The Shopian incident of dual murder was indeed a big tragedy for
the people in general and relatives of victims in particular.
The more we condemn such a ghastly act of alleged rape and murder,
the less it is. The criminals who were involved in such a crime
cannot be categorised into a particular religion, region or tribe.
They are worst offenders of mankind. Such acts of violence and
even more severe happen all around the world. It is a law of nature
that if there 999 good hearted persons in a society, one person
will surely be of evil nature. To arrest the increase and activity
of such evils, the institution of justice is established. It is
the law and security agencies who check such elements in every
society and Kashmir is no exception to it. After every crime or
even before police steps in and arrests the offender. Unfortunately
over the last more than a week, Kashmir has been engulfed in protests
over this crime. People have been coming out in thousands to protest
against the incident. Police and other securityagencies too stepped
in and clashes ensued to restore law and order. Hundreds have
been injured and some were also killed. One question arises that
is this leading to anywhere.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has promised stern action against
the criminals, whosoever is involved in it. He has even constituted
a one member judicial commission that will be also assisted by
a senior Superintendent of Police in its investigation in the
crime.
Omar Abdullah has a relatively clean image. He talks usually straight
from his heart. It was his administration which effectively doled
out the justice in Kheegam and Bomai firing incidents. In Bomai
Sopore, an entire army camp was shifted following allegation of
Human Rights violations over them. An inquiry committee was constituted
against them. Similarly in Kheegam Pulwama, the CRPF trooper accused
of killing a civilian was quickly arrested and booked under law.
Even in Shopian incident Omar Abdullah transferred some officers
including Deputy Commissioner Pulwama for lapses in their duty.
It shows his seriousness in solving the crime. He deserves time
to show his integrity and honesty. No doubt there is some distrust
and alienation in the people owing to some past experience. Separatists
fuel that feeling and entire situation becomes murkier. The agitation
was effectively hijacked by these separatists and played according
to their own norms. The separatists as always are devoid of any
logic or even a strategy to help the situation. There was no programme
on their part as to how the criminals can be brought to justice.
Their only motive was to add to the chaos and they succeeded in
it. The norm in such a situation is that people usually express
sympathy with the victims families and help them recover from
the shock. But what separatists did was to call for general strikes,
clashes and violent protests, which only added to the misery of
people all across the valley. Of course the victims families were
the most affected as some of them even could not attend the funeral
prayers due to violent protests and subsequent curfew. The strikes
have marred the normal life of people as they have become hostage
in their own homes. After nine days of strikes life again came
to normal and what did separatists achieve. In the end everybody
has to rely on the findings of Judicial Commission which is bound
to present its report within a month. There is logic of protests
after the final report if people are not satisfied with it. The
constitution also allows that under the right to expression act.
But pre-judging the situation without any reasoning is simply
insane. It only hampers the normal working of the justice as has
been the case in Shopian incident. According to some reports,
number of evidences were lost due to the mayhem that followed
the incident. The protests and demonstration didn’t help the situation
in any way. It only inflicted heavy losses on the economy, affected
the education and normal government working. One hopes that a
better sense prevails over separatist. Destruction is very easy
to achieve but to contribute to construction process is very difficult.
In Kashmir these two forces are competing with each other, may
the latter achieve a thumping victory as soon as possible.
