Gunbattle, shutdown mark Chidambaram’s Kashmir visit

DIG drives Home Minister through the stone pelters’ bastion of Baramulla

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Oct 31: With the situation in Kashmir changing for the better, union Home Minister P Chidambaram today not only held review meetings with senior officials but also made his second visit of the turbulent year to the Valley memorable by driving through the stone pelters’ stronghold of Baramulla in a thin cavalcade of three-odd vehicles. Valley observed yet another shutdown to greet Chidambaram even as one militant got killed in a dramatic gunbattle between militants and security forces at Sopore.

Separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s call for umpteenth shutdown today coincided with the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s second visit of the turbulent year 2010 to Kashmir valley. On September 20^th, Chidambaram had earlier arrived in Srinagar as a member of the all-party delegation of the Members of Parliament to assess the current spell of turbulence during a two-day visit before submitting a report to the Prime Minister and Cabinet Committee on Security.

At the end of his two-day-long visit to Leh and Kargil, Chidambaram flew directly to Baramulla---a major flashpoint of street demonstrations and stone pelting. In a deviation to his scheduled programme of landing at the headquarters of an artillery brigade in Baramulla town, yards away from the venue of his official and public meetings at Dak Bungalow, he landed at a BSF Sector Headquarters at Singhpoura and sent an all empty helicopter to the district headquarters.

Chidambaram’s thin entourage, comprising DG CRPF, an IB official and Director of J&K Police Kuldeep Khoda, called DIG North Kashmir, Munir Khan, to the helipad. Within minutes, Khan was seen driving his bullet-proof Bolero on the otherwise poorly guarded streets and bylanes in Baramulla town with India’s Home Minister to his left on the front seat and the three Police, CRPF and IB officials on the rear. Perhaps first time in the last 20 years of armed strife in the Valley, Home Minister was seen traveling with just one escort Gypsy piloting him in a sensitive town and an Ambassador following from behind.

After making an inspection of the worst battle-grounds of the stone pelters and Police/CRPF at Cement Bridge and SRTC Bridge, Chidambaram took a meeting with the officials of Police, security forces and civil administration at the Dak Bungalow. It lasted for 50 minutes. Senior Congress leader and Minister incharge School Education, Pirzada Mohammad Sayeed, was the only politician who attended the meeting in which Chidambaram being keen to learn about the law and order situation from the field commanders, particularly SPs and their equivalents in CRPF and Army.

Sources present in the meeting revealed to Early Times that the Police officials contested the nationally and perhaps internationally created impression that the radical elements, led by Geelani, had completely dominated the political scenario and normalcy could not be restored until they were taken on the board with regard to any Kashmir initiative. The officials, according to sources, told Chidambaram that Geelani and his Hurriyat (G) had begun to lose their dominance when the Police force received non-lethal riot-control armoury and there was not a single political killing since September 6^th. They pointed out that Government of India’s support to Police and security forces’ action against the stone pelters and their ‘instigators and white-collar sponsors’ had restored the silent majority’s faith and confidence to a large extent.

The officials assured Chidambaram that the unending chain of Geelani-sponsored strikes would end soon as, according to them, hundreds of thousands of students and their parents, people associated with business and civil society were now fed up with the shutdowns and, of late, there were visible evidences of their defiance to the Hurriyat calendar. They asserted that the forthcoming Panchayat and civic body elections could prove to a turning point and the sponsors of street demonstrations and stone pelting would soon disappear like they did in October 2008.

After his meeting with the officials, Chidambaram also met a number of delegations from the local business community, Tangmarg Bar Association, National Conference (led by Ghulam Hassan Rahi) as also a Congress delegation led by the resident and Prof Saif-ud-din’s right-hand man, Ghulam Nabi Monga. He also interacted with a delegation from Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee.

Escorted by the three senior officials, as also the addition of IGP Kashmir, S M Sahai, and Divisional Commissioner, Asgar Hassan Samoon, Home Minister walked to brigade headquarters and boarded his helicopter to attend a higher level meeting with the government functionaries as also to brief Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, on his three-day visit to Ladakh and Kashmir valley.

Issues regarding law and order situation of the State came up for a detailed discussion in the meeting at Nehru Guest House in Srinagar later. Among others, Chief Secretary, Mr. S.S. Kapur, GOC, 15 Corps, Mr N.C.Marwah, Principal Secretary Planning and Development, Khurshid Ahmad Ganai, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Bharat Bhushan Vyas, Principal Secretary Home, B.R. Sharma, DGP, Kuldip Khuda, Special DGP of CRPF, Divisional Commissioner Asgar Samoon and IG BSF and other Central and state officers  were present in the meeting.

Before flying back to the union Capital, Chidambaram held a detailed meeting with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and discussed with him the factors behind the changing political scenario in Kashmir. Sources said that the two leaders also discussed the maiden visit of New Delhi’s three interlocutors to J&K besides the working of two Tasf Forces constituted by the union Home Ministry for assessing the much complained developmental deficit in Ladakh and Jammu.

Around the timing of Chidambaram’s departure from Srinagar, a dramatic encounter took place between Police and militants at Mohalla Ahad Sahib in the apple town of Sopore. SP Sopore, Altaf Khan, told Early Times that over a specific information Police were in ambush for a four-member group of Lashkar-e-Toiba. He said that the Police party, which was later joined by troops of RR 22 Bn, spotted the militants and challenged them to halt.

“They opened fire which we retaliated with utmost care and restraint in view of the heavy civilian movement. One of the militants got killed in our retaliatory fire but two to three of his associates managed to flee from the spot. We immediately laid a cordon and would be going for house-to-house search in the morning tomorrow”, SP Sopore said. He identified the militant killed in the first shootout as Amaar of Lashkar-e-Toiba.

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