STRUCTURES OF VIOLENCE

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CHAPTER 3: COURTS OF VIOLENCE
Introduction
The Pathribal episode not only outlined the brutality of
the operation of the armed forces in Kashmir, but also
exposed that legal justice is impossible for the
families of the victims who have suffered at the hands
of the Indian armed forces. Following the fake
encounter every attempt was made to quell protests
[resulting in the Brakpora massacre] and cover up the
truth, for instance through DNA fudging. Then,
despite a CBI chargesheet, the judicial system – the
Supreme Court - was used to ensure that the case
returned to the very institution responsible for the fake
encounter: the army itself. A thirteen year struggle for
justice culminated in 2013 in a “Summary of
Evidence” by the army that did not consider it
necessary to actually conduct a court-martial. There
was no evidence connecting the accused to the crime
was the conclusion of the army. This case is
symptomatic of the manner in which all processes in
Jammu and Kashmir are used to ensure impunity for
State forces. The court-martial is therefore not an
example of a failure of justice as much as it is an
example of a tool that is used to ensure impunity and
State control in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Pathribal Episode
On March 20, 2000, while President Bill Clinton
arrived on a visit to New Delhi, unidentied gunmen
donning army fatigues had lined up 35 Sikh in front of
the Gurdwara wall in a remote South Kashmir village
and killed them. Though nobody had proof for the true
identity of the killers or their motive, the timing of this
brazen act of terror coinciding with Clinton's India tour
had already triggered an Indo-Pak blame game.
Although New Delhi had vehemently accused
militants for this massacre and blamed Pakistan for
connivance in this horrible act, Clinton had refrained
from blaming anybody in his condemnation. A day
after the massacre, the then National Security
Advisor (NSA) Brajesh Mishra had said that there was
an “absolute proof” for the involvement of Lashkar-e-
Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen in this massacre.
Islamabad, meanwhile, didn't just deny its role; they
blamed the Indian army instead.
On the ground in Kashmir, however, there was a race
to solve the mystery behind the identity of the killers
with proof especially before the visit of the then Indian
Home Minister LK Advani to the massacre site ve
days later on March 25, 2000. And within hours ahead
of Advani's visit, the army and the J&K police claimed
to have solved the case. Senior ofcers of army and
the J&K Police told Advani that the “ve Lashkar-e-
Toiba mercenaries responsible for the massacre had
been eliminated in a surgical operation launched by 7
Rashtriya Ries and the local police the previous
night”. This interaction took place in an open eld in
Chittisighpora where a special presentation of the
“operation” for Advani was organized in front of the
media.
But even as Colonel Ajay Saxena (Commanding
Ofcer 7 RR) and Deputy Superintendent of Police
Tajinder Singh explained the ''operation'' with the help
of an extensive site map to Advani and the then Chief
Minister Farooq Abdullah, suspicion was already
oating around in whispers. Ironically when the army
and police ofcers stood for a group-photograph with
Advani, two top police ofcers present there stayed
away. The story of the Pathribal encounter had,
however, been carefully crafted and at the time both
J&K and Government of India publicly vouched for its
authenticity.
Initially the army and the police had described the
Pathribal encounter as an important anti-terrorist
1
operation.
The rst ssures in the government's concocted story
about the Pathribal fake encounter, however, started
emerging soon. Five men had gone missing from
villages of Brari Angan and Halan in the
neighbourhood and Islamabad town. The families of
two among these missing men (both named Juma
Khan) in Brari Angan village had said that the soldiers
came to their house in the middle of the night and took
them away. The family of Zahoor Ahmad Dalal, a 22-
year-old shopkeeper, who went missing from
Islamabad town, too had said that the army men took
him away.
The actual story behind the Pathribal encounter
started to unfold when the villagers of Panchalthan
talked about the mysterious circumstances in which
ve men were killed on Zontengri peak. Contrary to
the government claim that there was a ve-hour long
gun battle, the villagers had said that these men were
killed in cold blood and later a charade of an
encounter was enacted in which their bodies were
partially burnt and disgured to hide their identity.
Suspicion of foul play was further strengthened by the
way the ve men had been buried. The army and
police ofcers involved in the ''operation'' had sought
the help of local villagers to speed up the burial.
Instead of burying them at one place, these men were
buried in graveyards at Vuzkhah, Sumlam and
Chogamm villages, which were miles apart.
There was enough suspicion that the men killed in a
stage-managed encounter at Pathribal and dubbed
a s f o r e i g n m i l i t a n t s r e s p o n s i b l e f o r t h e
Chittisinghpora massacre may be the ve villagers,
who had gone missing after being picked up by the
soldiers. The relatives of the ve missing men came
out on streets and the protests intensied across
Islamabad district, forcing the government to order a
judicial enquiry. Under severe pressure, the J&K
government immediately suspended Senior
Superintendent of Police and a Station House Ofcer
besides ordering exhumation of the bodies and a
subsequent DNA sampling to ascertain their actual
identities.
Three days later, on April, 6, a team of forensic
experts from Government Medical College, Srinagar
arrived at Pathribal area to exhume the bodies and
1 Peter Popham, Eight Months After Massacre, Kashmir Demands Answers, Independent.ie, 5 December 2000, http://www.independent.ie/worldnews/eight-months-after-massacre-kashmir-demands-answers-26101439.html