Burhan Wani’s legacy to Bamdoora village

Even as security forces prepared themselves for protests in Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani’s hometown of Tral in South Kashmir on the first anniversary of his death on Saturday, the village where he was killed in a battle with security forces has a different pall over it.

On June 29, 2017, I visited Kavpora, a neighbourhood in the village Bamdoora, around 75 kilometres from Srinagar. This is the same region where Burhan died in an encounter, along with his fellow militants Sartaj Ahmad Sheikh and Pervaiz Ahmad Lashkari on July 8 last year. They died in a shoot out with a joint team of the special operations group of the Jammu and Kashmir Police and 19 Rashtriya Rifles.

The neighbourhood is a narrow lane, separated by a small brook from the main road. From a distance, the first sight I caught was of an amalgamation of newly built cement structures adjacent to the debris of old houses. There were some makeshift sheds made out of leftover building material, containing partially burnt wooden planks, with rusty metal sheets for roofs. In one corner of the neighbourhood there is a small, shack, six by six feet– the house of Farooq Ahmad Wani. “This used to be our latrine”, Farooq told me, as I met him and his family. A few days after the militants were killed, rumours abounded in the area that Farooq’s family had collaborated with security forces subduing Burhan. There were even reports that the militants had been poisoned to death. Part of this can be attributed to the confusion surrounding the events of that day. India Today reported the different theories and rumours that spread in the wake of the fight.

People began rioting in the area, attacking Farooq’s house on July 13, 2016. Eight other houses were torched.

“Seventy people and eleven families were left homeless”, Bilal Ahmad, whose house was also burnt, told me. Bilkis, Farooq’s daughter, said that she still finds it difficult to make sense of what happened, “I pleaded with them to at least spare the properties of other families”. She added that the mob did not stop, and in fact, hit her with sticks. “He was my sister’s son, how could I imagine killing him?” Farooq demanded. However, when Farooq’s family went to Sartaj’s village Peertaqi to perform the last rites, he remembers that on the fourth day, they had to return home as his sister’s family confronted them about the deaths. “They called us killers and mukhbirs (collaborators)”, he recounted. But when Farooq’s family was away, their house was visited by numerous groups of people, “They shot videos, clicked photos and left”, Bilal recalled.

He thought that it was all peaceful and did not foresee any trouble. “But in the next two days they went berserk and even wanted to kill the animals belonging to our families”, he revealed. In the room where we sat, Farooq showed me tap openings in the pipes behind my head, “Nalke walke sorouy nyuvuk (They took everything, including the taps)”, he divulged. Bilkis believed that the mob attack was planned and not the typical frenzy, saying, “All the gold was missing from our lockers”. She said the families were left with only the clothes on their backs. The families have registered an FIR in the Kokernag police station. I talked to a police official, and he told me that an FIR with respect to vandalisation of houses had been registered on the same day and the matter was under investigation. Nine people have been arrested while six remain to be arrested.

Ghulam Qadir Wani, a government teacher, whom I met on July 6, lives around 100 metres from Farooq’s residence. He said that he was present when the mob burnt down the houses, pointing out, “These were young men with masks, old men and even women”.

When asked why they attacked the Wanis, he reported that days after the incident, videos began to surface purporting to be taken inside Farooq’s house, showing blood on the walls. But he maintained, “When I visited the place during the first four days, there were no blood marks or anything that was suspicious”. Qadir also believed that the mob was being guided by someone. He disclosed that, “Earlier the mob wished to save Nazir Ahmad’s house, (which is at the beginning of the street) but after some time the mob came back and burnt the house”. Qadir also agreed with Bilkis,“Nazir Ahmad’s family are well off, they had expensive bathroom ware that was stolen from his house.” Qadir added that it was not just outrage about Burhan, there were also some personal issues that people had with Farooq and Nazir.

He speculated that perhaps people in the village were angry about not receiving wood from the Bamdoora wood market that was being operated by the two. There was also anger in some of the people from other villages, as they were unhappy with the share of irrigation water via Bamdoora. Afroza, Qadir’s wife, recalled masked young men coming to burn their house and saying, “Haven’t you rented a place yet?” She revealed, that she told them that they were not related to Farooq though Qadir is Farooq’s cousin. The mob ultimately decided not to go inside the house. She narrated, “Then one of them put hands on my son’s shoulder and said ‘show us Farooq’s orchard’”. She pleaded with them and told them that they did not know anything.

Afroza used to work at a maternity hospital at Sherbagh in Anantnag town. She recalled that even 20-25 days after the death of Burhan, people would randomly check the identity cards of strangers and attack them if they were from Bamdoora, “I myself saw many of my patients being beaten up in hospital”, she elucidated. It was because of this that she requested the chief medical officer to transfer her away from the hospital.

Ishfaq Ahmad who works as a milkman in the nearby town of Doru Shahabad had a similar story.  Last year, while travelling on his motorcycle, a group of young men checked his identity card, “When they got to know that I am from Bamdoora, they slapped me many times and asked me to leave the area”, he rued.

Bilal told me though there was considerable decrease in the violence after Hizbul Mujahideen militant Ashraf Khan condemned the mob attack in a speech, yet the fear of mob violence persisted. “For 45 days, my family would move from one place to another. Later some of us would flee in the daytime and return at night”, he narrated. Qadir added that the whole village faced mental harassment for around three months, “The mob would come to Kavpora and shout slurs and abuses calling us ‘Mukhbir-Gaddar, Bamidorkyav bokvachi phachve (People of Bamdoora, may your kidneys burst)’, and we would sit quietly in our houses”, he reported. During this time, Qadir’s friends advised him to refrain from disclosing the name of his village in public, as it would mean inviting unnecessary trouble. Qadir claimed the situation has changed now and things are slowly returning to normal.

However, the young people I met by the roadside in Bamdoora had other views. Manzoor Ahmad, a tractor driver, doesn’t believe that things are getting back to normal. Manzoor works in the nearby villages, and said that he still hears ‘mukhbir gamuk’ (from the village of collaborators), and has often gotten into fights. In one such instance, in Hillar, the elders of the village had to intervene to sort out the matter. Although Manzoor agrees that things have improved since last year but some things have changed forever.

Bilal described how this Eid, the young boys of the village felt scared going to the nearby recreational garden in Kokernag. “You know what young boys do at this age, but the boys of our village are too frightened”.

Bilal said several marriages were called off because of the stigma attached to the village. “A woman told me, ‘son, please don’t come to our village looking for marriage partners’”. Saleem Mir (name changed on request), whose shop is on the village road that connects numerous other villages, verbalised the pain, “Every day, at least one person will pop his head out from the window of the vehicle and spit slurs and abuses”. Manzoor added that since last year not a single marriage has taken place with anyone from outside the village. Ishfaq, who has already gone back to work in Doru Shahabad, told me his friends often make jibes at him for coming from a mukhbir village. He is confused if it is in jest or they are serious.

Bilal declared that he gets frightened even on seeing an assembly of more than four people around the site of the encounter. According to the The Hindu, separatists, including the Hurriyat Conference factions led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and the JKLF led by Yasin Malik, have asked supporters to march to Tral to pay tributes to Burhan Wani. All roads leading to Tral were closed and authorities have seized thousands of motorbikes to prevent people travelling between villages in the area.

And stories of clashes between protesters and security personnel in Tral certainly don’t help matters. There are plans for protesters to gather in the village as well. The villagers had decided to send the youth towards the nearby hills to avoid any sudden escalation of tensions in the heat of the moment. However, Bilal stressed, “If they behave peacefully, we shall protest together with them”.