Meher Qadri
Because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.
-Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
The remnants of pain are but its shadows. It is engraved on us in ways that live within us just beneath the skin always present yet not seen. Sometimes like the lines running through our palms, always gaping back at us. Other times just some fading demon who though unseen is always crouching on our back. The month of January for Kashmir is painted in the scarlet hues of Death. Beginning of a new year for the rest of the world. January is the month of Massacres in Kashmir.
With Jagmohan’s appointment as the Governor of the state on Jan 19, 1990, Srinagar was handed over to CRPF. On January 20th, 1990 as the night fell CRPF troops conducted widespread house-to-house searches in Chota Bazaar, a crammed neighborhood on the banks of Jhelum. By the time the raids were over the adjoining areas were teeming with the rumors of molestation of women by the troops during the raids. This had never happened before in the history of Kashmir. The news of the alleged molestation of women spread like wildfire in the city and its outskirts.
"We carry within us the massacre, the sound of bullets ricocheting past us, the last sighs, the smell of Death."
52 Civilians were shot dead by Government Forces on 21 January 1990 at Gaw Kadal in the First Massacre of 1990s.
@MeherQa & @mehranbhat97 Report pic.twitter.com/jBLxMqfVIU
— The Kashmiriyat (@TheKashmiriyat) January 20, 2021
People in thousands came out on roads and began to march towards the old city area of Srinagar. The procession from areas like Magarmal Bagh, Kursoo-Rajbagh, Jawahar Nagar and Mehjoor Nagar began to move towards the old city.DSP Alla Baksh stopped the procession at Lal chowk and they had to move towards Gaw-Kadal. As the procession reached Maisuma, the Indian Troops had positioned themselves at the Gowkadal Bridge. As soon as they stepped on the bridge, the sounds of Light Machine Gun (LMG) and AK 47 filled the air. Bullets were flying. People were falling to the ground like a house of cards. Jumping off the bridge into Jhelum to save themselves but all in vain.
The Kashmiriyat spoke to an eye witness of the ill-fated day and he said,“ I would leave for work early morning, I used to work for the press at Aftaab newspaper. I reached Habbakadal at 6 in the morning, as soon as I reached the area, I heard slogans and chants, people were agitated and angry, which caused a commotion. Chota Bazaar, Zaldaar mahal, and Karfal mahal filled with people. When I met with the commuters who came back from the same route, I asked them the reason for the crowd gathering and slogans, and they told me that the entire area was cordoned and filled with armed men. They started gathering and raised slogans right after Suhoor (sehri), their slogans would not stop. I reached Kaka Road as I was traveling back home and saw BSF (Border Security Forces) everywhere”.
“After traveling to Barbar Shah, at around 9, the eyewitness hauled at a Wazir Kocha and saw BSF patrolling and hawking the roads.” He said, he reached Gawkadal and saw that there was intense sloganeering and protests from the Maisuma bazaar. “I saw all BSF men standing in lines and gawking at us, it shook my soul, the guns in their hands and their gaze, I will never forget that. The women who were a part of the protest were replying and sloganeering with the men, completing their sentences. The crowd further walked to Kaka road, and someone from the forces had fired from a light machine gun, there were 2-3 gunshots that we heard, all hell broke loose”.
“When they started firing mercilessly, it was havoc everywhere, the bullets would not stop, people were running everywhere.” My mother was in the crowd, and I was stranded somewhere around Wazir Kocha. “I saw a man from the corner of my eye lying on the ground and asked him to stay down or the troops will shoot him dead. As soon as he moved and tried to move one of the BSF personnel saw him and shot him in the back thrice. I ran from the Kocha (lane), I reached the main road and saw the armed men with guns piling dead bodies like they were sacks of potatoes. There was blood everywhere. It was all red”.
“The Police Superintendent at that time was Allah Baksh, when the police force arrived, I saw it with my eyes, they were collecting watches, money, and valuables off of the martyrs, while they lay in a pool of blood. They were thrown in the back of trucks like their life did not mean anything”.
“More than 500 people were injured. I heard Allah Baksh saying to the troops – ‘yeh kuch nahi hai, Abhi Dekho hum inki Lashon pe se tanks aur trucks chalwayenge’”. (This is the beginning, Next, we shall have the tanks and trucks rolling over their bodies)”.
He recalls that were many bodies, blood, and injured people everywhere. “My vision was blurry from seeing the blood everywhere. I was helpless, I was just running from one road to the other.” He added, “It was the most heart wrenching visual ever. I saw a trench by the corner of the road, two martyrs were dead, hugging each other, they died by bullets that were mercilessly fired as they embraced each other, some help came in the form of their staff and compounders with medicines, bottles of glucose, and bandages, and even the injured were helping each other”.
The eyewitness also asserted that the survivors couldn’t even count them (bodies), they were countless, more dead than injured, and they did not even try counting them. He further added that out of the injured survivors, some died an hour after being treated, while the others succumbed to their injuries in the next few days.
“I can’t fathom to even get the visuals out of my head, the reality shall forever be what it is. We are the survivors, we are the living truth, no malice and forging evidence can wipe us out. My son came to see me around 3, he was just 12, the forces told him to use their speaker and make announcements in areas, that if their family members are injured, they can bring them out of their houses and they shall be taken to the hospital for treatment. They wanted to kill us all. They wanted to wipe out our existence”.
He said that he would stand at the window of their house, at night, under the moonlight, but his heart would be in jeopardy, “I would always wonder if the forces will march in and kill us all, they would walk by the bridges with such force, it would shake the entire area. The sound of their boots approaching, their guns, the bullets, the smell of blood, I will never forget. I will never forgive any of it”.
The Massacre, many say, was an open announcement to the valley residents of the arrival of Jagmohan- one of the cruelest rulers in Kashmir history. Throughout the oral tradition of story-telling in Kashmir, Jagmohan who imposed the meat-ban in 1985, is said to have been appointed as the Governor for the second-term to Kashmir to oversee a mass-genocide of Kashmiri Muslims.
Sarah, 21 (then), a woman watching the massacre from the window of her house saw a young boy caught between the fallen people, both alive and dead. He rose up, from the fallen. Confused and baffled, Sarah saw the Army men firing indiscriminately at unarmed protesters, aiming only to kill.
She remembers seeing a neighbor Rouf Ahmad picking up a victim who had been shot dead at the front of the procession. Rouf grabbed the gun-barrel of a trooper to his body and took all the bullets.
“Blood was flowing down the streets, the CRPF men trampling the dead bodies checked the survivors after they stopped firing. They found those few who were alive and then shot them with bullets till they died.”
As per locals, such was the impact of the massacre that as soon as the news spread in the areas nearby, local youth from downtown and uptown areas of Srinagar in herds of dozens and hundreds started joining militancy- boys as young as teenagers went across the line to get armed training.
Fifty-two people died as per unofficial estimates.
A massacre, like any other acts of violence, is indelible for those who are left behind, and those who survive it, become more than just the witness. They carry within them the massacre, the sound of bullets ricocheting past them, the last sighs, and the smell of death. Always abeyant between forgetting and reminiscence. Violence silences some part of us, slowly dragging us to death. Three decades of unprecedented violence on Kashmiri’s since that infelicitous morning of January 21, 1990, followed by the silence of the world.
Let the silence rise from unwatered graves
and craters left by bombs.
Let the silence rise from empty bellies
and surge from broken hearts.
The silence of the hidden and forgotten.
The silence of the abused and tortured.
The silence of the persecuted and imprisoned.
The silence of the hanged and massacred.
Loud as all the sounds can be,
let my silence be loud
so the hungry may eat my words
and the poor may wear my words.
Loud as all the sounds can be,
let my silence be loud
so I may resurrect the dead
and give voice to the oppressed.
My silence speaks.
Kamand Kojouri