02 |
|
|
PALLE RASMUSSEN | The Dal lake by Srinagar, Kashmir. Many call Kashmir, Shangri-La, a paradise on Earth. Indians call Kashmir the rose in India's bouquet. It is indescribably beautiful; it was very peaceful. It is not anymore. Two nuclear powers struggle for Kashmir.We are here to talk with the people of Kashmir. | |
02'29 PALLE RASMUSSEN |
| 100,000 is perhaps an exaggeration; but otherwise most Kashmiris would agree. |
03: RASHID DANGOLA Boat Owner
| Life for Kashmiris is , honest to god a miserable life. In 10 years 100,000 people have been killed by gun or by bombs. Kashmiris want to be independent. They want to be on their own. They don't want to have oppression from Pakistan or India . Kashmir is already divided into two parts, even three parts, some is taken by India , some by Pakistan and even some by China. |
|
02'54 PALLE RASMUSSEN
|
| They claim that two have just been killed by crossfire, a man and his pregnant wife. The mourners are angry. One hears amongst them that yet again the innocent have been meaninglessly killed by gun crazy Indian soldiers. We talked to the dead woman's brother. Did they have anything to do with politics? |
03'41 ADIL RASHID BUTT Dead woman's brother | They had nothing to do with politics. They were thousands and thousands of miles away from any political thing | . |
|
| By the grave we hear curses toward India. |
03:57 DR. UMAR FAROUK Imam
| We have no grudge. If a militant or mujahadeen strikes and they are killed in retaliation then that is fine because he has taken up arms for the freedom of his land but day in and day out dozens of people are getting killed by the army and not only those In custody.But the people who are doing their job and walking on the streets are shot by the policre and para- military forces. |
|
04'26 ADIL RASHID BUTT Dead woman's brother | One hundred and fifty families are in our household so we now hate India like anything | . |
What do the people think of the militants? |
|
|
| As Heroes! As Heroes! |
|
04'43 |
| This is how the Indian army perceive the guerrillas... as fanatical, ruthless Islamic fundamentalists. Many Kashmiri Muslims call them freedom-fighters. The army has created an entire museum containing seized weapons. |
04'58 S.P.MALIK Major
| These are the pictures of civic action taken by Indian army to improve the life of Kashmiris. The hand that fires the gun can also be the hand of friendship and brotherhood . We have been very successful to win over their hearts and minds. Because we are doing the real welfare of these people. Whereas these militants and extremists cause them trouble to their relatives by extorting money from them. Whereas we help them settle into their lives | . |
05'35 |
| Three-to-four hundred thousand Indian soldiers are stationed in Kashmir; they appear everywhere. Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, shows the markings of bad times. In the countryside, things are not as nice as they could be. people fear the army and in some cases also the guerrillas. It is dangerous to help them. There have been examples of it being dangerous just to be nearby them. Rafique is 31, and mother to five. She is one of the thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of widows who has been especially punished by the past ten years of war. Rafique's husband was sickly when suddenly tragedy struck. |
06'37 RAFIQUE Widow
| He was crossing a bridge when the soldiers shot him. - No, he was on his way to work. Two of his friends were beaten and one got away. - Yes, we did. I sat with children and waited and waited for him. | Had he done anything wrong?
Did you hear the shooting? |
|
| Rafique says she is often sick from crying because she does not know how she is going to manage with the children. |
07'34
| We do not make any money. We only have Allah. I cry all the time and ask others for help.
- They used to, yes ... but not any more.
-
No, they don't even talk to me.
-
No.
No.
| - - - - - - Do the neighbours help you?
What about your brother-in-law?
And your sister-in-law?
- They don't help?
|
|
| Rafique lives with her late husband's family, but they see her solely as an economic burden. Her sisters-in-law want her and her children out of the house. But, getting her own residence is out of the question for Rafique - she has no money. And, she can't get a job, for who would look after the children? |
07:50 RAFIQUE Widow
| The children have no clothes and there are holes in their socks. These three go to school, and they need everything. I walk from door-to-door and ask for little things. Some give, others don't.
Yes, but exams cost five Rupees. Where do I get that from?
It is ten days since I last did the laundry.
Yes, mine and the children's. I have not had any soap before now. |
-Is school free?
Are they your own clothes?
|
|
| Rafique and her children have something that should be an asset and it is cared for almost better than anything else. It is a cow. |
RAFIQUE Widow
|
No, not anymore. Bad luck seldom comes just once. | It gives milk to the children?
|
|
| Rafique could marry again, but no man would take on the children as well. |
08:54 RAFIQUE Widow
|
No, that is out of the question. Many have asked, but I don't want to. Where would I put the children? For me there is only Allah. For the children I am both father and mother. But what am I to do? My heart is broken. | - Why don't you marry again?
|
|
| Rafique and her tragedy is typical for at least 12 thousand young widows in Kashmir. A group of sociologists from Srinagar University have been examining their circumstances and reckon the number to be closer to thirty thousand. Widows of the rebels, or widows like Rafique, who's husbands happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. |
09:37 HUMERA YUQOOV Sociologist
| Most of them have no financial help. They have no parents alive or they have been ditched by their in-laws because they don't want them anymore because the bond between them is no more. The son is no more. If her parents are not alive she will go to her brothers house because she will be treated well.And how long they will sustain her and her family . She prefers to stay with her in-laws even if they are abusing her. Basically she has developed a fear in herself if there is a male member in the family this can cause tension. If there is no male member in the family she fears the military and paramilitaries because they never know when they will enter her house and abuse her. |
|
10:36 PALLE RASMUSSEN |
| From Srinagar we have moved west, towards the line which divides India from Pakistan. We are under Indian army protection, with military vehicles in-front of and behind us.
|
11:00 |
| Parts of the route are dangerous, with guard-posts every few hundred metres, here, a couple of kilometres high, between the Himalayan mountains. Swedish Bofor artillery placements are ready to send salvos over the mountain ridge ... into Pakistan. In this, the world's most heavily armed area, lies the town of Uri, with it's large barracks. Here, we talked to the military leader. According to him, all blame for the problems in Kashmir lies with the enemy in the mountains, here in the background - Pakistan, which does not only finance, but trains the Kashmiri rebels and sends its own soldiers in over the border ... disguised as Indian Kashmiris. |
11:40 TEJ SAPRU Brigadier General | Especially in the last two three years since 1997 onwards this area has come under heavy shelling it was. It was started by the Pakistanis in June 1997, where suddenly there was a spurt of shelling and it continued throughout the summer of 97 until the end of the year it resumed in May/June 98. |
|
12:04 PALLE RASMUSSEN |
| Onwards towards the cease-fire-line between India and Pakistan, where war or heavy exchange of fire has thinned out the population. The ones left are more than anyone else in the line of fire. The army has requested a group of locals to join us and talk. |
|
| An Indian official translates what the head of the village says. |
12:22 | He says ‘twenty five yeas ago he was very well off they were much happier here but in the past 8 to 10 years since this militancy has started in the whole of Kashmir things have been bad. These people also have a problem every so often militants come and harass them. The army come and try to capture the militants and irrespective of this there is plenty of shelling and firing from the Pakistani side from across the border as a result their houses are destroyed, the cattle, all the foods and land get destroyed and Many. |
|
13:05 |
| The only option for most of them is to work for the army - which is dangerous because of the rebels. Front posts on both sides of the line are placed on the mountain tops, where many of the treetops are shot to pieces by years of shell fire. It is less than one kilometre from the cease-fire-line, with Pakistan down in the valley ... the line that has triggered two wars and this summer threatened to trigger a third. So beautiful, and at the moment almost peaceful - Pakistani Kashmir ... but there are also military positions over there. |
13:41 P. M. MUTAPA Major | There is very frequent firing every now and then they start up with small arm firing and later land up with heavy artillery shell | . |
How often and how many shells? |
|
|
| We have had around 1200 artillery shells landed.in the space of three months. That is a problem because when they start firing they target this post in particular. It is easy for them. As a result there is plenty of heavy firing | . |
14:13
|
| Everyday life is tough for the private soldiers, under constant high alert in the bunkers along the entire line. They are young men used to the Indian heat. But they all say as one, that they are proud to defend their country here where the sun has long begun to fight its yearly battle with the bitter cold snowstorms.
We go back 52 years, to the dramatic days in 1947, when the fate of Kashmir was determined.
It was at a time when Kashmir was a principality, ruled by one of India's legendary Maharaja, with castles (now museums and hotels) with incredible riches and with a throne of the purest gold. The formal responsibility for the future of Kashmir lay on the Maharaja's shoulders and his son, Karan Singh, brought up to be Kashmir's next ruler. |
15:10 Dr. KARAN SINGH Member of the Indian Senate | When I was a crown prince my birthday used to be a public holiday for many years my father used to be very enlightened in that way he made quite sure I was not a spoiled brat | . |
15:22 |
| But Karan Singh never became Maharaja. He lives today in Delhi, because Kashmir ceased to be an independent state in 1947, - cut to pieces by its neighbours. The Maharaja, Karan Singh's father, was Hindu but most of his subjects were Muslim. Why did he give up his kingdom to India? A decision many Kashmiris and Muslim Pakistan have never forgiven him for. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
15:47 Dr. KARAN SINGH Member of the Indian Senate |
|
|
Are you optimistic? | It is very difficult for me to answer that question categorically. In his letter to Lord Mount Batten along with the instrument of succession he did say which of the two dominions to join it or whether it would be better if Kashmir remained independent with good relations with both. But of course Pakistan forced his hand because when they launched the invasion in Ocotober1947 they had been pillaging and destroying they had no option but to ask for aid from India. I don't honestly think it was possible for Kashmir to remain independent because you had Pakistan there powerful Indian Nationalism developing and don't forget the borders with China, Tibet and Central Asia. You see it was too strategic an area to remain independent. |
|
| I am basically independent but there seems to be no let up in the militancy. In fact it is becoming more and more strident. More and more fundamentalist | . |
16:49 Imam |
|
|
|
| Politics is often heard from the pulpit, because this Muslim religious leader is also a politician, with independence on the agenda. Many of his political colleagues were imprisoned a month ago. |
17:19 Dr. OMAR FAROUK Islamic priest, The Independence Movement | When there is more and more pressure applied on the common man he finds some solace in Religion He goes more and more towards religion. And when there is oppression from the government of India he also becomes hardline. He feels because I am a Muslim I am being targeted by the India soldier , so it is better I stand up for my rights. We are demanding that the people of Kashmir be given the right to self determination which is a fundamental right which is to determine your future as was agreed by India and promised to the Kashmiris people by the government of India and especially by Pundit Nehru. The first Prime Minister of India he came to Kashmir and promised that we would be given a choice to determine our future. Unfortunately that promise has not been filled. That is why the people of Kashmir are against the Indian system. |
|
18:15 TEJ SAPRU Brigadier General | The problem today is not Hindu Muslim it is the people from across. They have an obsession with Kashmir and they want these things to happen. It is they who incited the people here. They took people from here started training them , equipping them, arming them and sending them back. If it was not for the Pakistanis direct involvement this problem would not happen here.. It just could not happen even today. After ten years all that has to happen is the infiltration and exploitation has to stop. If that can happen you will see it all finish in 4 to 6 months at the most. |
|
18:53 |
| 31-year-old AFKAR ALI is one of those arrested from Sialkot in Pakistan, married, with four children, with a sick mother, and (according to himself) up to his ears in debt. He was caught the other day, armed with a Kalashnikov. He says; a farmer had promised him 4000 Danish kroner to sneak over the border and seek out a contact person. He made a rather pitiful impression at the police station ... surrounded by policemen. |
19:26 AFKAR ALI Arrested Pakistani |
I was forced to do it. I needed the money.
That weapon was to protect myself. Last time I did the journey I was with three Indians and some were killed, amongst them a smuggler. We have to have weapons to defend ourselves against both sides. | Why did you do it?
You travelled with an AK-47, why did you do that?
|
|
| Afkar Ali says, he thought he just had to smuggle "something or other" to the contact man on the Indian side. The police do not believe this. |
20:10 AFKAR ALI Arrested Pakistani |
A little bit in the beginning, but not since. They do not cause problems. I get fed regularly and I'm allowed to sleep and rest. | - During the interrogation, have you been beaten?
|
20:28 PALLE RASMUSSEN |
| The weather is becoming bitterly cold in the streets of Srinagar. Business is slow because there is not much money around. Tourist revenue (once Kashmir's most important income) has completely dried up. The best selling items at the moment are kangries - small Kashmiri charcoal ovens for heating under your garments. There is still production in the carpet industry and now with more children weavers than before - children of widows a study shows - and prices are falling. There is little indication of things getting better soon and the UN idea of a referendum on Kashmir is probably unrealistic. |
21:11 TAJ SAPRU Brigadier General | Firstly it is impossible because it has lost it's meaning . In the sense there is no legality to that. The government of India has always been maintaining that although we had the UN resolution the ground situation has changed . What has happened across there and in India. Things are quite different now. There is no need for it now. It cannot happen.There is no need for it to happen.You have other people in other parts of the country we have the Punjag , the people in the North East. You can't have referendems all over there will be no India after. |
|
21:44 |
| The past years fighting is especially visible in Srinagar: Gutted houses caused by fighting between security forces and the rebels. People also complain about the frequent house-to-house searches. One married couple we met will never recover from one particular incident: |
22:00 AHMED FAROOQI |
We heard knocking on the door. My 14-year-old son, Imtiaz opened. It turned out to be BSF-soldiers and they shot him in the head. |
|
22:17 |
| But the drama escalated: The couple's other son ran out onto the veranda - where he was shot down. They were the couple's only two sons ... both went to school in Bangalore further down in India and had just come home on holiday. They had never had anything to do with the rebel movement. |
22:35 IMDIAZ UDDIN FAROOQI | The boy lay with his chest shot to pieces and the other boy lay on the veranda, but nobody came to help him. I tried to bandaged them with some clothing - what else could I do? The eldest kept asking for water, water... A neighbour ran out to get hold of a car but nobody came because the road was sealed of. We were in such despair that we could not say anything to one another. I just wanted to pour petrol over me and set light to myself. I wish to die by throwing myself under a lorry. Yes, throw myself under a lorry. But I hesitate, because it would bring shame on my daughter. |
|
23:32 AHMED FAROOQI | Even though I have sent 50 letters to the state Prime Minister, to the Home Secretary, the Indian government, the Human Rights Commission and the Department Chief - the case, to this day, has not been brought before a court. |
|
23:53 |
| But like most conflicts the one in Kashmir is not simply black or white, because beneath the current conflict lies a much less well-known tragedy ... the tragedy of the Kashmiri Hindus. Ten years ago, the area's total of 350,000 Hindus had to flee to the south - flee from Kashmir's Muslims. A tragedy which brings to mind today's Kosovo. Some were killed, some were scattered around the world but most of them continue to live packed together in hopelessly overfilled camps around Jammu. |
24:42 RAGHUVIR-SINGH Hindu refugee | It began with warnings from the mosques with slogans like: "An independent Kashmir with Hindu women but without Hindu men!" "Out with the infidel!" So we decided to leave Kashmir. |
|
24:40 |
| The Hindu refugees make an effort to educate their children in, amongst other things, languages and computer science despite the lack of computers. The Kashmiri Hindus used to be north India's spiritual elite, philosophers, poets and politicians. |
24:54 RAGHUVIR-SINGH Hindu refugee | Our culture and history is in ruins. We have been pulled up by the roots. |
|
25:03 |
| Like so many of his neighbours, this man was wealthy, had farmland and fruit plantations. Now they are almost all unemployed. Most have lost everything. |
25:12 Dr. AGNI SHEKAR Author | We are faced with the threat of extinction as a distinct ethno-religious community of Kashmir. We the Hindu pundits are the number one victim of Islamic fundamentalism. They are the victims of state and government policy. And at the same time we are victims of human rights organisations of this country even the international human rights organisations are yet to recognise the level of this criminality. |
|
25:52 |
| Bitterness amongst Hindus ... bitterness amongst Muslims such as Rafique. Kashmir is no longer paradise. |
Ends