Randeep Singh Nandal
Srinagar:Â Â Daredevil artist undone by love,’ screamed one headline. ‘Master of disguise finally trapped,’ said another, announcing the death of 25-year-old Lashkar commander in north Kashmir, Abdullah Uni, who was on the most-wanted list of Kashmir police. He was credited with reviving militancy in Sopore, the ideological heart of insurgency in Kashmir. On September 13, Uni walked out of a house – a scene straight out of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” – charging the massed guns of Rashtriya Rifles from the house of his wife and young daughter, armed with only a pistol.
But like many stories in Kashmir, the events of September 13 have variations. One version from Sopore speaks of a fierce encounter with the Lashkar commander. The gutted house where Uni’s body was found is just 100 yards from the camp of 22 Rashtriya Rifles. Neighbours attest that the Army cordon was in place by the time they woke up. Unlike media reports, there was no fierce encounter. It was quiet until about 11am; shortly after that, there was a burst of gunfire. Uni wasn’t killed in the gutted abandoned house; he was found in an orchard a few metres away with a single bullet to his head. So how did the man, who had walked out after killing three special force soldiers, and survived security dragnet eight times, become so careless?
It’s here the love story comes up. Recalled to Pakistan after five years of waging jihad in north Kashmir, Uni wanted one final glimpse of his Kashmiri wife and daughter – an act of daredevilry that proved to be his last.
The Tariq family home in Batpora stands out. It looks like a ruin and underlines the family’s desperate condition. Inside, is Tabassum, the young Kashmiri girl, whose story is slightly different. The family’s brush with militancy began in October 2009, when Tariq, a small shopkeeper, was asked by a neighbour to shelter some militants for the night. Acting on a tip-off, the police raided the house. The militants escaped but Tariq was arrested and spent a year in Udhampur Jail.
It was around this time that a young Tabassum, then in school, met Uni, soon to become the light of her life. The first inkling of trouble came when Tabbasum told her mother in Feburary 2010 that she was pregnant. It was too late for an abortion. Around six months ago, Tabbasum gave birth to a daughter in Srinagar’s Lal Ded hospital. “We had no idea how this happened. There was no marriage. She told me that she had married secretly, but she is a child. What does she know of marriage?” said Tabassum’s mother.
As her mother talks teary eyed, Tabassum sits cradling a teddy bear, smiling. “He was a mujahid. I am happy he is a shaheed,” said the mother. Tabassum, at 17 the eldest of five siblings, left school when her father was arrested, and it’s here that the second part of the love story unravels. There’s no child wailing in the house asking for her attention. “Two days after I gave birth to my daughter, someone came and took away my child. Abdullah said it’s better this way. I haven’t seen my daughter since then,” she smiles as she says this.
The Tariq family wasn’t even at home on the night of September 12. All of them were away for a family wedding. So, if the love story doesn’t hold nor does the fierce four-hour encounter, what happened in Sopore on September 13?
For clues, most insiders point to the unprecedented letter issued by the Lashkar in late August. For the first time since militancy erupted in Kashmir, an extremist organization owned up to a murder. In the letter, the Lashkar admitted that it was their cadre who had killed Moulvi Showkat, head of 10-lakh strong Ahl-e-Hadith sect in Kashmir. In doing so, Lashkar also endorsed Kashmir police’s investigation into the killing, with one exception.
According to the police chargesheet, it was Uni who masterminded Showkat’s assassination. The Lashkar claimed this was untrue, and that their three-month investigation into the matter had led them to conclude that the murder was the work of rogue elements that had turned “double agents” to discredit “Pakistani handlers”.
However, the Lashkar slipped up in their letter. Giving a clean chit to Uni, they also inadvertently let slip that those who carried out the killing had approached Uni for help in the murder. Now Moulvi Showkat was killed on April 8, 2011. So even by the Lashkar letter, their top commander in Kashmir had prior knowledge about the assassination, and yet did nothing.
It’s this fact that, sources say, points to Uni’s sudden death. Showkat was targeted because he refused to toe the hard line. It was a message to all moderates in Kashmir. But ISI had underestimated Moulvi’s popularity among his flock.
Showkat’s death was followed by an unprecedented event in Kashmir. His organization publicly called for an investigation into his murder, very different from the time when Mirvaiz Farooq or Abdul Ghani Lone were murdered. With some 500 mosques and 10 lakh followers fuming at the murder, this was a reaction the ISI wasn’t prepared for. The Lashkar letter was their way of saying sorry.
But what about Tabassum? Not one organization has visited the Tariq family. And is her six-month-old daughter a victim of militancy or child of conflict? There will be no bandhs called for her, or representations made to the UN. No separatist, government or human rights organization shall offer help. Times of India