The Hindu : Gujjars face threat from across the LoC

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 23, 2004

National

National - Elections 2004

Gujjars face threat from across the LoC

Luv Puri

MENDHAR, JAMMU

Javed Rana's back still aches. The legislator from the Mendhar segment of Jammu province situated near the Line of Control wore a bullet-proof vest all through his Assembly election campaign; it was so heavy that the pain hasn't gone away even after 15 months. The situation will be no different this time where he is set to campaign for the National Conference candidate in his segment with 80,000 votes for the Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat.

Mr. Rana belongs to the first generation of Gujjars who are now the target of terrorists infiltrating across the Line of Control. A week before the Assembly election to the Mendhar segment of Jammu province in September, 2002, Mr. Rana was informed by local sources that they had received information from across the Line of Control that the Lashkar-e-Taiba commander had instructed his cadre to eliminate him as he had refused to step down. Mr. Rana was told that a team of terrorists had been dispatched to kill him.

Mr. Rana passed on this information to the Nagrota-based 16 Corps headquarters; the Army commander instructed troops on the ground to protect his life. Rana was made to wear a bullet-proof jacket, and assigned a bodyguard; the threat perception was rated such that he even went to sleep wearing his body armour. Fortunately, for him, nothing untoward happened; he won the election obtaining 24,530 votes.

Congress leader Chowdhary Aslam was not that lucky in the Surankote segment, northwest of Mendhar. On polling day, terrorists took position on the hills and while the supporters of Chowdhary Aslam were coming down the hill, began to fire on them. There was no way for Chowdhary Aslam to take the voters across safely. As a result, he lost by a 2000-vote margin.

Thus, while the country readies for the general election, an altogether different battle will be fought in the far-flung areas of the State near the Line of control, whose contours will be shaped by the political developments across the Line of Control.

Army sources point out that infiltration attempts are being made and say that the supporters of the candidates for the Lok Sabha may be the targets of the terrorists. On March 17, a group of six terrorists infiltrated into Indian territory and were spotted in the neighbouring Mandi area, but managed to escape. Besides the fact that the terrorists are against the elections, the ethnic factor is also important in understanding the political dynamics of the region.

Across the Line of Control, which is a non-Kashmiri speaking tract and bears ethnic similarity with this part of Jammu province, the leadership in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir watches elections here with close interest and has tried to intervene several times in the past. The fact that in the 1991 presidential elections in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, supporters of the former President of POK, Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, belonging to the Rajput Muslim caste, went across the LOC to campaign for him provides a hint. While the population in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir has the same ethnic distribution between Gujjars Muslims and Rajput Muslims, all the heads of POK are Rajput Muslims. Unlike here, it is a known fact that the Gujjars nomads in POK are oppressed by the Rajput Muslims, which is the dominant caste there. Mohammad Bashir, a local resident says, "The leadership from across the Line of Control wants to control the politics of this area. This is resented by the local population and that is why there are direct attacks on candidates here."

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