STRUCTURES OF VIOLENCE

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| Structures of Violence
A NOTE ON MASS VIOLENCE
“The army targeted the two Jumma Khans because
2
they had long beards and wore dastaars , the beard
and the dastaar is a part of our cultural and religious
tradition but for the army it meant the two could be
passed off as Pakistani militants.”
-Abdul Rashid Khan, son of Jumma Khan, killed in
the Pathribal 'fake encounter'
“The Kunan rape story on closer examination turns out
to be a massive hoax orchestrated by militant groups
and their sympathizers and mentors in Kashmir and
abroad as part of a sustained and cleverly contrived
strategy of psychological warfare…”
- B.G Verghese, Crisis and Credibility, Report by
Press Council of India
The military occupation of Jammu and Kashmir by the
Indian State is enacted everyday through variegated
displays of power aimed at inscribing fear on not only
the bodies and minds of the local population but also
on the spaces they inhabit through the performance of
brutality, both small and spectacular. Each of the ve
instances of mass violence documented in this
chapter explores a gamut of spectacular brutalitymass
rape and torture in Kunan-Poshpora, massacre
in Sopore, Sailan and Chittisingpora, 'fake encounter'
in Pathribal, killing by the State created and managed
3
Ikhwan in Saderkoot-Bala, and killing as a result of
ring at a protest in Brakpora. The ve mass crimes
described and analysed in this Chapter, represent only
a fraction of the total number of such events, that have
occurred with terrorizing frequency in Jammu and
Kashmir. They have been selected not for their
exceptionality, but because of the availability of
enough information gathered slowly over years of
litigation and interaction with survivors, to present a
well corroborated and detailed narrative. IPTK-APDP
has also collected information on 51 mass killings,
(involving the murder of 3 or more individuals in a
single incident) based on news reports, which is
summarized as a table, in Annexure 5.
From the cases presented in this chapter it emerges
that those who investigate mass violence often
describe it as an “indiscriminate” act of “madness”
perpetrated by “violent beasts”. Whereas the sheer
intensity and scale of violence in each case mandates
some element of prior planning inherent to militarism,
what also emerges is a perverse yet almost scientic
logic where 'militant' is constructed as a body that can
be subjected to punishment with impunity, and without
accountability, legal or political. Such a conception is
able to suck into it not only the militants themselves but
also accommodate a variety of other persons and
political opinions. This includes the families of
4
militants, those who express support for the Tehreek ,
and political workers of parties with alternative visions
for the political sovereignty of Kashmir. Even those
who were an active part of electoral politics but used
their position to engineer a particular political future
different from the one espoused by the Ikhwan at the
time, were targeted on grounds of being 'militant', as in
the case of the massacre at Saderkoot. 'Militant' can
also refer to those who dare to humanize themselves
and their dead through demands for justice via
collective protest, as in the case of the Brakpora ring
and the families of those killed in the Pathribal 'fake
encounter'.
In Pathribal, the personnel of the 7 Rashtriya Ries
[RR] admitted to being present at the site of the
massacre as part of an 'operation' to nab 'militants'
responsible for the Chittisinghpora massacre; in
Sopore, the 94 Battalion Border Security Force [BSF]
alleged that the 46 persons shot dead or burnt were
killed in 'cross-ring' with 'militants'; the mass rape and
torture in Kunan-Poshpora which is denied by the
personnel of 4 Rajputana Ries, exists only as a
'hoax…orchestrated by militants.' Yet again, in Sailan,
the Central Bureau of Investigation is of the opinion
that the massacre was carried out by 'Pak-trained
militants.' In all these instances, the specter of the
'militant', even 'foreign militant', conceived of as
'terrorist', is conveniently invoked in the face of
concrete legal evidence to the contrary. This occurs
even as the allegations later unravel at the slightest
probing, and are shown to be not only false and
fabricated but also revelatory of the premeditated
criminality perpetrated by the military, under legal
cover of martial laws like the Armed Forces Special
Powers Act [AFSPA].
Each one of the incidents of mass violence explored in
this chapter is a stage-managed spectacle in a 'theatre
of violence', enacted in a space intentionally
delineated for what it represents. For example, in
Sopore, a massacre of 46 people was carried out in
tandem with the burning of the Main Chowk and
adjoining areas. The personnel of the 94 Battalion
BSF who carried out the massacre and arson refer to
the area as being full of “escape routes” or “hideouts”
used by “militants”. Such a 'stage' where the mass
violence is enacted is often a community space where
the collective punishment–shooting, setting re,
hacking to death–is publically witnessed. But even
when it is not, when the violence is enacted within what
is a domestic, everyday setting, conceptions of
ownership of space are necessarily inverted in favor of
the perpetrator. For example in Kunan-Poshpora
kuthars, small wooden and mud structures used to
store grain, integral to any Kashmiri village, are
transformed into torture centers where men from
“suspected houses” in the village are given electric
shocks, roller treatments and beatings, while the army
men warm themselves by lighting a re and preparing
tea. Men from the Kunan-Poshpora, tortured in
kuthars, described seeing their neighbours tortured,
and still others barefoot in the snow at night waiting to
be tortured. At the same time, the women of the village
were raped in their homes, within familiar settings of
domesticity. The experiences of the rape survivors,
documented by the researchers, highlight the extent to
2 Turban: a part of the cultural attire of the Gojar community, often worn by male elders of a village.
3 Ikhwan is a 'counter-insurgency' militia comprising of locals, often surrendered militants, with some arms training, created, armed and
managed by the Indian State and the Indian Army. Please see Chapter 1 of this Report for a detailed commentary on this phenomenon.
4 Political movement against the Indian State's occupation of Jammu and Kashmir that encompasses a wide-spectrum of resistance
ideologies including armed resistance.