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The beheading
phenomenon
The murder of the Pundir brothers comes close on the heels
of a
series of beheadings of hostages by militants in Saudi
Arabia, Iraq
and Afghanistan. Militants with links to al-Qaeda beheaded a
Korean
hostage in Iraq last week, two days after an American
hostage in
Saudi Arabia was decapitated. A month ago, Nick Berg,
another
American working in Iraq, was kidnapped and then beheaded.
In 2002,
Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter in Pakistan,
was taken
hostage and then killed by having his throat cut.
In the Middle East, where terror tactics have included
suicide
bombings, hijackings and shootings, hostages are usually
shot dead.
Decapitation of hostages is a recent phenomenon.
But J&K, the Philippines, Chechnya and Algeria have
witnessed scores
of beheadings by militants. The first beheading of a hostage
by
militants in J&K came to light in 1995. Six Western tourists
trekking
in the Himalayas were kidnapped by a terrorist group, al-Faran
(which
later changed its name to Harkat-ul Mujahideen). While one
hostage
escaped, another, Hans Christian Ostro, a Norwegian, was
beheaded. "Al-Faran" was carved with a knife on Ostro's
torso.
While Ostro's beheading by militants evoked outrage
world-wide and
captured international attention, the beheading of hundreds
of
ordinary Kashmiris and Indian soldiers by the militants has
gone
almost unnoticed.
The adoption of medieval practices such as beheading and
chopping off
people's noses and ears since the mid-1990s in Jammu and
Kashmir has
been attributed to the increasing Talibanization of the
militancy. In
the early 1990s, the militancy in Kashmir was dominated by
Kashmiris,
but by 1994-95 the foreign element in the militant groups
increased.
Gradually the face of the militancy changed with Pakistanis,
Afghan
and Chechen jihadis carrying out the more gruesome attacks.
Indian army sources in Rajouri and Poonch - the two
districts in the
Jammu region of the state that have perhaps been the
worst-hit by
terrorism in recent years - say that the number of brutal
killings is
far higher in Jammu than in the Kashmir Valley. Scores of
victims
here have been beheaded. The noses or ears of suspected
informers
have been chopped off. Bodies of victims have been found
sliced to
bits.
During the India-Pakistan conflict at Kargil in the summer
of 1999,
the severely mutilated bodies of six Indian soldiers caused
outrage
all over the country. The victims had been severely tortured
before
being killed. The eyes of some victims had been gouged out.
The extreme brutality of militant attacks in Jammu has been
attributed to the fact that foreign militants and jihadis
dominate
the militant groups active here. In the Valley, many local
boys
joined the militant groups, although their numbers have
fallen in
recent years. In Jammu, but for the Gujjars (who graze sheep
in the
upper reaches of the mountains and are familiar with the
mountain
tracks) who have worked with the militants as porters and
guides,
locals have largely stayed away from taking up arms.
A fate worse than death
The use of particularly brutal tactics creates far more
terror than
the fear created by guns and grenades. Residents of J&K
point out
that the sight of a decapitated body or the thought of
having to live
with an acid-scarred face or without ears or a nose for life
paralyses them with fear.
Several times over the past 15 years, Islamic militants have
imposed
the burqa (an all-enveloping cloak that covers a woman from
head to
toe) on women, threatening them with acid and paint if they
dared to
defy the diktat (order). Women admit that they succumbed to
the
terror only because of the extreme brutality and
gruesomeness of the
punishment. In 2000, 16-year-old Mewaiz was shot through the
knees
for wearing trousers and leaving her head uncovered. There
have been
several instances of girls becoming targets of acid attacks
by
militants simply because they had left their heads uncovered
or were
going to school.
The districts of Rajouri and Poonch witnessed a sharp surge
in
particularly gruesome attacks in the months of
November-December
2002. A jihadi outfit had imposed the wearing of the burqa
in Rajouri
a few weeks earlier. They slit the throats of girls who
defied the
diktat.
Both Hindus and Muslims have been beheaded by the jihadis
over the
past 15 years. In 2001, the beheading of two Hindu priests
in Poonch
triggered immense rage in the district, prompting the
security forces
to impose a curfew in the area. More Muslims have, however,
been
beheaded or subjected to gory forms of torture and killing.
Muslims
suspected of being informers are seen as the worst
"traitors" of the
jihadi cause.
There have been cases of children being beheaded on the
suspicion
that their fathers were informers and of women being
injected with
poison as punishment for their fathers, brothers and
husbands working
with the local police. In 2002, three teenage girls were
killed in
Hasiyot in Rajouri district. Two of them were beheaded, the
third
shot dead. Militants accused them of being informers but the
girls'
families believe that the girls were killed because they
were going
to school. In March this year, five-year-old Zahida and her
four-year-
old brother were executed by the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Jammu's
Doda
district because her parents refused to provide sanctuary to
militants.
Meanwhile, several cases of beheading came to light in the
run-up to
the recent general elections. The Hindustan Times reported
an
incident where militants chopped off the ears of two village
elders
they had abducted in Jammu's Udhampur district. The victims
had been
severely beaten before their ears were chopped off. The
militants
then took the two victims back to the village and showed the
chopped
ears to the terrified villagers. This was followed by a
warning to
the villagers not to vote in the general election.
The cases of beheading and chopping off of noses and ears
are far too
numerous and horrific to be recounted here. Suffice to say,
the cases
that appear in the Indian media are but the tip of the
iceberg.
What sets apart the beheadings in Kashmir from the recent
ones in
Iraq and Saudi Arabia is that militants here have not used
the
Internet or videos to draw international attention to
themselves.
Their aims are local. They want to intimidate and terrorize
local
people into obeying their orders and falling in line with
their
thinking. And they are succeeding.
The beheading phenomena
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FF30Df03.html
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