The Hindu : In Bandipora, the barrel of the gun still rules

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 17, 2002

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Other States - Jammu & Kashmir

In Bandipora, the barrel of the gun still rules

By Anjali Mody

SONAWARI/BANDIPORA/SOPORE SEPT. 16 . In Sangrama village, a BSF patrol party went door-to-door demanding that the people go out and vote. When we reached the village we found the patrol party asking men to show them the ink mark to prove they had voted. When we asked what they were doing, one BSF soldier said "our duty.''

The villagers said this had been going on since early morning. Eighteen-year-old Shaheen said "they threaten the men... they came with a car and tried to make my father go to the polling station.'' "It is our choice, whether we vote or not... they cannot force us.''

Nazir Ahmed Malik, whose home we saw the BSF leave, said that they had been there once earlier. The story was repeated across the village where some 90 people out of 1,200 had voted at the end of polling. Outside the polling station too, men said they had been forced to come.

But there was one segment in this quadrant of north Kashmir where voters said they had turned out voluntarily. This was Sonawari, which in 1996 returned the former militant-turned counter-insurgent, Kuka Parray. By mid-morning over 20 per cent of the voters exercised their franchise at booths where poll officials sat in bullet-proof gear.

Parray himself was found drinking tea at his house in Hajin village with just two supporters for company. A sign, said those in the know, that he is not expecting to do well. In Hajin no one seemed to think this was a certainty. And in Ander Kout, not far from there, people spoke in muted voices of wanting a change, and how the previous election had been won through the barrel of the gun.

It is the barrel of the gun that still rules in the neighbouring Assembly segment, Bandipora. Here the fear of the militants' gun is as important a factor as disgust with a "fraudulent election'' in keeping people away from the polling booths. All night, before polling day, the sound of gunfire was heard from the mountains overlooking Bandipore town. And just two days ago two men, including a National Conference worker from Aitmula village, Ghulam Hasan Butt, were killed by suspected militants. Fewer than 10 of the 1,333 voters had turned out to vote in this village, and the locals said that even the Army would not be able to make them vote.

At Sonarwani village, a short distance away, election officials and agents were having lunch in the polling station on the banks of the Madhumati canal. The only votes polled were of two election agents. They did not expect anymore. The election agent for the People's Democratic Party said that anyone who voted, or tried to bring someone to vote, could expect to be killed. There were pamphlets posted in the villages in the upper reaches warning people of violent consequences.

Shopkeepers in Bandipore town downed shutters in support of the Hurriyat's call for a hartal. The few men on the street insisted that they were boycotting the poll and that fear of militant attacks had nothing to do with this. At the district hospital, doctors who said they routinely dealt with bullet injuries and victims of torture, described the elections as a scam. They said they did not believe in "the type of democracy which is only about power and not about what the people of Kashmir want.''

On the other side of the Wular in Sopore Assembly segment, life was at a standstill. In Warapora village, the three heavily fortified polling stations had, until an hour before polls ended, recorded zero votes.

Young men who had gathered outside said even so "Farooq Abdullah, will claim that 2,000 votes were cast for the NC.'' It was the NC's "Khandani Haq'' (Dynastic right). They spoke of the threats issued by Lashkar-e-Taiba and carried in Nidai-e-Mashrik, but added, "but people here are not just afraid, they actually do not want to vote.''

Sopore town was deserted with only children playing cricket in the streets. And its polling stations had received voters numbering zero to seven.

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