An Outlook team visited Chitsinghpura last fortnight and interviewed family members of the victims, locals, independent observers, government officials and officials of intelligence agencies. The conclusion we arrived at after our investigation is that there's nothing that can be called evidence to prove the involvement of Indian intelligence agencies or security forces. By all accounts, the massacre was the handiwork of militants. But what has made the needle of suspicion point towards the Indian side has been the crude manner in which the armed forces and the police acted in the aftermath of the killings. In an over-enthusiastic exercise to prove themselves innocent, the security forces, police and agencies have raised doubts about their own involvement.
People in Chitsinghpura, particularly the women—the worst losers—are convinced the killers were militants. The carnage is etched in their minds and their eyewitness accounts paint a vivid picture of the meticulously-planned massacre. Some facts that seem to point to a militant strike are:
When the incident hit the headlines, no one doubted the fact that it was a militant strike on the day of the Clinton visit. But for some inexplicable reason, the police and the security forces thought it necessary to prove that the killers were actually militants. There was of course considerable pressure on them to identify and capture the perpetrators quickly. But that does not justify their grotesque folly.
Five villagers from Pathribal were picked up and killed a few days after the incident and a beaming Farooq Khan, AnantnagSSP, declared that "the dreaded terrorists have become history". It was later revealed that those killed were innocent civilians. Indeed, the desperation of the security forces to clear their name became evident when the bodies of the so-called militants were exhumed after people in Anantnag took to the streets.
The police and the CRPF made matters worse when, in end-March, they fired on demonstrators in Brakpora demanding the identification of the five villagers. The two events set tongues wagging. But suspicions were confirmed when Farooq released the Justice S.R. Pandian report which indicted the police andCRPF for firing indiscriminately on the procession. Justice Pandian also stated in his report that the Brakpora firing was linked with the Pathribal killings and the Chitsinghpura incident.
This observation has set alarm bells ringing. The security forces are now worried that the Chitsinghpura probe may lead to more demands for inquiries into other incidents that occurred in the past decade.
So, instead of welcoming the enquiry, the security forces, backed by intelligence agencies, are now trying to project the Chitsinghpura massacre as an open-and-shut case. In doing so, they are only heightening the levels of suspicion. Their latest trumpcard—who might prove an embarrassment—is Mohammad Suhail Malik alias Amir alias Hafeez, a "Lashkar-e-Toiba" militant from Sialkot, Pakistan.
Malik was arrested by the J&K police from Aligarh at the instance of the Intelligence Bureau in August. In his "confession", Malik has stated: "On March 21, 2000, Abu Waheed (a Lashkar militant) again came to our hideout in Barang area and directed four of us, i.e. myself, Abu Hamza, Abu Saad and Aby Hyder. He brought us to an apple orchard at about 7 pm and introduced us to Lashkar group commander Abu Hassan and Abu Salma. Abu Hassan had brought uniforms and he asked us to wear them over civilian clothes. We wore caps and black patkas on our heads." Interestingly, Malik talks in detail about what they were ordered to wear but nowhere in his statement does he mention the gulal the killers had smeared their faces with.
In his statement, Malik says that he and his colleagues spent about 40 days in their hideout from where he was sent to Aligarh via Jammu. Sources say that when he was picked up at Aligarh, a fake Aligarh Muslim University identity card was recovered from his person, a claim rubbished by a top state official. Clearly, many in the state government do not see eye-to-eye with the central security agencies. And if the official's information is correct, security agencies will have a lot to explain to Justice Pandian.
When the Outlook team spoke to the villagers of Chitsinghpura, women in particular were categorical in blaming the militants. "I am sure they were militants. They called for our men by their names and spoke a mix of Punjabi and Pushtu—quite similar to what the Pathans speak in the neighbouring village of Chattrimaidan," Kulwant Kaur toldOutlook. Kulwant's husband Uttam Singh and brother Rishpal Singh were killed in the carnage.
The villagers have yet not been able to get over the fact that their village was targeted by militants. They openly admit that militants had been frequenting the village ever since the beginning of militancy, but had never threatened the villagers. On the contrary, they "used to play cricket with our boys". Recounts Ravinder Singh, a 12-year-old eyewitness to the killings: "I'm sure they were militants. I know that because they used to play cricket with us and I could recognise their voices. Also, they wore canvas shoes like the militants."
The villagers point out that the movement of the militants had stepped up before the massacre. Says Narinder Kaur, wife of Gurbaksh Singh, one of the victims, "The militants had been visiting our village for the past 12 years but two months before the massacre, their activity had increased. And just one week before the killings, they visited out village more than three times and watched the men gather at the two gurudwaras in the evening."
Another eyewitness, Dheeraj Kaur, whose husband Niranjan Singh was killed, is convinced the killers knew each and every household. She and her husband were sitting in the verandah when a few armed men dressed in army uniforms barged into their compound."They spoke Pushtu and accented Punjabi. Then one of them said, ‘There is one more sardar in this house.' I was shocked, wondering how does the army know that my son-in-law is also living with us? Fortunately, he was away. The armed men did not believe us and ransacked our house looking for him. Then they locked me and my daughter inside the house and gunned down all the men one by one right outside our house."
There is more evidence to bolster Dheeraj's claim: the killers also called Joginder Singh alias Bittu by his name. According to his mother Kulbhushan Kaur, Bittu was a Special Police Officer(SPO). When he heard that men in uniform had come to the village for some combing operation, he came out of the house wearing his identity card. Says Kulbhushan, "They called him by his name and said ‘Bittu, neeche aa, teri zaroorat hai (Bittu come down, you are required here).' When he shouted ‘I am coming and I am an SPO, they said ‘Teri zyada zaroorat hai (We need you all the more)'."
However, Nanak Singh, the lone survivor of the massacre, avoided blaming either the militants or the security forces. "How can I say who they were? A bullet had pierced my hip. Then they shouted, ‘Jai Hind, Jai Mata di'. They were laughing among themselves and calling each other by Hindu names like Bansi, Bahadur." Nanak Singh says that one of the killers was six feet tall and stoutly-built and the killers addressed him as ‘CO sahib'.
As for the five innocent villagers who were killed, the police and intelligence agencies maintain that they were identified after the interrogation of Yakoob Waghe of Chitsinghpura. Say intelligence sources: "Yakoob gave a statement identifying five people involved in the massacre but later retracted his statement." Yakoob's uncle Abdul Wahab, a retired armyman, counters the allegation that his nephew was involved in the crime. "Yakoob was taken away the next day and was tortured. I told the cops we are armymen, we will not misguide anybody," he toldOutlook.
The last word on Chitsinghpura cannot be pronounced till a judicial investigation is carried out. As for the people, they are hopeful that a new precedent will be set and controversial killings will be inquired into and the guilty punished. No wonder newspapers in Srinagar are full of "Kashmir needs Justice Pandian" headlines.
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