Khonmoh encounter triggers PDP-BJP spat over ‘lax security’

On March 16, before sunlight had even broken the dawn, poet Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, 52, and his brother, Ghulam Mir, 60, watched all of their life’s savings, writings and memories razed to the ground.

The encounter that took place between security forces and militants in Khonmoh near Srinagar through March 16-17 cost the brothers their 50-year-old houses.

Three of four militants were gunned down – Owais Ahmad of Tral, Shabir Ahmad of Aghanzipora and Abu Hamas, a top commander from Pakistan. The location and identity of the fourth militant are still under investigation.

The militant attack was aimed at the district secretary of the BJP, Mohammad Anwar Khan from Baramulla. Khan, along with his personal security officer (PSO), had travelled to Khonmoh on March 15 to inaugurate Arsh Institute of Health Science & Technology.

Khan told Newslaundry that just as he stepped out of his car, he saw some movement near the gate. “I saw four men and they hadn’t even covered their faces. One of them lifted a gun from under his pheran and began firing,” he said.

Though Khan managed to escape unscathed, one of the bullets injured his PSO, Bilal Ahmad, who is currently being treated at the 92 Base hospital.

When security personnel began engaging with the militants – said to belong to Ansar Ghazwat ul-Hind led by Zakir Musa and associated with the al-Qaeda – the four men ran across the field to Balhama, a neighbouring village. This is the village where the Ghulam brothers live.

Houses razed to the ground overnight

Balhama, on the outskirts of Srinagar, is a quiet village dotted with mustard fields. “This was the first encounter in the village,” said Aijaz Mir, sub-divisional police officer, Pantha Chowk. The two brothers’ houses are on a slightly higher plane, from where one can see the rest of the village. This acts as a good vantage point for security personnel.

Around 1.30 pm on March 15, Bhat, his wife and children were in the garden when he saw four young men racing towards him. He also noticed that security personnel had already taken up position near his house.

As the four men came closer, two of them barged into Bhat’s house. “As soon as they entered, I started pushing my wife out. She refused to step out. One of the militants turned to her and said ‘we’ve come here to die, do you also want to meet the same fate’,” he said.

The family fled to safety, to a relative’s place down the village. Twenty minutes later, the brothers returned to find both their houses wrecked in the gunfire.

“Between us, our losses must add up to a crore,” said Ghulam Mir, showing the one kitchen that was spared since it sits slightly away from the two houses.

The rubble of the Ghulam brothers’ houses.

By the morning of March 17, two bodies had been discovered by the police as locals gathered to watch the teams of police, CRPF and bomb disposal squad clear the site.

As the Ghulam brothers and other villagers watched the ashes of the destruction being searched, the body of the third militant was discovered beneath the rubble.

The bomb disposal squad at the encounter site.

Kowsar, the 23-year-old neighbour of the Ghulam brothers, said she saw the four militants from her courtyard. “One wore a pheran and the other a sweater. I also saw that one of them had a pistol and another had a large gun,” she said.

The encounter also caused loss to Kowsar’s house. From the outside, one can see broken windows, bullet-ridden walls and a damaged window pane. “Since our house faces their house, security personnel took position inside our house and fired from here till 2 am on March 16. They also searched our house thoroughly. We are still putting things back in place,” she said.

Kowsar’s house, overlooking the encounter site.

Kashmir Police, the scapegoat

While we made our way out of the encounter spot, one of the local Kashmiri policemen walked up to us and said: “Ma’am, please don’t click any pictures of us Kashmiri policemen, it will be dangerous for us.”

In Kashmir, it’s not rare for local policemen to be targeted. Caught in the middle of the state versus anti-state debate, pro-freedom locals often get angry and aggressive with the Kashmiri policemen. So often, the local officers do not want their identities to be revealed.

PDP and BJP at loggerheads

Back in the BJP office in Srinagar, district secretary Khan sits with state media adviser Altaf Thakur and five other BJP members. They complain that the BJP has been demonised, targeted and attacked incessantly in Kashmir.

“Our office has suffered grenade attacks,” Thakur said. “Our families have received threats via phone and letters and our vehicles have been repeatedly targeted.”

Last November, Gowhar Hussain Bhat, the district president of the BJP’s youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), was found with his throat slit in an orchard in south Kashmir. Bhat’s was the first killing of a BJP leader in the Valley.

According to Thakur, BJP members in Kashmir face discrimination from the two big political parties in the state – PDP and National Conference.

“We have been asking for more PSOs and a bunker outside our Srinagar office for long now. This keeps happening to us because the PDP doesn’t want us to grow in Kashmir,” he said.

In October 2017, BJP’s youth wing held its first ever convention in the state. It was attended by Poonam Mahajan, president of the BJYM, and more than a thousand locals.

Thakur said the threats against the BJP members in Kashmir increased after this particular rally. They gave out a list of names of people who needed protection, to the government.

“Every six months, the CM holds a review meeting to assess who all require more security and who doesn’t. Both the ADG and IG of police reviewed the list and recommended five persons who should be granted security. Till now, nothing has been implemented. Why?” he asked.

In the Assembly elections held in J&K in November 2014, PDP became the single largest party with the BJP in second place. By March 2015, both parties signed up for an alliance.

Three years later, a clear rift is evident between the two.

PDP spokesperson Naeem Akhtar questioned why the BJP was complaining when Anwar, who was attacked, had a PSO with him. “He wasn’t saved due to divine intervention, was he?” he asked.

Akhtar said security is provided to political party members after due assessment of the perceived threat. “We (BJP and PDP) are governed by an agenda of alliance and the PDP is not discriminatory at all. This is a professional process and cannot happen according to one’s whims and fancies,” he added.

On the other hand, Tanvir Sadiq, political secretary to Omar Abdullah, the working president of the opposition National Conference (NC), said: “If a member of the governing party feels so insecure, one can only imagine how the security situation has deteriorated. He belongs to the party in power – they run governments both in the state and Centre. He needs to ask his own government why no adequate security is provided to them.”

In fact, Sadiq added that many NC activists and party leaders complain that their security has been withdrawn because they belong to the NC.

Yet, Thakur believes that it is the BJP which works more than any other party on the ground. “Most of our support comes from the Muslim youth of south Kashmir,” he said. “We have close to 4.3 lakh official members and 7 lakh unofficial members. Neither the NC nor PDP has more than 5 lakh members.”

PDP’s Akhtar refused to comment on the same.

According to NC’s Sadiq, the BJP has failed to make a substantial impact on the ground despite “desperately trying”.

“The figures they are quoting are far from reality,” he said. “If the majority of their members are from south Kashmir, why is it that they haven’t been able to hold a single major rally in the region?”

He also added that people support the BJP in Kashmir only “because they are currently in power and for some petty materialistic gains”.

While the war of words continues among politicians, villagers of Balhama are making arrangements for the Ghulam brothers and their families to live, until they build another home for themselves.