Dispatches: Kashmir’s Torture Trail

Filming in Kashmir meant keeping rushes safe, dodging stones – and persuading the locals that daily life was worth showing, says Catie White.

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Credits

Kashmir’s Torture Trail

Production company True Vision

TX 5 July, 10pm, Channel 4

Commissioner Siobhan Sinnerton

Camera/director/editor Jezza Neumann

Producer Catie White

Executive producer Brian Woods

Post Paddy Garrick, True Vision in-house

Summary: Dispatches investigation following a Kashmiri lawyer in the most militarised place on earth, as he uncovers India’s best-kept secret.

Catie White

Producer

There was no amount of explaining to our local AP – who had a day job for a busy lawyer’s practice and was doing us a favour by stepping into the breach in a hostile region where having someone who can spot the difference between a street vendor and a government spy meant keeping hold of our rushes – what we meant by future tense. Or character development.

“Let us know when [Ms X’s] story moves on,” we tried, as he kept an eye out for the competing intelligence agencies that follow foreigners filming in the Kashmir Valley. “Tell us when something happens to [Y]. Alert us when a significant event in [the carpenter’s] life is about to unfold.”

A funeral. A memorial. A homecoming. These were simple things that could help us achieve an intimate and fluid life – and death – story in this Indian state divided between Pakistan and China. It’s one of the longest-running emergencies in the world, for so long off our screens, especially when the Arab Spring drew away the last Western reporters, despite hundreds of thousands of local youths coming out onto the streets, throwing stones at the heavily armed Indian security forces. The troops returned fire with live rounds.

We arrived in Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, in spring 2011, determined to seek out articulate teenage demonstrators to follow, through whom we would learn about these mega—protests that terrified the Indian government. However, the Indian security forces were also filming the stone-throwing boys; police snatch squads were seizing them in nightly round-ups that made them fear all cameras. On the other side, the police and paramilitaries, who had already killed 118 protestors, some of them children, had taken to beating journalists to stop them recording the unrest.

As we wrestled with the unwilling on both sides of the barricades, another potentially unfilmable development crashed over us: a state-wide government crackdown, with roadblocks and curfews that put several of the towns in which we had started making headway off-limits.Mass arrests followed, with tens of thousands seized. Which brings us back to character development: how could we shoot what could not be easily seen among people who could not afford to speak out, using the local team of irregulars who struggled with our methods?

This has nothing to do with brains. Our local ad hoc AP could speak four languages. However, in a conflict zone where a pro-independence insurgency has cost upwards of 70,000 lives and at least 8,000 civilians have vanished while in custody – far more than in Pinochet’s Chile – all of the events we exhorted our fixer to help us chart seemed to him too mundane for TV.

A family silently assaying their dead son’s school certificates. The tearful joy when a sister hugged a wounded brother unexpectedly released from jail. We captured moments such as these despite the crackdown, and uncovered a shocking story about how India had restored peace in the Valley. But all of it came to us through people forgetting we were there.It took time. We filmed on and off over a year. We spent days drinking saffron tea, munching almond biscuits and waiting for lives to coagulate. And in a punch-drunk state like Kashmir, when you are in the right place and the talking begins, it’s unstoppable.

A youthful insurgent went into a trance describing the inside of an Indian torture chamber, where Urdu graffiti welcomed him to hell. A veiled schoolgirl revealed, for the first time, how she had been plucked from class in her uniform, tortured and raped. A father sat before passport photos of his two dead sons, telling how he would never stop fighting to convict the security forces who shot one and then, when he protested, drowned the second in the Jhelum River.

It was when we strove to cover a story that things stalled, like the time we drove for 18 hours to reach a border village where residents were said to be captives of the security forces. A checkpoint stopped us and a young captain turned us around, mumbling into our AP’s ear in Urdu: “If the foreigners talk to anyone here, you will get it.” This the AP fully understood, and dismissed. A lifetime of threats had made him immune.

My tricks of the trade

Spend time constructing a non-partisan local team to fix, translate and guide.

If appropriate, seek out the authorities monitoring you before they act. It defuses tension.

Assume that every time you are on the road, someone is rifling through whatever you have left behind in your hotel room.

Take digital security seriously, protecting and disguising your rushes, encrypting your emails,

and talking on the phone in the expectation that everything you say is being overheard.

Pack a cafetière and good coffee.

Secret filming

Brian Woods

Executive producer

Funding a film like this is always a challenge. Channel 4 came on board early and we hoped that would enable us to attract the co-pro money we would need to make this film possible.

Sadly, we were unable to persuade our previous co-funders in the US or Germany that Kashmir was important enough to warrant this kind of investment. But we felt passionately that the tale of how torture is being used in Kashmir had to be told, so with the help of a modest, but much appreciated, advance against international sales from DRG, True Vision invested the rest of the shortfall and Jezza Neumann (pictured) and the team set off.

The film had to be HD-compliant, but also needed to be filmed as discreetly as possible. C4 made a special exception for Jezza to shoot HDV rather than full HD so that we could opt for a combination of Sony HVR-Z5 outputting the footage to a tape and card, and an HVR-A1 when even more discretion was needed. The HVR-A1 is ideal as once you’ve taken off the XLR and dispersed your equipment in bags or about your person, it doesn’t look at all suspicious. The only downside is that it records to tape, so you have to make sure you offload your footage as soon as possible.

The HVR-Z5, on the other hand, is perfect because, unlike tapeless cameras, you can put tourist footage on the tape and your real stuff on the cards; if you’re searched, you can hand over the tape and keep the card. Then back in the rooms, everything gets transferred to drives and put on hidden partitions, so it will take a seriously techy geek to find it. All our drives were then duplicated, with one set stored in a safe house.One essential was protection when filming stone-pelting scenes. The team wore bump caps often used on building sites and Jezza had a motorcycle back protector.

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Courtesy: Broadcast Now

Adil Ramzan Sheikh was Dragged and Killed

In a summer that saw 100 people dead in an equal number of days, more than 2000 injured, inhumane restrictions on movement of people, and a gagged media, many stories went unreported. Like that of Adil Ramazan Sheikh, a teenager hailing from Palhalan Pattan, who was allegedly pulled out from a hospital bed and executed at the hospital gates.

In the myriad tragedies that hit Kashmir this year, Adil’s killing was just one. Just one of 125. Despite the fact that the circumstances of his death stood out, his story was lost in the heap of events. Rather than becoming the biggest story of the year, it remained an under reported one. No investigation was convened to look into the circumstances of his killing.

On July 30, the volatile Pattan town heated up, with the news of two people having been killed in police firing earlier in the day in Sopore. Protestors gathered on the highway after Friday prayers and engaged police and paramilitary in stone pelting clashes. Thirteen-year-old Adil could hear the sound of teargas and gunfire at his home in Palhalan, some two kilometers from the spot.

Adil’s father Muhammad Ramazan Sheikh still remembers the sequence of events that followed.

“We were at home, when we heard the gunfire and teargas at around 3pm. We came to know that demonstrations are going on at Pattan market. Many people from the village rushed to join in,” says Sheikh who also rushed toward the spot along with his son.

The duo and other people from the village were stopped at the highway, a mile short of the hotspot.

“As people from this side were stopped at the junction, they began to raise slogans there. Adil was with me. After a while, he and a few kids, taking the advantage of their age, sneaked through the police barrier to join the protestors in the market,” Sheikh said.

Sheikh returned home after some time. At 5.30 pm, he received a call on his cell phone.

“It was a doctor calling from Hospital (Sub District Hospital Pattan). He told me that my son is injured and that I should come to hospital,” Sheikh recalls.
Sheikh rushes towards the highway again. By now, he finds that posse of paramilitary at the junction has gained strength. He is not allowed to move towards hospital. He waits.

What Sheikh comes to know later, is that after reaching the market, Adil and his friends had apparently been jeering at some paramilitary men.

Adil is fired upon and falls injured. His friends try to pick him up but they are chased away.

“They (friends) had not been able to pick him up themselves, so they requested some women standing there to get Adil towards them. The women did, and Adil was taken to the hospital,” said Sheikh.

The Sub District Hospital Pattan is just a few paces from the main market. It has two gates, one on front side the other on back side. The two gates open into two different alleys, both of which lead to the highway at Pattan market.

The clashes in the town that day saw the hospital getting flooded with injured, as well as with people trying to save themselves the wrath of troopers.

Around 6pm Sheikh was still at the crowded junction, hoping to find a way to reach the hospital. He gets another call.

“It was the doctor again. He told me that CRPF had raided the hospital and were beating everybody there. They (staff) were hiding, he told me,” said Sheikh.

The caller, whom Sheikh doesn’t want to name, tells him that he doesn’t know about the status of his son, for now. Sheikh grows impatient, but cannot break through the police cordon. He waits. A few minutes later he gets another call from the same doctor.

“They have fired on him again. He is dead.” Sheikh is told this time.

A shattered Sheikh is still unable to make it to the hospital, though his priority has changed from seeing his injured son to bringing his body home. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to make it to hospital, he returns home, now waiting for friends and neighbours at the hospital to bring the body home.

There are barely any records of the tumultuous events of the day at the Pattan Hospital. BMO Pattan denied that anyone had been killed in the hospital. But he admitted that paramilitary CRPF raided that hospital that day, beat up patients, attendants, and even some staff. Asked if they had filed any complaint with the police, he replied in negative.

“I only report to my CMO,” he added.

But, despite official denials, almost everybody in the hospital knows the story.

Wishing anonymity, the staff told Kashmir Life that CRPF ran amok in the hospital beating anybody who came in the way.

“They manhandled a female nurse, beat up injured patients, removed their intravenous drips, and pulled off Adil Ramazan from his bed over there,” said a doctor pointing to a far end corner bed in the ward. Adil, he said, had a leg injury, when he was first brought to the hospital.

“After pulling him from his bed, they (CRPF) took him along. He was then fired outside the hospital gate,” he said. In the street, outside the gates, where Adil was killed, a number of protestors convened and brought Adil back to the hospital.

“This time he had been shot in the chest. He was dead already,” the doctor said.

Hospital records, however, do not mention the whole sequence. There is no record of Adil’s admission the first time. It only records him as being admitted with a fatal chest injury, which killed him. There is an error with the date too, in the records, which mention 31 June instead of 30.

A hospital source explained that when the injured boys were being brought to the hospital in the first place, they insisted on getting medical attention without admission slips.

Sheikh and his family had to wait longer for Adil’s body. Many people had assembled at the hospital and were trying to take the body to his home in Palhalan. Witnesses said they were not allowed to move on the main road. After some unsuccessful attempts the protestors took out Adil’s body on a hospital bed, and carried it on their shoulders. They then waded through the rice fields, walking more than six kilometers carrying the body and reached Sheikh’s home by midnight.

The next day newspaper reports, some of which didn’t get his name right said he was killed during clashes in Pattan.

Sheikh says he has never visited the hospital since, not even to get the records, nor has hopes of a police investigation. A fact finding independent team of Indian civil society has demanded an investigation into the circumstances of Adil’s killing. The team comprised of academic Bela Bhatia, advocate Vrinda Grover, journalist Sukumar Muralidharan and activist Ravi Hemadri of The Other Media, described the attack on hospital as a violation of International Humanitarian Law.

“Whatever the truth about the events that led to Adil’s death, there is little question that Pattan hospital on July 30 suffered an attack which by all acknowledged covenants, puts the CRPF and all other elements party to it, under the cloud of a serious crime. This constitutes a clear violation of International Humanitarian Law, and calls for an urgent and impartial investigation”: the team report (KASHMIR LIFE)

and we know what happens to these investigations and probes.

"..I was like a football. Then they started kicking me and beating me with lathis"

Ruhaan, a human rights activist, has been arrested three times since November 1995 and detained for periods of a few days during which he was badly tortured. He has never been charged or tried. On all three occasions he was accused of helping the militancy in some way. During his interrogations he was frequently questioned about his human rights work. (Name of The Victim has been changed to Ruhaan)

Ruhaan was first arrested on November 2, 1995. He was held for five days by the BSF before a screening committee consented to his release. The second time was on May 19, 1996, just days before the first round of national parliamentary elections. He was arrested at 9:00 p.m. by Major Raju of the 7th Jat Regiment of the army, an officer well known in the neighborhood, and questioned about acquaintances who were known to be activists. Ruhaan was taken to a temporary army camp at Bagat-i-Kanapori in Srinagar and questioned about his links to the militant groups. He was also questioned about his human rights activities, his contact with Hurriyat leaders, and about the election boycott supported by the Hurriyat. The next day, the major, accompanied by his commanding officer, repeated the questions and then threatened Ruhaan with force if he did not cooperate. They left and then returned after an hour, when they repeated the same questions. Then they ordered their men to use force. RUHAAN described what happened next:

I was taken by the major and four subordinates to a small room, four by six feet, possibly a bathroom, with marble tiles on the floor and the walls. They stripped me down except for my underwear, and tied my hands and legs. They took a thick wooden roller and placed it under my knees as I was sitting. Then they told me to put my arms underneath the roller and up, and they tied my hands above my legs. I was like a football. Then they started kicking me and beating me with lathis [truncheons]. Then they began repeating those same questions. They got very frustrated, because I wasn’t telling them anything I hadn’t already told them. They also asked me: “How many Afghanis are in your home? Which militant leaders do you know?” Then they put a cloth in my mouth and spread another cloth over my face. I was lying on the floor facing the ceiling. They poured water into a bucket and then they poured the bucket out over my face. The water went into my nostrils, completely choking me. I was desperate to get out of that situation. I lost consciousness. When I came to, they were saying: “Now tell the truth! Cooperate!” I told them I would, so they gave me a few minutes to recover, but then the thing repeated itself. Again I lost consciousness; perhaps this was a longer spell, I’m not sure, but when I came to, I was exhausted. The major was patting my cheeks and saying my name. At first I couldn’t recognize him. Then the major signalled for someone to come, and he brought a small magnet-type telephone box: when you turn the crank, a current shoots through the wires. They attached one wire to my left earlobe and the other to different places: one of my toes, my other ear, and my penis. They ran the current, and I lost consciousness again. When I came to, I noticed that my whole body was wet: I had urinated and defecated. I was taken to a bathroom outside the house, was given a bucket of water and told to clean myself up. I couldn’t stand or stretch my arms. They helped me do some exercises for about two hours, and then I was able to stand up again and sit.

That night Ruhaan ‘s interrogators permitted a friend of his to come see him. After that, the major again told Ruhaan to come work for the army and stop his other activities. The next morning RUHAAN was taken to some other officials with one of the intelligence agencies. He was taken to the headquarters of the Jat Regiment. The commanding officer, Colonel Sharma, lectured him for an hour about the need to work for the army. When he was released on May 21 he was told to report to the camp every third day. He did so for about six weeks, and each time he was questioned again about his activities. After that, he received permission from Colonel Sharma not to report to the camp.

Ruhaan was detained for a third time in February 1998. At midnight on the night of February 2, fifteen to twenty members of the Special Operations Group (SOG), a police unit, came to his house, accompanied by some officers, escorted by the CRPF, and some intelligence people in military clothes. They searched the house and took all of his copies of human rights reports and some religious books. They took RUHAAN to SOG headquarters in Srinagar, where he was kept for the night. Ruhaan stated:

Then the torture started. They didn’t tie me, but they rolled a big wooden roller over my leg muscles as I was lying down, and they passed electricity through me-one wire attached to a toe, the other to my penis-while they were questioning me. They asked me about my links with Asia Watch and Amnesty International. I told them everything I had done and who I had been in touch with, because this is my work. This was the first time I have ever heard of a person being tortured in front of a senior police officer. They also beat me. The next day I was taken into interrogation in one of the rooms by a junior police officer. He pointed his revolver at my temple and threatened to kill me. He asked me about my links to the militants: “Give me the weapons! Give me the wireless set!” I was beaten with lathis and kicked and punched. Then they hung me from the ceiling. They tied my hands behind my back with a rope, they put the rope through a pulley in the ceiling, and then they pulled the table on which I was standing out from underneath me. Then they used electricity as I was hanging. They did this four times; the fourth time I lost consciousness. When I came to, I was on the floor. I couldn’t move my arms, which were behind my back, so two policemen kicked my back to get me to move my arms. Then they returned me to my cell. The next day the torture was lighter. They used the roller on my thighs, and they punched me and threatened me with a pistol, and they told me: “Unless you tell us something about your involvement, you will not get out of here.” I gave them the names of all the militants I knew, and told them anything else I knew: the connections I had with human rights people, etc. This situation continued for ten days.

After that, Ruhaan was held for an additional five days during which he was lectured not to continue his human rights activities. He was then transferred to a police station where an FIR was registered against him charging him with propagation against the state of India because of his human rights work. The next day he was granted bail, but he was not physically released that day. The SOG had recommended that Ruhaan be held under the Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law that permits detention without trial for two years, but the senior state police officer cleared the bail order, and Ruhaan was released on February 25. Under the bail order, Ruhaan was required to remain in Srinagar.

(Annual Report of UN Human Rights 1 July 1999)

Yasmeena was raped thrice in a Single night by these bastards"

The heir of the Kashmir Conflict. Shahid Nabi writes his ordeal of living in the horrendous years in his hometown Sopore, which even today is the bastion of freedom activities in Kashmir.

The night was not peaceful but it was good, in the morning I woke up and saw that the whole compound of my home has turned into a sea of blood. I cried as much as I could. I called for help, but none came to my rescue. I stepped forward like a paralysed person as I found my dearest Sons and Daughters slaughtered. It was a case of indiscriminate massacre. Yes, the only way to help myself at that time was to shed tears, tears, tears, tears, tears, ……….. I was lost in tears.

The cold blooded murderers said that they have massacred seventy thousand of my beloved sons and daughters, but being the mother I could count them by their names. I knew that I have lost more than one lakh. Still managed strength as it was not new for me, had saw all this happen to my home for more than a sixty years. I arranged for the shroud for my beloved sons, daughters, who were martyred by the ruthless, shameless, beasts, and cowards, (read as Indian security forces).

I cremated their remains, but I knew they are not dead, as Allah says in the Quran, “………Count not those who were slain in God’s way as dead, but rather living with their Lord, by Him provided, rejoicing in the bounty that God has given them……..” (Quran 03:164).

They are the martyrs, and I am sure their sacrifice won’t go in vain.

There was a temporary period of quiet, but that did not last long. As now again my sons are being martyred every now and then. These military personnel kill them because they are Kashmiri, because they are Muslims, because presence of my sons terrorizes them, because they want freedom, because they want to live the life of tranquillity, because they want dignity, because they don’t want the validation of the killing in the valley, because they want their rights to be given to them, because they want that no pagan should rule the Muslims and many a more. But India won’t listen to them, instead will instruct forces to massacre my children. But my children are not afraid of them. They never were nor will they be in the future. They will fight till their last breath. I know that I don’t have any sort of weapons to give them to fight these cowards. But I am proud to provide them with the only available arsenal of stones to fight the coward beasts with sophisticated guns in their hands, I know they will kill my sons, but they will die to live forever and despatch these security persons to hell to taste the eternal torment

I know the ghastly views of my beloved sons being martyred and carried in the coffins would never let me sleep again, but the presence of the Indian security forces here had given sleepless nights to my daughters since the night my eight year old daughter “YASMEENA WAS RAPED THRICE IN A SINGLE NIGHT BY THESE BASTARDS”