Living in the valley of fear and suspicion

Tracing a Kashmiri girl sponsored by a Kargil martyr
Rajesh Ramachandran in Kupwara
Mail Today, September 24, 2009
LURE of the easy lucre is supposed to have made the dramatic turnaround in the Kashmiri militancy possible, tempting many to shed slogans, sell the separatist ideology and betray their brethren. But the informer or mukhbir , the central piece in the counter- insurgency jigsaw or worse his family could often be a much- maligned and vulnerable sore thumb in society.
The search for a girl sponsored by a Kargil martyr ended in the miserable story of a family that lives in the shadow of suspicion, in the valley of fear. Capt. Vijyant Thapar, a young Army officer who died capturing the Knoll Peak in Drass during the Kargil conflict, had in his last letter asked his father, retired Col V. N. Thapar to send Rs 50 every month to Ruksana. But this association is not something her family relishes, though these poor people are grateful for the money.
“ Saab, fauj ko bhagawo !” Anxious Aslam Bhatt pointed towards his gate and made a desperate plea to shoo away the Army patrol that had stopped to check an unfamiliar vehicle in this remote north Kashmir village of Taras Kandi.
Bhatt has reasons to be scared. Thapar, as a young lieutenant of 2 Rajputana Rifles was posted in Kupwara and knew Ruksana’s father Akbar Rather. While the family denies that he ever worked for the Army or Thapar, others believe he was an informer who passed on valuable information about militants.
Soon, the militants descended and sprayed bullets on Rather, killing him instantly. That was in July 1996 or 1997 — even the widow Amina Begum is not sure when. Life has been tough for them and dates and events have become blurred in the battle for survival.
Bhatt was beaten up, his left shoulder dislocated and his right hand broken just four years ago by militants who came looking for his namesake, Aslam Rather, Ruksana’s brother who was then just a 14- year- old boy. They wanted to kill the boy, just as they killed his father.
Ruksana’s mother Amina had brought the children to Bhatt’s house as she didn’t want to take her visitors to the measly two-room tenement on the mountain slope near the jungles. More importantly, she didn’t want the prying neighbours to know that she has visitors from Delhi.
“ I vouched for the boy and had given an undertaking to the militants that none of us would have anything to do with the Army. But with your visit, the neighbours would think that an officer had come from Delhi with Army men guarding you,” Bhatt said.
No doubt, militancy has almost been wiped off and the neighbours are not rebels. But the fear of being branded a traitor is immense. Traitor not necessarily to any lofty cause, but apparent proximity to power fuels suspicion and resentment among the villagers. Even when Thapar used to drop by to give Ruksana her school fees and Rs 50every month, the family had asked him not to come.
Ruksana, now a girl of 14, doesn’t remember Thapar. But she vividly remembers the trip to Delhi and meeting the martyr’s father a few months ago. The phone he gifted doesn’t work in the Valley.
“ We will tell our neighbours that some officers from the electricity department had come to check why Ruksana’s mother is not attending work. She got a Class IV job on compassionate grounds after her husband was killed,” Bhatt said.
The life of the informer’s kin is a parable of deception, even when they are victims.