The Many Faces Of The Terror Players In Kashmir

Militancy, violence, and conflict in Kashmir does not survive courtesy the 150-odd young men who walk into militant ranks indoctrinated and high on jihadi fervour. The active militants do not have potential to survive for long. They are the visible facet of the problem, and the state is addressing this challenge in diverse ways. The deeper problem is fighting those terror players who operate under catchy, socially acceptable names and banners like journalists, activists, human rights defenders etc. These terror players nurture and deepen the narratives of separatism and militancy. They are always selective and subjective in their reportage of human rights incidents. Courtesy their efforts, separatism and terrorism sustains in Kashmir. It survives on invisible conflict structures and institutions that reproduce themselves year after year.

These conflict structures and institutions are reproducing because flourishing careers and personal fortunes are being built on the conflict. The gravy train flows from Pakistan. Pakistan’s investment in these conflict journalists, conflict activists, conflict human rights defenders is peanuts. But malicious diplomatic gains are massive. Internationally, the Kashmir separatism narrative is sustained, fed by the diplomacy networks of Pakistan.

Effort to create cloud of suspicion against every effort to dismantle terror network in Kashmir, discredit such efforts.

A Kashmiri militant Mehran had attained the notorious tag of “killing machine” in the last few months. He had assassinated innocent civilians indiscriminately. The cries of the family members of the victims had reverberated through Kashmir. He was on the radar of the security agencies. On November 24, Mehran and his three fellow militants were intercepted by police forces in a busy Srinagar area. Three of them were killed in the shootout, one managed to escape. Some passers-by, including some women, witnessed the shootout. These women were hysterical. Unaware of the militant profile of the young men and the police cordon, the women started shouting that three youths had been killed by the police. The conflict journalists and activists swung into action. Tweet after tweet was churned out that three innocent youth had been killed by the security forces in Rambagh. The videos of these passers-by – who had no idea of the context of the police cordon and shootout – were amplified by the conflict journalists.Soon, it was revealed that the youths killed by the police included a dreaded militant and his two associates. Now, the spin doctors got into action again. Efforts began to discredit the state regarding the killing of the militant and his accomplices.

The Wire took the lead. The report on The Wire by Jehangir Ali said the shootout “has come under a cloud with regional parties and eyewitnesses questioning the official version of events that led to the killing of three suspected militants, including a top commander of The Resistance Front (TRF).” Witness the deliberate strategy of the spin doctors in the Valley. The effort is to create a cloud of suspicion against every effort to dismantle the terror network in Kashmir, and attempt to discredit such efforts.

How does the conflict economy flourish? Why do conflict journalists, conflict activists and their cabal become part of a nexus that forms the conflict structure? It is because all of them are stakeholders in maximizing the conflict in Kashmir. Each Kashmiri who is dead is immediate fodder for their conflict machinery. Each death is milked for deepening the gloom.

Watch the link. Jehangir Ali writes for The Wire, casting a web of suspicion over the killing of a militant in a police shootout. Gowhar Geelani, a conflict journalist, promptly starts tweeting from the Wire report. “Three boys were standing on the roadside when police arrived and started firing indiscriminately at them. I couldn’t understand what was happening,” said an inconsolable woman, rejecting official claims. Reports @Gaamuk for @thewire_in. Gowhar Geelani and others of his like have been striving to get into the international circuit bankrolled by Pakistan where these conflict entrepreneurs are given an intellectual halo and are hero-worshipped. They are part of a global cabal that sit in conferences on Kashmir and pontificate on how and why the conflict is getting prolonged. These cabals are sustained by conflict institutions propped up and funded by Pakistan. It’s not just the intellectual halo and the international acclaim in select circles that matters. This American expression is rude but accurate. It’s The Money, Stupid!

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda attributed to Hitler’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. One such lie assiduously built in Kashmir and outside is that Khurram Parvez is a human rights defender.

Khurram is the creation of some left-liberals in New Delhi. This is the clique that makes heroes out of rogues. The props to make Khurram a human rights activist came up fast. He had reportedly lost his grandfather in the highly unfortunate killings at Gawkadal in 1991. So an international theory was carefully constructed that Khurram turned his anger over the death of his grandfather into a life of activism. Make heroes out of rogues comes easy to the clique that has no understanding of the problems in Kashmir. Their arguments on Kashmir are based on their preconceived notions, which are far from reality. They have no idea of the non-state actors in Kashmir, who operate as a hydra-headed monster. These non-state actors strengthen the terror ecosystem in every field of work – bureaucracy, administration, politicians, journalism, civil society and more.

The left liberals and the co-actors of this parallel polity accept every charge against the state as the gospel truth. They are the chief players of the conflict industry which sustains and also thrives on the conflict. While propping up Khurram Parvez as a human rights defender, no questions are asked regarding the terror funding activities in which Khurram Parvez has been involved. In October 2020, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had conducted raids at the office of activist Khurram Parvez, who runs the NGO J&K Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS).

J&K Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) claims to be an “amalgam of various non-funded, non-profit, campaign, research and advocacy organizations based in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir.” While collecting funds running into crores from hawala channels, Khurram Parvez demolished every description of his group: “non-funded, non-profit, campaign, research, and advocacy…” An NIA officer had said that these “so-called NGOs and trusts” had raised huge funds within India and globally under the pretext of helping orphans or for charitable activities. The officer had stated that these funds were used to pump secessionist and separatist activities and in terror financing in J&K.

NIA sources had revealed that JKCCS and some other so-called NGOs had no record of the funds received by them, who were the donors, or where the money was spent. Huge sums were reaching these groups through hawala channels. These groups were also linked to the separatists. Pakistan had used these groups to park money to fund terror activities in Kashmir and across India.

A report published in The Print in October 2020 had stated that these groups and NGOs were “raising funds for charity, using them for terror.” The Print report stated that “Those raided include Khurram Parvez, who runs the NGO JKCCS, his associates…” Turning a blind eye to these gross violations by Khurram Parvez, a campaign has been started by the Pakistan proxies in Kashmir and outside. A lie is being carefully constructed that Khurram Parvez is truly a human rights activist. There are efforts to erase his murky past of using charity funds for terror activities. All this is the handiwork of the Pakistan proxies in Kashmir. Using influence, a few tweets decrying Khurram’s arrest have also been managed globally.