DHANGRI: Brandishing a bolt-action rifle, civil employee Sanjeet Kumar is one of 5,000 Kashmiri villagers who’ve joined all-Hindu militia units armed and trained by Indian armed forces to fight off attacks.
Delhi has more than half a million servicemen permanently stationed in parts of held occupied Kashmir as the government of Hindu nationalists presses a bid to crush the freedom fighters.
Authorities announced the latest militias last year, and a deadly assault in Kumar’s village in January prompted him to sign up. “The attack terrorised us,” the 32-year-old municipal employee in the electricity department said.
Wearing the saffron-coloured tilak on his forehead to mark himself as a member of the Hindu faithful, Kumar said he was ready and able to defend his home. He added, “Anyone who turns the traitor to our nation is my target”.
Villagers fear the move will only exacerbate the occupied territory’s woes
Only one community
The Indian government has fought against the freedom groups demanding the Muslim-majority territory’s independence or merger with Pakistan, claiming tens of thousands of lives.
The latest militia units, known as Village Defence Guards, were unveiled last year after a string of murders targeting police officers and Hindu residents of occupied Kashmir.
The scheme has been broadly famous among the region’s Hindu residents, but Muslim villagers are concerned the militia will only exacerbate occupied Kashmir’s woes.
“My worry is about how weapons are now being distributed among one community,” said one elderly Muslim living in Dhangri, who asked not to be named. “Now arms are being brandished around by young ones. This isn’t good for any one of us. I sense a growing tension,” he added.
The constant state of alert
Several residents of Dhangri, the remote hamlet where Kumar lives, are still grief-stricken by the attack that claimed the lives of seven of their neighbours.
“With or without the weapons, we were terrorised,” said farmer Murari Lal Sharma, 55, as he cradled his loaded 303 calibre rifle. “But I will fight back.”
One Indian paramilitary officer said the armed villagers were on such a constant state of alert that his unit informed them beforehand of their night patrol. Hence, they weren’t accidentally mistaken for the Kashmiri fighters and fired upon.
Kanchan Gupta of India’s information ministry said, “The purpose is to create the line of defence, not a line of attack,”
India first created the civil militia forces in held Kashmir in the mid-1990s as a first line of defence when the armed resistance against Indian rule was at its peak.
About 25,000 women and men, including teenagers, were given weapons and organised into village defence committees in the occupied Kashmir region.
The Rights groups accused members of these committees of committing atrocities against civilians. At least 210 cases of rape, murder, and extortion blamed on the militias were prosecuted, official records show — though less than 2% of defendants were convicted.
Gupta said these cases were individual acts, and the militias had no record of organised crime. “There is always a chance a few may turn rogue,” he said. “It’s not possible to control everyone.”
Most committees became dormant as Indian troops gradually throttled the resistance and the security situation improved.
Now there are guns
This time, militia members are warned by trainers from the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force that they would be punished for misusing their rifles. “Alongside training them in firing, maintenance and cleaning of the weapons, we tell them what legal action will be taken for misuse,” CRPF spokesman Shivanandan Singh said.
Three people have been killed since the new Village Defence Guards were established, including two who died by suicide using weapons issued to the militias. Another member’s wife was killed in January when her husband’s rifle was accidentally discharged.
But the reservations of some neighbours haven’t stopped men in the villages around Dhangri from clamouring to get their arms. “Now there are arms in houses all around mine,” said Ajay Kumar, a flour miller and ex-serviceman, pointing out the homes of neighbours who had been given arms.
