'Pak. agencies masterminded Chattisinghpora massacre'

NEW YORK, DEC. 31. Residents of Chattisinghpora village in Jammu and Kashmir, the scene of massacre of 35 sikhs in March this year, are convinced that the attack was part of a conspiracy by the Pakistani intelligence agencies, but are forced to adopt a tactical ambivalence for fear of another attack, a report published in the New York Times said today.

The massacre, which had taken place on the eve of the U.S. president Bill Clinton's visit to India, had grabbed worldwide headlines.

``Our people have been killed by a conspiracy of the intelligence agencies of Pakistan,'' an elderly Sikh of the village was quoted in the report as saying.

But no fingers are being pointed at these agencies following the counsel of some of India's leading Sikhs, it said, adding ``They (Sikh leaders) believe that if their people were to stay in the Kashmir Valley, good relations had to be maintained with the surrounding Muslim majority which (while exhausted by the endless violence) was largely sympathetic to the militants.'' ``One month before the massacre,'' the Sikh said, ``there were militants who spent time in our village. They were from Pakistan. They made friends with us. And this is how we were thanked with a barbaric act.'' The report said while such stopovers were hardly uncommon, these guerrillas were exceptional in their casualness. ``They had even strung their rifles on trees once and watched a game of cricket.''

Now, most villagers feel they were only scouting the village as a suitable target. A few widows said they had recognised the voices of the men at their doors who led their husbands to their deaths. ``The marauders seemed to know where people lived and had even called out some names,'' the villagers told the New York Times correspondent.

`No regrets'

Suhail Malik, a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant from Sialkot, who was also interviewed by the New York Times in an Indian prison, said he had no regrets for participating in the massacre. ``I used my weapons when commanded... We are told what to do and not why. Later, we were told not to talk about it,'' the 18-year-old Malik said.

``The Koran teaches us not to kill innocents. (But) if the Lashkar-e-Taiba told us to kill those people (Sikhs), then it was right to do it. I have no regrets.''

``When I was sent here from Pakistan, I was told the Indian Army kills Muslims. It treats them badly and burns their mosques and refuses to let them pray. They must be freed from these clutches,'' he said.

Malik sneaked into India in October 1999, with the equivalent $200 as expense money. He took part only in two attacks before the Chattisinghpora massacre - one on an Army outpost and the other on a bus carrying soldiers.

- PTI

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