Year 1989Beginning of the Nineties saw bombs and Klashnikov fire invade the centuries-old serenity of Kashmir Valley. The AK clatter and bomb blasts announced probably the darkest period of Kashmir history -- perhaps worse than 11th and 13th century Kashmir, when thousands perished in recurring, floods.
In 1989 the HAJY group (Hamid Sheikh, Ashfaq Majid, Javed Mir and Yasin Malik) launched the "militant movement" and saw an eruption of mass support.
The HAJY group -- acronym for four JKLF leaders, namely Hamid Sheikh, Ashfaq Majid, Javeed Mir and Yaseen Malik -- was the first to have crossed to Pakistani side for arms training. On their return, they were accorded good reception by the people. The foursome shot into prominence after abducting daughter of former Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and were successful in seeking release of their held accomplices in lieu. Hamid and Ashfaq were killed in encounters with security forces.
1989: Popular Insurgency or Terrorist movement?
With the rising discontent against the Indian Rule – long promised and denied self-determination, erosion of autonomy, consistently rigged elections and lack of employment opportunities – the 1987 rigged election was a watershed event in the Kashmiri politics. The Muslim United Front(MUF) candidate Mohammad Yousuf Shah was imprisoned though he was on the lead and he would later become Syed Salahuddin, chief of militant outfit Hizb-ul-Mujahedin (Hizb). His election aides (known as the HAJY group) - Abdul Hamid Shaikh, Ashfaq Majid Wani, Javed Ahmed Mir and Mohammed Yasin Malik - became disenchanted with the electoral farce and joined the JKLF.
Thousands of young disaffected Kashmiris in the Valley were recruited by the JKLF and a full-fledged Freedom Movement against the Indian Rule began in 1989. The insurgency was not only militant but also popular - Hundreds of thousands of unarmed people marched on the streets of Srinagar between January and May 1990 demanding a plebiscite. This popular insurgency was brutally handled by the hardline Governor Jagmohan by firing indiscriminately at unarmed demonstrators. An officially estimated 10,000 desperate Kashmiri youth crossed over to Pakistan for training and procurement of arms.
March 30, 1990
Chief Commander of JKLF, Ashfaq Majid Wani, martyred by Indian forces.
A leading pro-independence militant was killed in fighting in Jammu and Kashmir today and 10 other people died in a separate incident, the authorities said. The deaths struck a blow against the powerful movement that has swept the region for more than four months.
The incidents followed clashes on Thursday in Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, where 11 people, including a paramilitary soldier, were killed in shootings between militants and security forces.
Some news reports said the others who died were militants and their supporters. Other accounts said they were civilians, including a child, who were shopping in the area and who were caught by bullets when troops fired back at the militants.
Both sides have stepped up their activities recently, the militants with attacks and gun battles with troops and the security forces withsweeping searches. Thousands Defy Curfew
The police in Srinagar said tens of thousands of people were defying a curfew and taking part in the funeral of Ashfaq Majid, who was identified as one of four area commanders of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, the main group campaigning for separation from India.
A spokesman for the Indian Government said Mr. Majid and others attacked a security patrol early this morning and that he died when a hand grenade exploded in his hand as he was about to throw it at the troops. Ashfaq Maji Wani (Tyndale Biscoe product) was 23, and JKLF commander-in-chief, when he was shot dead in an encounter with Indian security forces in March 1990.
The incident is widely seen as the beginning of the continuing anti-India surge that has spread in the Vale of Kashmir, which is Muslim-dominated.
The Government had announced a $2,000 award for his capture. Mr. Majid was considered as a top ideologue and strategist for the liberation front, which is the best-armed and most organized of more than two dozen pro-independence groups in Kashmir.
Residents said in telephone interviews that Srinagar was tense after Mr. Majid's killing. A local journalist said about 50,000 people gathered near the police headquarters demanding they be allowed to join the funeral procession. The permission was given, and a police official said ''people are coming out everywhere.'' Tight security by troops was enforced at the funeral site.
Amanullah Khan, JKLF
According to Mr Khan: 'I told Mr Malik that he could become chairperson of the organisation but I couldn't agree with him. I want the entire State to be independent but he wants only one part. We lost Ashfaq Majid at a wrong time. He was not full of himself. Mr Malik is'.
Abdul Ahad Waza, JKLF
Waza confirms that Sheikh Rashid's (Pakistan Information Minister) farmhouse near Rawalpindi was not merely used as a guest house for the Kashmiri militants but also as "arms storage" for JKLF trainees from 1987 to 1992. According to him, the Pakistan minister's house, ironically known as "Safe House", functioned as a transit camp for the JKLF militants organised by the outfit's founder Amanullah Khan and guarded by "men of Pakistani army in civvies". Waza stayed in the same premises several times in 1988, the year he had launched himself on the spectrum of the militancy. What lends further credence to his assertions is that all the names he has mentioned are correct, whether they are of lesser-known militants or of Hilal Beg, Hameed Sheikh, Aijaz Ahmad Dar and Ashfaq Majid, all of whom are no more, or of Yasin Malik, Javed Mir and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar among the surviving lot.
Ceasefire or betrayal - from relatives of "Kashmir martyrs"
"Betrayal" is one of the first words to escape Abdul Majid Wani's lips when conversation turns to the recent separatist ceasefire in Kashmir.
While some see hope in the ceasefire initiative taken by the top Kashmiri separatist group, Hizbul Mujahideen, and subsequent offer of talks from New Delhi, Wani and hundreds of others whose sons, husbands and brothers have died fighting Indian rule in Kashmir see it as a denial of the sacrifice made by the "Kashmir martyrs."
"The ceasefire announcement was a great shock," said Wani, 63, whose son Ashfaq was one of the founder members of the Kashmiri uprisings and a one-time leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
"It is a personal betrayal of my son's sacrifice. As far as I am concerned, these people (Hizbul Mujahideen) are traitors."
His son is buried at Eidgah. Ashfaq Majeed Wani, one of the first young men to take up arms against India, was killed on March 30, 1990. He was 23, and when his father identified the body, he counted 21 bullet holes. Ashfaq was also missing several fingers, and the elder Mr. Wani proudly speculated that his son died with a grenade in hand.
There are more than 1,000 simple graves in the cemetery, which is beside a soccer field. Mr. Wani conducted a brief tour, pausing at one marker or another to describe more death. At the end of one row rested a 4-year-old, Master Shaheed Yawar, killed in a crossfire. Mr. Wani did not want the poetics on a nearby sign to be missed.
It said: ''Do not shun the gun, my dear younger ones. The war for freedom is yet to be won.''
Ashfaq Maji Wani was 23, and JKLF commander-in-chief, when he was shot dead in an encounter with Indian security forces in March 1990.
Several hundred thousand people turned out for his funeral, despite an army-enforced curfew.
"That was a tribute, not to him, but to the cause of Kashmiri independence," Wani said.
The JKLF announced a ceasefire in 1994. Wani was among those who bitterly criticized the move and now feel the Hizbul Mujahideen are making the same error.
"They have fallen into the same Indian trap that ensnared the JKLF in '94," he said.
"The JKLF were bought with promises of some sort of peaceful solution, but the killing of JKLF members continued after the ceasefire."
For all his bitterness, Wani himself never took up arms, and had done his best to persuade his son against an armed struggle.
"I knew the military potential of India, especially all the experience it had with insurgencies in Punjab and the northeast.
"But for my son and many like him, armed militancy in the late 1980s was not an option, but a compulsion."
Wani's main bone of contention with the Hizbul Mujahideen ceasefire was that the declaration was made without consultation with other separatist groups.
"Hizbul is the largest Kashmiri militant group and as the main target of the counter-insurgency operations, it suffered the highest casualties.
"So, I understand their compulsions, but am extremely upset that the ceasefire declaration was taken without taking into account sister organizations," he said. "We need to maintain a united front."
Wani and his family commemorate his son's death twice a year, following both Christian and Muslim calendars, by visiting his son's tomb in "martyrs graveyard."
Wani said he and his son had accepted that fighting with the separatist groups was more than likely to have fatal consequences.
"I told him: Martyrdom is written on your right hand and victory on your left."
Wani's wife was vehemently opposed to Ashfaq's decision to take up arms, and "still blames me for misguiding him," Wani said.
"But to this day, I am deeply proud of my son. He has done a service to the nation of Kashmir."
Wani was recently approached by other families who had lost relatives in the uprising and who wanted him to help form a group to give them a voice.
"Our young people didn't die for a ceasefire," said Beba Begum, 65, whose son Shabir joined the uprising and was shot dead in 1990 at the age of 22.
"My son died fighting for Allah and for the freedom of the Kashmiri people. How is this ceasefire going to lead to anything?" she said.
Gowher Ahmed Choudhury was just 13 when the uprising began in 1989. His elder brother Sajjad was not a fighter but was allegedly killed in police custody in April 10, 1993 after being picked up in a mass security sweep in Srinagar.
For Choudhury, there is no sense of betrayal, but he still opposes the ceasefire as a piecemeal step that can never deliver the Kashmiri freedom he believes his brother indirectly died for.
"This is not an issue that can be decided by one group or one initiative. It is an issue for the whole of Kashmir."
April 6, 2003
Special functions were organised by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKNF) in different parts of the world on the martyrdom anniversaries of Shaheed-i-Kashmir Ashfaq Majid Wani, Shaheed-i- Hikmat Dr Abdul Ahad Guroo and Shaheed-i-Insaf Jaleel Ahmad Andrabi.
"I cannot drink water
It is mingled with the blood of young men who have died up in the mountains.
I cannot look at the sky; It is no longer blue; but painted red.
I cannot listen to the roar of the gushing stream
It reminds me of a wailing mother next to the bullet-ridden body of her only son.
I cannot listen to the thunder of the clouds
It reminds me of a bomb blast.
I feel the green of my garden has faded Perhaps it too mourns.
I feel the sparrow and cuckoo are silent Perhaps they too are sad." ?
