When Army announced from Delhi that a court martial probing the Macchil fake encounter has concluded its trial and awarded life sentence to six soldiers including a Colonel and a Major rank officer, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah welcomed the “watershed moment”. Asserting that “no one in Kashmir ever believed that justice would be done in such cases”, Omar hoped Kashmir never sees Macchil encounters again.
Regardless of the criticism that Army is getting on timing of releasing the conclusions of the court martial and skipping its liability in other major cases of violation of human rights, Maccil needs a relook. This fake encounter in which the gang of soldiers killed the three innocuous and innocent Rafiabad youth was the starter of a crisis that world knows as 2010 mass unrest.
The group of youth in Srinagar who were protesting against this very encounter, weeks after the state police investigated the case and exhumed the bodies, were fired upon. Tufail Matoo, the ninth grader was killed in this incident and that started the entire 2010 crisis. Police with the paramilitary forces that worked under it, continued hunting youths like never before and by the end of August, the count across Kashmir had crossed 120.
It is fourth year since those killings. The crisis that triggered in the follow up forced New Delhi to consider Omar Abdullah government’s dismissal, an action that his friend Rahul Gandhi preempted by throwing his weight behind him. Later, Delhi sent an all party delegation that had interactions with various stake holders and gave an impression that the entire political class is pained. Lack of follow up negated the claims later. A decimated tourist season and collapse of the economic activity for most of the season led to a relief of Rs 150 crore each to Ladakh and Jammu regions!
Omar Abdullah was presiding over the regime that was responsible for all this. Four years after when Omar is busy seeking reelection of his party and is appreciative of the army’s court martial proceedings, he needs to answer many things.
In most of the killings, the state police was directly involved. Could Kashmir know, what was the number of cases that were registered against the police? What is the number of cops who were arrested or convicted for the crimes they committed? What was the action that Omar Abdullah government initiated against the paramilitary forces who prevented even the movement of the ambulances during the day?
It was only this summer that Omar government forced a commission of enquiry into 2010 after NC lost all the three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir. While the Commission may one day make some conclusions, Kashmir knows it better that it is a standard time pass. Let Omar know that his government frustrated all efforts of Matoo’s parents in proving that their only son was killed by police. Omar must stop preaching.
