoulder.

stubbed with cigerette

“After stubbing cigarette butts, I was subjected to electric shocks,” writes Feroz.

After torturing him for several hours in JIC, Feroz says that later he was driven to Kapran camp, a military garrison located 30 kilometres south of Anantnag.

At Kapran, Feroz says, he was forced to wear an Indian-army uniform. “After putting on the uniform, I was blindfolded and then the policemen cut my throat with a sharp knife,” Feroz writes.

It was only after the Crime Investigation Department called his brother, Tariq Hajam, that his family came to know about Feroz who had gone missing a day before.

“Police had arranged an ambulance to take him to the hospital for his treatment. He was taken to a hospital in Qazigund from where he was referred to the Islamabad hospital. From there, he was shifted him to SKIMS, Soura. After giving him the necessary treatment, the doctors then shifted him to SMHS,” says Tariq Hajam.

As per his family, more than eight people were involved in torturing Feroz at the interrogation centre.

His family hopes to hear Feroz’s voice again but his injury brings them to the dilemma: would he be able to speak again in future and if yes, then what will he say and how safe will it be?

Feroz’s story adds to Kashmir’s torturous past

According to Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), a federation of human rights organisation and individuals, in 2010 turmoil there were 1,491 detainees who were captured by the Indian armed forces. Out of these, a total of 171 described being beaten and 681 said they had been subjected to one or more of six forms of torture. These included  498 on which electricity had been used, 381 who had been suspended from the ceiling, 294 who had muscles crushed in their legs by prison personnel sitting on a bar placed across their thighs, 181 whose legs had been stretched by being “split 180 degrees”, 234 tortured with water and 302 sexual abuse cases.

 The group also claims that 8,000 to 10,000 people disappeared in custody in the past 23 years. The state government acknowledged for the first time in 2011 that thousands of bodies lie in unmarked graves around Kashmir.

Before armed conflict erupted in 1989, most of these torture centres in the disputed valley were guesthouses, hotels, or cinema halls. The men in uniform took over these places, nailed black blankets to the windows and brought in tools of torture: field rollers, iron hooks, strapping benches, pipes for waterboarding, electric wires, and needles.

As per JKCCS, which is headed by Advocate Parvez Imroz, there are around 471 torture centres still existent in Kashmir, 1 out of 5 Kashmiris has been a victim of torture and there is a torture centre at every 5 kilometres. The levels of torture at these camps range from moderate to the seventh degree, around four lakh people had been exposed to all these kinds of tortures, almost 90% of the people who are arrested are being subjected to torture. the methods of torture include dipping the head in the water, inserting chili powder in private parts, rolling on the front side of the legs, electric shocks, cutting and/or mutilating body parts, keeping detainees naked during torture, sexual torture, stretching of arms and legs, inserting iron rods, hanging the detained upside down, forced to drink excessive water, etc. All of these methods have been used on the people of Kashmir.

Some of the most notorious and haunting torture centres in the valley include Hari Niwas, Papa-II, Cargo, Kawoosa House, Red 16, Badami Bagh Cantonment and Shariefabad camp.

http://twocircles.net/2018oct13/426431.html

A shadow looms on Kashmir’s shelter homes after activists expose ‘child abuse’

First appeared in Free Press Kashmir on September 15, 2018 and later a different version appeared in Asia Times on September 24, 2018.

Free Press Kashmir 

https://freepresskashmir.com/2018/09/15/a-shadow-looms-on-kashmirs-shelter-homes-after-activists-expose-child-abuse/

Asia Times: 

http://www.atimes.com/article/kashmir-officials-move-to-stop-child-abuse-in-private-shelters/

By Sheikh Saqib

Every year swarms of children from faraway places of Jammu and Kashmir are being sent to private shelter homes in towns for upbringing and learning. But they don’t always find the safe corners and proper learning atmosphere away from their homes. Lately when women activists unearthed abuse in one of the child shelter homes in Srinagar, it triggered a series of official summons exposing misconduct in many such grooming spaces.

Inside the shabby premises of a private shelter home in Srinagar’s Rajbagh, Ali, 12, is propped up against the dirt stained wall. His unwashed clothes give an impression that the personal hygiene is yet to be regulated in the informal institute, functioning like an observatory.

Ali and other children have been sent to the city by their parents to excel in studies, ignoring the functioning of these homes.

The home is called Babul Islam, which has been registered as a trust by the Mohalla Committee in 2017, with a local Altaf Dar as its chairman.

The building sheltering these children also houses non-local laborers, and some families from Kashmir countryside. The presence of these tenants and their unregulated habits has already cast a shadow on the children’s routine care, proper hygiene and learning atmosphere.

This messy in-house conduct was recently exposed by the members of the Kashmir Women’s Collective (KWC)—a group of women volunteers campaigning for women and child rights in the valley—when they visited the house, and reported the abusive situation.

“The house is lacking the basic facilities,” says Ambreen, a member of KWC. “There’s no security, and no one intervened when we stepped into the house. Who is responsible for these children’s protection there?”

Once the investigation proceeded, many more undesirable things surfaced.

“We also came to know that the children were forced to beg, that too, in the holy month of Ramazan,” says Ambreen. “This is a glaring example of a child abuse.”

But the house chief, Altaf Dar, a well-built man sporting salt and pepper beard, derides the allegation as some ‘nonsensical witch hunt on the house management by some loose activists in town’.

“See this! And this as well,” he takes one on the house tour, showing the washroom and the kitchen. “Aren’t they in  good condition? So, what’s this fuss about unhygienic conditions?"

For Dar, this semi-furnishing state is seemingly a normal in-house conduct, including sheltering the girl students in the space shared by non-local labourers and local tenants.

Dar’s assertions and posturing, however, hasn’t stopped KWC to probe more into the matter.

“To understand the in-house activities in a detailed manner, we approached students,” says Advocate Sabreen Malik who works with KWC. “Girls were very scared as they were undergoing emotional abuse. So they refused to talk, while boys were very ignorant about the happenings around. We tried to contact their parents but they didn’t respond.”

After the activists exposed the murkyhouse affairs, girl students were evacuated and shifted to the government house Nariniketan, Shalimar.

At Nariniketan, Superintendent Afrooza Ahmad says the guardians of the girls were asked to report to Shalimar, as soon as possible, in order to take them home.

“The girls refused to talk about the misery they had faced in the house,” says the superintendent, who’s in her mid-fifties. “We’ve all the details of the girls, but we cannot share till the case reaches to its conclusion.”

Another private shelter home in Bemina run by one Bilal Ahmad is also at the centre of the storm over the ill in-house conduct. Ahmad is being charged by Child Welfare Committee (CWC) department for violating the legal guidelines of Jammu and Kashmir Juvenile Justice Rules.

Many other private shelter homes in Kashmir were lately summoned by CWC, for a detailed debriefing on their house conduct and handling.

“We called them after learning that many of them were not providing separate observation homes for boys and girls, clothing and bedding, proper sanitation and hygiene, and were resorting to physical abuse,” says Munaza Gulzar, Chairman CWC. “There’s a guideline that a juvenile should be classified and segregated according to their age groups, like 0-6, 6-12, 12-16, 16-18. We’ve to make them comfortable and avoid any possible sexual abuse.”

In Rajbagh ‘child abuse’ case, she says, the complaint was registered by the Mohalla committee. “We took cognizance after we came to know that the boys and girls were kept together,” Munaza says. “So, we immediately shifted the girls, as the Jammu and Kashmir Juvenile Justice Act, 2013, does not allow any home to station both boys and girls together.”

At the moment, she says, all the 23 girls are in a state of shock. “They were in trauma when rescued. So, they’ll take some time to get stable and speak.”

While there’re only 70 private shelter homes registered in Kashmir under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS), Munaza says, several unregistered homes have to come clean on their conduct. “We came to know that most of these houses are first being registered as trusts or NGOs, before turned into a shelter home for orphans. This is an easy way of registration,” she says. “But there are set guidelines in place for starting a shelter home.”

While norms are being flouted, the abuse seems to have flourished. Both activists and officials dealing with the child abuse cases equally blame the society for their thoughtless conduct towards child care.

Some parents are adamant to admit their wards in private shelters in towns, despite having means and options to school them closer to their homes. “I don’t understand how a person from Reasi is being looked after by a home in Lawipora, Srinagar. Reasi is in Jammu and Lawipora is in Srinagar. There is no cultural connection,” says Munaza. “This is a very ironical situation, and there’s something fishy going on.”

But as CWC and KWC are collectively collecting details of the abuse in the shelter homes across Kashmir, it seems something more “fishy” is likely to come out. However, the conflict-ridden society, where destitution management generally starts and ends with orphanages and charitable bodies, such cases itself deepens the sense of crisis. That’s why, perhaps, it’s the time to put the house in order.

Love Fail: Inside the ‘war zone ward’ where ravaged lovers finally admit defeat

The Story First appeared in FreePress Kashmir on July 16, 2018.

By Sheikh Saqib

As a trauma centre, Srinagar’s SMHS hospital has been catering to the regular rush of young, jilted and poisoned lovers since long now. The cyclic nature of these cases might not be ringing alarm bells around, but they do underscore the relationship crisis in the society.

In the beginning of 2018, a medical examiner in Srinagar’s famed Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS) was on his regular duty inside what is popularly known as the ‘war zone ward’ when a boy flanked by a girl was rushed in. He was apparently oblivious of the fact that patients least likely to survive are shifted in that ward.

Barely 20, the boy was vomiting, withering in abdominal pain. A doctor inside the ward was alerted by his colleague about the emergency condition of the boy.

As the examiner remembers, the young patient came holding a bottle of juice in his hand, taking light sips only to feel better and ease the feeling of vomiting. He was accompanied by his long-time girlfriend whom he had come to meet all the way from Jammu.

The examiner placed him on a chair and asked him not to worry. But soon his liver started to fail. His blood pressure had a steep fall. After some time, his kidneys stopped working, and he began bleeding from the nose and the mouth.

Four hours later, to everyone’s shock, he was lying dead on a stretcher, solely mourned by his girlfriend.

After preliminary investigation, the doctors concluded that the patient was either poisoned or had been bitten by a snake. But following a proper medical examination, snake bite was ruled out.

It was now a clear case of poisoning, which had caused multi-organ failure. The deceased had consumed a rodenticide, a poison used to kill rodents.

“As panic gripped the ward, all fingers rose against the girl as the boy was continuously with her,” says a medical examiner, present at the scene. 

The case was later handed over to Jammu and Kashmir Police for investigation.

Whenever such cases arrive in the ward, a medical examiner usually cannot tell whether poison is involved, because the symptoms—diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain—are much like those of other disorders. Nor can he necessarily place one at the murder scene. The dying typically takes hours. Also, one can administer poison gradually, a little bit every day.

SMHS’ ‘war zone ward’ has witnessed many such cases of poisoned love. In recent past, a class 12 girl was rushed in, with a frothing mouth, in a dizzying state.

“I was preparing for my board exams when my boyfriend left me,” says Nayeema, recalling the episode with a mixed sense of sadness and shame. “I was with him from the last 8 years. We grew up together. The break-up left me in depression. I could not share this with my parents because the generation gap is such that they won’t understand.”

The stress of not being able to share her agony with her parents made way for poison.

“Majority of such victims are unmarried and dejected lots,” says a doctor, treating patients inside the ward. “They often end up consuming pesticides.”

Even a small register maintained by one of the doctors present in the ward shows that the majority of the poisoning is due to pesticides followed by household agents and pharmaceuticals. The ward witnesses 5 to 6 poison patients on a daily basis, but the percentage of female victims remains on a higher side.

“Females being more emotionally vulnerable edge out males in such cases,” says one of the doctors posted in the emergency ward.

But these ‘love fail’ cases often turn murky, when the poisoned lover on a stretcher is carrying a ‘dark underbelly’.

Abda was in 8th class when she consumed a ‘life-threatening dose’ of an insecticide. She was immediately shifted to the Intensive Care Unit, where she was examined and declared fine, despite her stomach being full and stiff.

“I asked her if she had done any mistake recently which might hurt her family’s reputation,” a doctor who attended her says. “To which, she just replied, ‘Shit’.”

Soon after, doctors did her urine pregnancy test. Everyone was shocked when it turned out positive. To recheck it and reassure themselves, the doctors went for Ultra-sonography test of Abda, which showed a baby in her belly!

Initially, Abda’s mother had said that behind the poison consumption was her daughter’s exam failure. Even she didn’t know about her pregnancy and was shocked to know about it.

The doctors soon admitted Abda. But her mother without informing the examiners took her for abortion to some local clinic in order to ‘save her family’s reputation’.

"When the patient came back, she was in shock, her blood pressure was not recordable. It was probably a complication due to the illegal abortion,” says the doctor.

Abda was immediately shifted to the ICU where she died the next day.

In the same ward where Abda breathed her last some years ago, a private company employee Amir was crying by the bedside of his poisoned girlfriend in 2014.

Only a day before, he had found her lively and chirpy during their usual phone conversation.

“When I heard about her poison consumption, I looked back at my recent mistakes which might have led to this horrific scene, but to my surprise the reason was something else,” Amir says.

Through his contacts, he shortly learned that his girlfriend was dating another person, who had dumped her, forcing her to consume poison.

But sadly, the ‘love in poison’ stories in the ‘war zone ward’ don’t end there.

When in the recent past, Rafeeq was admitted here, it turned out that the teenager had lost his girlfriend whom he had befriended at the peak of his family crisis. Behind the poison was his vanished company that he had with him on long walks and on special occasions.

“When she stopped responding to my calls, I was declared depressed,” says Rafeeq. “After some time, I couldn’t take it anymore and tried to end my life by consuming poison.”

He survived and now calls that step ‘dastardly’.

In the din of routine hospital cries, many such cases often fail to send shockwaves around, and alert the larger societal conscience.

Four years later, as a poison survivor, Rafeeq believes that ‘loving life’ over a deserter is more important and one of the best ways to stop the arrival of poisoned lovers in the ‘war zone ward’.

All the names in the story have been changed to protect identities. 

How cafes in Kashmir are providing spaces for student discussions

The Story first appeared in the Campus Politik section of Newslaudry on June 4, 2018.

By Sheikh Saqib

There is a consensus among students that there is a lack of space for them to express their opinions.

From the infamous march and demonstration by students in the sixties, in front of the UN military observer group in Srinagar, to the turbulence of the 1990s, students in Kashmir now find a sparse space in the city’s cafes for political discussions. This is despite student politics being banned across the valley.

The cafes and historical tea shops in the valley take pride in being widely regarded as centres of political and literary discussions. These places are often filled with youth, vigorously raising their voice and hitting hard at the governing authorities. The sessions usually begin with debates on the daily human rights violations and end with terming the mainstream media houses as ‘fickle’ for swift change their editorial positions. One can witness students taking on the system which carries out war crimes against the people of the state which is very much welcomed in the national media.

Much of their worldview has been shaped through conversations at shopfronts and cafes. Most of these students who call themselves learners speak aloud at these places, perhaps the only place that allows them to reach out to a larger audience. The heated arguments soar with passing time, inflating their passion to speak on unaddressed issues.

Meet the students

At University of Kashmir's Aijaz Ka Dhabba, Rayan 21, a student of Mass Communication, is waiting to have an interactive session with his friends. His wait lasts until two young boys walk in. They move to the backyard of the Dhabba, facing the dead end so that their discussion isn't overheard.

For the students, going to the tea shops is as important as any other daily essential. There is a shared sentiment -- in order to understand the power they need to sit at one table and give a succinct overview of their creative ideas and roll them into reality.

“I have been going to cafes since I was in standard 10. What these cafes are doing is facilitation. They often provide us with a space to discuss whatever interests us without dictating terms to us,” said Rayan who is currently doing his masters in journalism at Kashmir University.

“At University we cannot react to the changing political atmosphere as everyone's activity is being scrutinised and everyone is in fear, no one wants to represent the crowd and risk their career, therefore every agitation in universities and schools are faceless and leaderless. But that doesn’t mean that we shy away from the ground reality. We do discuss issues at different places, mostly in cafes and shopfronts, and also visit far off places to monitor the situation.”

Another journalism student, Hamzah, 22, states, “But the only place where we can actually give vent to our anger is social media." He adds, “We comment on issues, talk about politics and try to criticise everything we can.”

Other than giving vent to their anger on social media, students often work collectively on various events. “We often do voluntary work for Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) for their protests. We often show up on International Day of the Disappeared to present our work as a mark of protest. Besides, we sit with the distressed families of the victims and offer our hearty support to them,” said Waseem, another Kashmir University student.

“Student involvement in political paradigm is important,” said Hamzah, adding, “Gone are the days when student unions were operated by middle-aged and senior citizens. With the new emerging trends, development, conscience and more importantly the intellectual and competent youth who play an important role in giving a voice for a political change and other internal changes in the society.”

Student unions have been banned since the armed rebellion of the late 1980s across the valley. The entire political class from time to time made false promises to restore it. Though for a temporary span of time, the ban was revoked in 2007, it was again imposed in 2009 by a National Conference-Congress coalition government after against the double rape and murder case in Shopian district of Kashmir.

“One can understand that the event of May 17, 2010, when Kashmir University witnessed scenes when students boycotted classes to protest against the demolition of Kashmir University Students Union (KUSU) office, makes it clear that no student politics would be allowed on campus,” says Waseem.

Waseem further states, “The restriction on student politics and the fear of those in power has forced us to land in cafes, Dhabbas and shopfronts. On one hand, I think banning student union was a good idea because the culture of talks now is not limited at one place, one can witness literary and political discussion at every cafe one visits,” he laughs.

Hamzah walks in and describes how the space is now limited for students. “We have either social media or cafes to talk or express our opinion, even though some of the artists based in the valley have a great following on these sites but campus politics makes a difference. It ignites your passion to talk on unaddressed issues,” he concludes.

Sometimes these students also lack the support of their mates who may be locked at home by their parents to avoid any undesirable punishment from government agencies. A student of Presentation Convent Higher Secondary School, Srinagar, stated: “When I passed my middle school I realised that the time has come for me to creatively resist the things that Indian state has subjected us to."

The student added: “We made a small group of like-minded friends at school which consisted of youngsters who could write, paint, and photograph. We planned to work collectively and take part in what we call resistance. As we took this forward, many had given up not by choice but because they were restricted by their parents from doing anything that could land them in trouble and we finally failed.”

There is a consensus among students that there is a lack of space for them to express their opinions. “We feel that the prison chains are so tight that it is even difficult to breathe, leave alone to speak on issues,” said a student of medicine at Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar. 

Students remain hopeful and urge local journalists, human rights activists and other people who belong to academics should come forward and provide a space to students where they can read, discuss and most importantly interact with an experienced class of people who understand the valley and its conflict. The onus is on them to help the young students come out of four walls of the classroom and help them grow.

*Names have been changed to maintain their privacy.

‘Silence is not always golden’: Aasia Jeelani, the Kashmiri activist who spoke up for the unheard

She was one of the first journalist-activists who gave a voice to the oppressed women and fought for them with all her might and heart. Sheikh Saqib sketches her profile for Kashmir Dispatch.

First appeared in Kashmir Dispatch on May 17, 2018.

At a time when the armed rebellion in Kashmir was at its peak, and the ‘killings, torture, harassment and rapes’ by the Indian armed forces were the norm of the day, it was a big deal to stand up to the might of the Indian agencies. At a time when the oppressed had begun to accept the oppression as their fate, a young woman in her 20s stood up in a male-dominated society to urge them to speak up and get their voices heard. At a time when there was no social mechanism to help the victims or when there was no religious pro-activism to rehabilitate the valley’s half widows, the same young lady led the way. 

Aasia Jeelani came and went ahead of her times perhaps. She lived the entire 30 years of her life with a purpose to serve the truth and to help the poor and the oppressed by all means possible. In doing so, she turned out to be an inspiration for a generation of souls who carry on today what she died fighting for. 

The rise and the loss of a young activist-journalist

 Born on 9th Feb, 1974 in Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, Aasia completed her schooling from Presentation Convent Higher Secondary School Srinagar. With a flair for writing, after her graduation in science from Government College for Women in Srinagar, she pursued a masters in journalism from Kashmir University with great enthusiasm. 

Aasia’s first journalism stint was as a trainee reporter and researcher with Agence France Presse’s (AFP) Kashmir Bureau from 1998 to 2001.

Next she interned with The Times of India in New Delhi for a year. Since her creative mind sought freedom in work, she left the daily in 2002 to join The Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS). This proved to be a turning point in her life. 

“I want to make people know what is truly taking place in Kashmir,” Aasia had said during her visit to the Netherlands in 2003. 

But what was exactly the reason for taking up activism, that too at a time when the situation in Kashmir was nothing short of scary?

Dr. Shabina Miraj, a childhood friend of Aasia and the then president of the newly launched Kashmiri Women’s Initiative for Peace and Disarmament (KWIPD), throws light on how it all began. 

“In 1989, when Aasia and I were in 10th grade, the armed struggle became more prominent. Aasia, who used to live in Downtown – known for its pro-azadi people – witnessed the daily crackdowns and violence by the Indian Army,” says Dr Miraj. “Especially, when women became the victims of molestation and rape by the Indian armed forces, she decided not to suffer silently, and changed for the rest of her life. She started thinking about the fate of these women who were raped and whose husbands disappeared in the custody of Indian Army.” 

Dr Shabina Miraj describes how sexual violence against Kashmiri women changed Aasia. “I saw a change in Aasia. She became more interested in doing something for the people,” she says. 

In her initial journalism years , Aasia also worked on a monthly newsletter “Informative Missive” published by the Public Commission on Human Rights. Later in 2002, Aasia and her friends launched the Kashmiri Women’s Initiative for Peace and Disarmament (KWIPD). She became its first head. 

It was just a beginning. Aasia soon launched The Voices Unheard, a quarterly newsletter under KWIPD’s banner. It went on to bring out several stories of the suffering of women and children living under the occupation of the Indian forces. Aasia was the first editor of the popular newsletter in which she wrote most of the articles herself. She was a living example of ground reporting. Her yearning for truth took her to far off places, sometimes even near the Line of Control, in search of the stories she wanted to tell. She became a voice of the unheard miseries of people, especially women. Her work attached her personally to the victims of rights violations and gave her a reason to set up tailoring and pickle centres for widows and orphans at different places in Kashmir. 

On April 20, 2004 A taxicab, carrying her and other activist colleagues from Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), was blown up in a landmine blast in Chandigam village of northern Kashmir’s Kupwor district. Aasia and the cab’s driver, Ghulam Nabi Sheikh were killed on the spot while JKCCS’s senior member Khurram Parvez, (then 26), was seriously injured in the blast; his right limb was amputated later. Three other volunteers of the group also sustained injuries in the blast. 

“The vehicle was completely damaged. Asia and the driver were lying on the road, unconscious,” says Sadiq Ali, one of the three volunteers who survived the blast. “We asked for help from a nearby army camp. We screamed, shouted but to no avail.”

The team was on its way to verify reports of people fleeing out of fear of coercion by soldiers to vote during a parliamentary election, when their vehicle was blown up by a landmine. 

Thus Aasia became perhaps the first woman in the short history of the Kashmir conflict to have died in the line of duty. She had given a slip to her family who would have probably stopped her from taking the risky trip that even most men would have avoided. 

The news of her death came as a shock not only to her family and associates but also to all the people of Kashmir, who had known her for her work. 

“I was completely stunned when I was first told over the phone that Aasia had just been killed. Though I was sitting in a world far removed from the daily tragedies of Kashmir, I couldn’t help but feel an impending sense of desolation while listening to the heartbreak and anguish resonating in the voices of those who were dealing with the immediate crises on the ground. It was hard for me to witness, in those moments that those who have been humbly striving to empower Kashmiri society were now almost paralysed by a sense of powerlessness,” writes Usmaan Raheem Ahmed, a research scholar in Fletcher school of Law and Diplomacy, Harvard University in a book titled “Aasia, Martyr of Peace”. 

Voices Unheard: “Silence is not always golden” 

Aasia became the voice of the unheard through her publication, Voices Unheard. The cover of its first volume read: “Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace.” It was the first magazine in conflict- torn Kashmir that highlighted the violence against women and children. By far, it turned out to be one of the major contributions of the young activist-journalist. 

Through her writings, she urged the oppressed people of Kashmir not to suffer in silence. She strongly believed the stories of atrocities by the Indian armed forces needed to be told to the world outside Kashmir. 

In her article, “An Era of Silence,” she wrote: 

“It is we who have to strive for our fellow beings and devise means and ways for helping the victims and bringing the culpable to book. Our silence will go a long way in boosting the morale of the guilty who feel they can get away with anything. Silence is not always golden, it can be deadly too. Women don’t have to compromise on vulnerable issues, strong voice is needed to agitate the atrocities”. 

Advocate Parvez Imroz, the president of the JKCCS, says Aasia was like a war correspondent, who visited far off places in search of stories of torture and rape and to record statements of rape victims. 

Her brave fight for half widows 

Aasia was one of the first activists in Kashmir who fought for and gave a voice to half widows, then a new entity in Kashmir: women whose husbands went missing in the custody of the Indian armed forces. In the very first edition of The Voices Unheard, Aasia highlighted cases of the missing men and the stories of half widows. There was a growing number of such cases in Kashmir during the 1990s and early 2000s. The security forces would pick up men without declaring their arrest, and later allegedly kill them in fake encounters. The whereabouts of most such men are unknown to this date.

Aasia, in her first article, “And the search is on…” described the condition of half widows in quite moving words: 

Women have arrived and arrived all over the world but here women have arrived to suffer and suffer in silence. 

In the same article she also wrote, “Women in Kashmir are suffering, a mother has lost a son, a sister has lost a brother, a daughter has lost a father and a wife has lost her husband. Yet all are living and braving all oddities that life has thrown at them, hoping some day, their dear ones will arrive and all the sufferings will end. And this speaks volumes about women’s emancipation in Kashmir. And until the sufferings end the search goes on and on.” 

Such cases of “enforced disappearances” – as they came to be known as – brought a period of pain and agony in which the women and children were worst hit. Women, most of whom waited for their husbands for years together, dared not stand up for their rights, including that of remarriage. The idea of remarriage for a half widow was a social taboo. It still is. Many women who remarried had to face a hostile society and even antagonistic families. Widows, who had children and wanted to remarry for economical or moral support, were afraid to take the bold step as their relatives and even neighbours would warn them of dire consequences if they contemplated the idea of re-marriage.

In the second volume of the Voices Unheard, Aasia wrote a strong and bold piece titled “Half-widow, half life and half truth”, advocating for social and religious support for half-widows who want to remarry. 

Aasia wrote, “Kashmiris are suffering and amidst this pain the solutions have to be worked out. The need of the hour is that ulama come forward and educate the society about the plight and provisions in Islam, so that when any such woman wants to re-marry, people should welcome and support her move, and she takes the second journey of life with a sense of ease and not guilt. Young men should come forward and offer to marry them, it is we who have to work for solutions and not depend on outsiders the way we have been depending on them to solve the Kashmir dispute, results notwithstanding.”

 Social work: ‘If Dalit women can make it, why can’t we?’ 

Aasia did not only tell the stories of human rights violations and the victims, but also made efforts to organise community help for the victims. She was moved by their condition and the depressing situation. She became involved in the activities of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP). With the help of her associates, she set up a self-help group where girls from different parts of the valley were trained. The group later evolved as the Aasia Memorial Foundation. She was also a part of APDP victim-donor program in which a family of the disappeared is adopted and provided financial help. 

After a visit to Chennai where Aasia had gone for training to launch self-help groups for the destitute women in Kashmir, there was a lack of response from the women victims. 

She shouted, “If Dalit women can make it why cannot we?” recounts the lawyer-activist Parvez Imroz. She was keen on a collective action to prepare the victims for self-sustenance instead of depending on pittances.

 Whe the idea of organising self-help groups for women was discussed, Aasia urged that the same should be established in each and every village and neighbourhood of Kashmir. Aasia had said, “Let’s get started right now and it will happen in a matter of months, not years.” 

How family and friends remember Aasia 

The spirit of helping the needy was deep-rooted in her character. “When she was four and a half years old, on an Eid, I gave her five rupees. With the money in her hand, she left only to come back after giving it to a poor lady,” remembers Jahan Ara Jeelani, Aasia’s mother. 

Aasia mother recalls how she used to enjoy marriage ceremonies. A perfection in the colour of lehanga (the bridal attire), variety of dresses mattered the most to her, recalls her mother. “She used to live each and every moment with great energy.” 

“Tears trickle down my eyes whenever I remember her. Her presence is felt. Her loss has to be endured but is unbearable. We remember her every moment, every time, while we eat and sleep. We miss her,” says Bashir Ahmed Jeelani, Aasia’s father, while tears roll down his cheeks. 

Aasia had also set up a foundation for poor women where they made pickles and clothes to sustain themselves. Her mother says she was not aware that the baby in her lap would one day do such a commendable work. “She would always say: Mummy pray for me, as you are very near to God’s house.” 

Aasia is also survived by her siblings Dr. Snober Jeelani and Umar Jeelani. 

Human rights activist, Khuram Parvez, who worked with Aasia and was also her friend says the most important aspect of her was that she was a pious girl. “People write about her as a committed and a dedicated person. But for her all these things didn’t matter.” 

Talking about her professional approach to work, Parvez recalls Aasia would often say, “If somebody wants to do something let him do it professionally and with a sense of responsibility.” 

Aasia’s unkept promise to a friend 

On Oct 26, 2003 Aasia attended a peace management conference in Amsterdam where women activists from other conflict zones in the world such as Palestine, Iraq, the Balkans, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kosovo, and Macedonia were in attendance. Aasia became friends with a Dutch peace activist Marjan Lucas. “She really impressed the conference. She wanted to have her story heard. 

In the conference she said, ‘I came all the way from Kashmir, not to listen to all of you, yes I also listen to all of you, but I also want you to listen to my story, to our story,” remembers Marjan. 

Towards the end of the meet, Marjan remembers praising Aasia for a scarf she wore during the conference. But Marjan didn’t know Aasia would leave a letter for her covered in the same scarf before flying back to Kashmir. “In the letter she wrote on our friendship and she also promised me in the letter that she would see me soon in Kashmir, but that never happened,” says Marjan Lucas with moist eyes. 

Beyond Bipin Rawat’s remarks, Kashmir’s education system does need control

The article first appeared in FreePress Kashmir magazine on 5th Feb, 2018.

By Sheikh Saqib

Fearing ‘radicalization’, the Indian army chief lately asked for control in Kashmir’s schools. But beyond the military talk, the Valley-based schools do need some control to shed off its herd-mentality-producing image to emerge as a creative endeavor.

As Lala Sheikh Restaurant’s unwashed walls match with the color of his skull cap, Nawaz Zehgir keenly observes the people sitting around him. In this crammed tea shop at Srinagar’s Poloview—once graced by the likes of Ali Mohammad Jinnah—he is cooling his heels to have an interactive session with his friends.

This 19-year-old youth often turns up in this smoke-filled restaurant to articulate his views on varied topics and subjects. His wait lasts till some hippie bunch of young boys and a girl walk in. For the day, they’re to talk about the prevailing education system in Kashmir.

It’s depressing, Nawaz begins, as the commotion inside grows. “I believe the real education comes from here — from tea shops and streets,” he says, turning chirpy. “I find more interesting talks and teachings in a tea shop than in the classes.”

Much of this worldview has been shaped by his regular hangouts with his street-smart friends—who discuss almost everything under the sun on the shop-fronts, rather than in classrooms.

“Spaces determine who you’re,” he continues, as others sip tea and play his captive audience. “If they’re suppressive, restrictive and controlled, then it’s bound to cull one’s creative acumen. I see our classrooms no different.”

The opinioned youngster reckons that one just needs to travel across Kashmir to access the state of dismal education. “But such controlled spaces can only produce literates than educates.”

He takes calculative pauses to veer the conversation towards the Indian army chief’s latest talk. Addressing the media on the eve of the Army Day recently, General Rawat had said, “In the schools in Jammu and Kashmir, what teachers are teaching should not be taught. In schools in J&K, there can be seen two maps, one of India, another of J&K. Why do we need a separate map for J&K? What does it teach the children? Most misguided youth come from schools where they are being radicalised.”

Nawaz takes a dig at the general’s remark to delight of his friends. “Here is this General making us believe that our schools have become ‘radicalized’ centres,” he says to rapt attention of his friends. “Somebody should tell him that our schools aren’t even inspiring us for critical thinking—leave alone radicalizing us.”

The existing system of learning, Nawaz continues, has only reduced our campuses as time pass spaces “where we only clear the futile exercise of exams and acquire those meaningless degrees”.

Much of these remarks resound in the restaurant hosting different crowd of people from different backgrounds, seeking different directions in life. Perhaps, the informal chat spaces like these do play their part in the narrative building—which otherwise is hardly being encouraged in formal spaces like classrooms and educational campus, where even student activism is banned.

Memorizing is understood as learning, the 20-year-old medical student joins in. “Most of our teachers make no effort to develop the soft skills in students,” Haris Khan thumps the table with his clenched fist.

Most of these students—calling themselves wanderers, seekers, learners—speak quite aloud, thus frequently grabbing the attention of others in the restaurant. But the boys don’t seem to mind stirring what many inside are probably dismissing as ‘the storm in a teacup’.

With his animated facial expressions, Haris expresses regret about his school days. The focus out there remained only scoring big marks, he says.

Even the bigger menace remains how successive governments have failed to address the student problems, says Ifra Malik. “Every student is exceptionally gifted in particular ways,” reckons this Class 11 student. “But then the omnipresent teacher-student communication gap often wastes the student potential.”

Though being a girl prevents her becoming a part of shop-front discussions, she compensates it through discussing matters with her friend circle in cafes and tea shops. For her, the entire education system is an oppressive unit.

“At times,” she says, “even my parents thought of de-schooling to save me from becoming a lost and confused soul. They equate education with pure business. And they were quite disheartened how students are being punished for every single mistake rather than to groom them into a well-meaning person with polished skills and talents.”

For much of the mess, they blame Kashmir society’s illusion to create a ‘settled-future’ job image of the government teacher.

“So,” says Nawaz, “once you’re a government teacher, you’re hardly accountable—though lately they tried to stop promotions of some teachers for producing poor results. So in a way, for most of the government teachers, teaching is merely securing a settled job than a service to help grow the young minds.”

As long as teaching is a desperate employment seeking option than a matter of conviction, till then, “we poor souls will continue to suffer.”

Such spoken concern simply defies the image of the valley, which for centuries, has remained the home of the great scholars, visiting it in search of learning and knowledge. Education was imparted from madrasas, maktabas, khanqas and patshalas. Even during the medieval period, Kashmir stood as a pioneer of progress and a beacon of enlightenment for the other parts of the world.

“Teachers at school need to foster the process of interaction between students,” says Hadi Wani. This 17-year-old student believes that until and unless students are not provided a platform where they can engage in interaction and share their ideas, the system is not going to change.

The friends nod their heads in agreement