WORLD REPORT; Vol. 109, No. 20; Pg. 52
Bleeding Kashmir
By Emily MacFarquhar
Srinagar
Arson and torture in the name of order
On a rubble-strewn lot in downtown Srinagar, two women wander dazedly in the ruins of a mosque while a dozen men hack at mounds of broken brick and blackened plaster, carrying off basket loads of debris on their heads. Ghulam Quadir, a local bank manager, surveys the slow-moving cleanup from the only clear space for miles around -- a 10-foot square of cement that used to be his kitchen floor. The rest of Quadir's four-story house went up in smoke last month, along with 125 other buildings.

This conflagration in the capital of India's half of divided Kashmir, like at least a dozen similar incidents in the once idyllic valley, was sparked by an exchange of gunfire between insurgents and the Indian Border Security Force. The state's governor, G.S. Saxena, recently insisted that 90 percent of the fires were set by "militants." But former occupants of the devastated areas say they saw men in khaki sprinkle gunpowder, light it, then keep firefighters away at gunpoint.

Smoldering ruins. The torching of Kashmir began in mid-July after the governor authorized troops to use "deadly force" against suspected terrorists and to demolish their "hideouts." Since then, between 1,500 and 3,500 shops and homes have been destroyed. A week after an October 27 arson attack in Anantnag, people were still trying to salvage their charred belongings.

Dozens of people have died in these fires, and dozens more have been shot in the security sweeps that usually follow. Search-and-despoil missions have become daily events in the Kashmir valley. Local human-rights activists claim that women are molested and often gang-raped after male householders have been herded out for interrogation. By official account, more than 1,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since last winter, when a few thousand Kashmiris took up arms against Indian rule and India sent in 150,000 paramilitary men and soldiers.

Frustration with years of misgovernment and manipulation by New Delhi, as well as their own bleak economic prospects, has turned middle-class Kashmiri Muslims into insurgents. Since then, the indiscriminate violence of the security forces -- which are virtually all Hindu -- has enlarged the ranks of terrorists and transformed local disaffection into deep anti-Indian passion. "We pray that India will disintegrate," says a lawyer.

A lawyers' report on conditions of Kashmiri prisoners in Indian jails catalogs tortures from electric shock to sodomy. Lawyers have submitted 3,000 habeas corpus petitions on behalf of the incarcerated; none has been acted upon.

All 137,000 government workers in the valley have walked off the job, the first time a local administration in India has been shut down so long. For two months, no government services have operated, except for electricity, water and emergency medicine. The strikers are not asking for money; they want the reinstatement of five top civil servants who protested against military atrocities, and they want the reopening of the only court in the valley empowered to deal with terrorist charges.

Although Kashmiris claim to have lost faith in Indian justice, they still pursue the available channels of redress. But their pleas have gone largely unheard in India, where Kashmir has been consigned to the back burner. Even India's Muslims show little feeling for the Muslims of Kashmir, except to worry that a Hindu backlash could turn against them.

Kashmiris have no illusions that their "boys," some of whom are being trained and equipped in Pakistan, can defeat the Indian Army. They know, too, that the change of government in Delhi is unlikely to bring any new, nonmilitary approach to their problem. They believe their only hope is to remind the world, by terrorism or legalism or any other means, about 40-year-old promises of self-determination. "We have as many United Nations resolutions backing us as Kuwait does," one Kashmiri after another exclaims.