J&K police: ‘The bastard children of Kashmir’

With one day left for Eid-ul-Fitr, one of the biggest festivals in the Kashmir Valley, signs of celebration are visible all across. The roads throng with shoppers, bakeries overflow with delicacies, and preparations for a grand feast are in progress.

A red and blue tent has been raised outside Ghulam Hassan’s house in Rafiabad area of North Kashmir’s Baramulla district. Neighbours and relatives pour into the house and hug an elderly, paralysed man sitting quietly in the corner of the room. The tent outside Hassan’s house has not been set up for Eid, neighbours are not wearing festive clothes, the frail old man—Ghulam Hassan’s father—does not smile. 

During the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday, June 12, selection grade constables Ghulam Hassan and his colleague Ghulam Rasool were shot dead by militants outside the Pulwama District Court Complex. A few hours later, Hassan’s family, who were eagerly anticipating his return home for Eid, were told that Hassan was coming home a few days earlier than anticipated.

Except he was dead.

Survived by his ailing parents, wife and three sons, Hassan was the family’s sole breadwinner. His oldest son, 24-year-old Sajjad Ahmad, is an arts graduate and is unemployed. Hassan had joined the police force in 1998, and this year marked his 20 years of service.

“There is no respect left for the police in this society,” says Bashir Ahmad, a neighbour, and a retired police officer himself.  

In the last two days alone, the J&K police have been targeted and attacked. On Tuesday, both Ghulam Rasool and Ghulam Hassan were shot dead. Two days later, on Thursday night, a Special Police Officer (SPO) Rayees Ahmad Lone was shot near his house in South Kashmir’s Shopian. Lone, who suffered several bullet injuries, is undergoing treatment and is critical. His 12-year-old sister, who also suffered a bullet injury in her leg, is also hospitalised but her condition is stable.

J&K Police: an easy target

According to the J&K police website, there are 83,000 police personnel employed across the state.

In late 1995, during the peak of militancy in Kashmir, the government set up the Special Task Force (STF). The STF was a counterinsurgency division of the J&K police formed to help eliminate militancy from the Valley. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, the STF was formed to “create the impression that the counterinsurgency effort had local support”. Eventually, this division became known for its brutal interrogation techniques. HRW claims that the STF is to be held responsible for the violation of “fundamental norms of international human rights law”.

In 2002, the PDP government disbanded the infamous STF and merged them with the J&K police. This meant that since 2002, the J&K Police also became involved in the counterinsurgency. The J&K police is mostly made up of locals. Thus, the police personnel were now involved in anti-militancy operations, where they have to fight their own people.

As a result, they were a lot more vulnerable than before to militant attacks.

Consistent attacks

According to a report by Kashmir Life published last year, police officials claimed that 1,622 personnel from J&K had been killed in the last 28 years during their participation in counterinsurgency operations or due to targeted militant attacks.

The report also stated that from September 2015 to August 2016 alone, 42 J&K police personnel had been killed while “fighting militants”.

The Director General of Police in Kashmir, Shesh Paul Vaid, confirmed to Newslaundry that from January 2018 to June 2018, 25 security personnel lost their lives owing to militant attacks. Of the 25, three were part of the army, three were CRPF personnel, and the remaining 19 were J&K police personnel.

A large part of the local sentiment in the Kashmir Valley reflects an anti-India, pro-freedom sentiment. Many locals provide logistical and moral support to the militancy in the Valley. At the end of a workday—unlike the CRPF, BSF or other military personnel who are mostly non-locals and live in their own camps—a large part of the J&K police are locals who have to go home to the same locality of people they fight during the day.  

Apart from the constant threat of militant attacks, the J&K police are also at the receiving end of anger from their own community.

Nazir Shah* runs his own business in Srinagar. Shah’s father, uncle and two cousins are in the police force. In the late 1990s during the peak of militancy, Shah was in Class 4. That was the first time his father had received a threat. “We were not allowed to take school buses anymore. I was dropped off by his guards,” he says. Nevertheless, he claims that things have become worse in the last few years. “Today, there is more fear, more anger, and it is not just among militants but among locals as well,” he says.

During the 2016 unrest in Kashmir, Shah says his own locality members had passed nasty comments about him for being the son of a policeman. “I don’t usually tell people my father is a policeman. It’s just safer,” he says.

A police constable posted in Nowhatta, downtown Srinagar, told Newslaundry he had asked to be transferred from his village in South Kashmir to Srinagar for “his own and his family’s safety”. The constable, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he started to feel like people were discriminating against him in his village. “My wife used to get mocked when she went to the market. I started to feel like it was only a matter of time before they attacked us physically,” he says.

That is precisely what happened to DSP Mohammed Ayub Pandith who was brutally murdered by protesters near the Jamia Masjid mosque in Srinagar, one kilometre from his house. A few days before Eid, he was stripped, lynched and stoned to death. According to a report by The Indian Express, the officer had been present outside the mosque at around midnight. He was in plainclothes but was identified by locals, who started beating him and finally killed him. They then dumped his body into a drain near the mosque.

Increasing frustration among police

“We’re the bastard children of this state,” says Sheikh Ahmad*, a senior police official, to Newslaundry.

According to him, the J&K police are not morally owned by anyone, sometimes not even their own families. Ahmad says he knows of police personnel whose relatives are ardent supporters of militancy. “For most of us, this is a job that guarantees a steady income unlike most other jobs in Kashmir,” he says. “We often camouflage our own political sentiments in order to keep our jobs.” Ahmad says he joined the profession purely for the money and job security, but with time, he has “learnt to empathise (with) and respect the uniform”.

Ahmad claims that there has recently been a growing frustration among the police force. “Working in the J&K police is not like working as a policeman in another state. To sustain in this job, one needs to become thick-skinned and focused,” he says. According to him, the hostility has become worse since the coming of social media. “Now we’re not just targeted on ground but online as well. Our photos are morphed, fake profiles continuously malign us, and we receive threats on social media platforms.”

On May 15, the Centre signed a unilateral ceasefire agreement. The conditional ceasefire meant that security forces were not to launch any operation against militants during the holy month of Ramzan. However, the Centre clarified that the security forces “reserve the right to retaliate if attacked or if essential to protect the lives of innocent people”.

DGP SP Vaid told Newslaundry that it’s the J&K police who has borne the maximum brunt of the conflict over the years. He claims that despite the ceasefire agreement, three policemen lost their lives in the last month to violence perpetrated by militants.

For Ahmad, the ceasefire agreement has proved to only be a “moral and ethical victory”. “The ceasefire has only reinforced the will of the militants,” he says. “It lets them get away. We policemen, as locals, we knew that they were only going to attack more. We’ve seen this for years. With this ceasefire it handicaps us because we cannot launch operations.”  

*Names changed to maintain confidentiality