The beheading phenomenon
The murder of the Pundir brothers comes close on the heels of a
series of beheadings of hostages by militants in Saudi Arabia, Iraq
and Afghanistan. Militants with links to al-Qaeda beheaded a Korean
hostage in Iraq last week, two days after an American hostage in
Saudi Arabia was decapitated. A month ago, Nick Berg, another
American working in Iraq, was kidnapped and then beheaded. In 2002,
Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter in Pakistan, was taken
hostage and then killed by having his throat cut.
In the Middle East, where terror tactics have included suicide
bombings, hijackings and shootings, hostages are usually shot dead.
Decapitation of hostages is a recent phenomenon.
But J&K, the Philippines, Chechnya and Algeria have witnessed scores
of beheadings by militants. The first beheading of a hostage by
militants in J&K came to light in 1995. Six Western tourists trekking
in the Himalayas were kidnapped by a terrorist group, al-Faran (which
later changed its name to Harkat-ul Mujahideen). While one hostage
escaped, another, Hans Christian Ostro, a Norwegian, was
beheaded. "Al-Faran" was carved with a knife on Ostro's torso.
While Ostro's beheading by militants evoked outrage world-wide and
captured international attention, the beheading of hundreds of
ordinary Kashmiris and Indian soldiers by the militants has gone
almost unnoticed.
The adoption of medieval practices such as beheading and chopping off
people's noses and ears since the mid-1990s in Jammu and Kashmir has
been attributed to the increasing Talibanization of the militancy. In
the early 1990s, the militancy in Kashmir was dominated by Kashmiris,
but by 1994-95 the foreign element in the militant groups increased.
Gradually the face of the militancy changed with Pakistanis, Afghan
and Chechen jihadis carrying out the more gruesome attacks.
Indian army sources in Rajouri and Poonch - the two districts in the
Jammu region of the state that have perhaps been the worst-hit by
terrorism in recent years - say that the number of brutal killings is
far higher in Jammu than in the Kashmir Valley. Scores of victims
here have been beheaded. The noses or ears of suspected informers
have been chopped off. Bodies of victims have been found sliced to
bits.
During the India-Pakistan conflict at Kargil in the summer of 1999,
the severely mutilated bodies of six Indian soldiers caused outrage
all over the country. The victims had been severely tortured before
being killed. The eyes of some victims had been gouged out.
The extreme brutality of militant attacks in Jammu has been
attributed to the fact that foreign militants and jihadis dominate
the militant groups active here. In the Valley, many local boys
joined the militant groups, although their numbers have fallen in
recent years. In Jammu, but for the Gujjars (who graze sheep in the
upper reaches of the mountains and are familiar with the mountain
tracks) who have worked with the militants as porters and guides,
locals have largely stayed away from taking up arms.
A fate worse than death
The use of particularly brutal tactics creates far more terror than
the fear created by guns and grenades. Residents of J&K point out
that the sight of a decapitated body or the thought of having to live
with an acid-scarred face or without ears or a nose for life
paralyses them with fear.
Several times over the past 15 years, Islamic militants have imposed
the burqa (an all-enveloping cloak that covers a woman from head to
toe) on women, threatening them with acid and paint if they dared to
defy the diktat (order). Women admit that they succumbed to the
terror only because of the extreme brutality and gruesomeness of the
punishment. In 2000, 16-year-old Mewaiz was shot through the knees
for wearing trousers and leaving her head uncovered. There have been
several instances of girls becoming targets of acid attacks by
militants simply because they had left their heads uncovered or were
going to school.
The districts of Rajouri and Poonch witnessed a sharp surge in
particularly gruesome attacks in the months of November-December
2002. A jihadi outfit had imposed the wearing of the burqa in Rajouri
a few weeks earlier. They slit the throats of girls who defied the
diktat.
Both Hindus and Muslims have been beheaded by the jihadis over the
past 15 years. In 2001, the beheading of two Hindu priests in Poonch
triggered immense rage in the district, prompting the security forces
to impose a curfew in the area. More Muslims have, however, been
beheaded or subjected to gory forms of torture and killing. Muslims
suspected of being informers are seen as the worst "traitors" of the
jihadi cause.
There have been cases of children being beheaded on the suspicion
that their fathers were informers and of women being injected with
poison as punishment for their fathers, brothers and husbands working
with the local police. In 2002, three teenage girls were killed in
Hasiyot in Rajouri district. Two of them were beheaded, the third
shot dead. Militants accused them of being informers but the girls'
families believe that the girls were killed because they were going
to school. In March this year, five-year-old Zahida and her four-year-
old brother were executed by the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Jammu's Doda
district because her parents refused to provide sanctuary to
militants.
Meanwhile, several cases of beheading came to light in the run-up to
the recent general elections. The Hindustan Times reported an
incident where militants chopped off the ears of two village elders
they had abducted in Jammu's Udhampur district. The victims had been
severely beaten before their ears were chopped off. The militants
then took the two victims back to the village and showed the chopped
ears to the terrified villagers. This was followed by a warning to
the villagers not to vote in the general election.
The cases of beheading and chopping off of noses and ears are far too
numerous and horrific to be recounted here. Suffice to say, the cases
that appear in the Indian media are but the tip of the iceberg.
What sets apart the beheadings in Kashmir from the recent ones in
Iraq and Saudi Arabia is that militants here have not used the
Internet or videos to draw international attention to themselves.
Their aims are local. They want to intimidate and terrorize local
people into obeying their orders and falling in line with their
thinking. And they are succeeding.
The beheading phenomena
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