The Hindu : Their sacrifice goes unnoticed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 17, 2003

National

National

Their sacrifice goes unnoticed

By Luv Puri

Poonch Aug. 16. Mohammad Ayub, with his two daughters, his wife and hastily-packed belongings, is looking for a "safe house" in Poonch town. He is part of several Muslim nomads called Gujjars who recently ran away from their ancestral habitats around a remote hillock called Hari following a series of militant attacks. Their crime: they were dubbed informers.

Not a day passes without militants attacking a Gujjar family, including women and children, in the region. Most of those killed in the area in the last few years have been Gujjars. Says Javed Rana, local Gujjar MLA: "In the last few years more than 500 Gujjars have been killed. The list of those injured is still to be collected but the number would not be less than a thousand." "Where are the Self-Protection Mechanism, security pickets and the compensation packages?" "Does the country have any idea about the ethnic cleansing of our community going on in these heights and is it aware of the sacrifices the community is making for the nation," asks Mohammad Bashir, another member of the community.

Whenever a militant is killed in the neighbourhood, the finger of suspicion falls on the Gujjar family living near by. The scars of the massacre of 15 members of the community in February 2001 in the Kot Charwal area of Rajouri are still fresh.

It is almost a year since the 2002 Assembly elections but the militants have not pardoned the community for defying their orders not to vote. Several community leaders are on the militants' hit-list and many prominent members have been killed. Six Gujjars of Kotdhara are undergoing treatment at a Rajouri hospital after militants chopped off their noses more than a month ago. Around the same time, an entire Gujjar family was wiped out in the Bela area of the Pir Panjal range.

For years, the community has been demanding a Gujjar territorial force but successive Central Governments have ignored it. "They make loads of promises when they come here but they forget us when they reach the corridors of power," says Razak, a 23-year-old youth.

The Gujjars' support is critical for any counter-insurgency operations in the Pir Panjal ranges as they know the terrain better than anyone else.Having lived in the area for centuries, the community makes a bid for survival in hostile conditions but demands recognition for its sacrifices.

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