Cong : Indian Army is the
best disciplined in the world From Ahmed Ali Fayyaz SRINAGAR, Oct 6: While interacting with diametrically opposite sections of the Valley population and intelligentsia, the 16-member delegation of the Pakistani journalists today began to see what its leader Imtiyaz Alam has called "the other half of the truth". Enamoured with Kashmir’s beauty, the visiting mediapersons broke into different groups to keep their schedule of meetings with politicians and intellectuals. They also enjoyed shooting at the historic Lalchowk and Dal Lake besides a sumptuous Wazwan and a Gondola ride at the famous hill station of Gulmarg. Imtiyaz Alam rescheduled his delegation’s appointments after learning that managers of the historic visit had not involved Kashmiri mediapersons with the SAFMA initiative. Consequently, he arranged a two-hour-long interaction with Kashmiri journalists at Hotel Broadway. Even as it was supposed to be an in-camera session with only Srinagar-based working journalists, the meeting hall was packed to capacity with strange faces. Just a couple of journalists responded to Alam’s queries when he desired to know how the mediapersons were operating in the embattled Kashmir valley. Rather than explaining their professional hazards and hardships, the speakers asked Alam what were the liberties and constraints for their colleagues in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Girdled with a bunch of his Indian patrons, Alam expected straightforward answers to his questions. When he was quizzing local scribes about the pressures if any exerted on them from different quarters, a former "commander-in-chief" of a militant organisation was conspicuously gazing on them from a corner. Breaking the silence, a few Srinagar-based journalists asserted that 16 of their colleagues had got killed in the last 15 years of the separatist insurgency. They said that inspite of hostile conditions from different quarters, most of the Kashmiri journalists had observed the principles of objective journalism and professional standards. None had the spine to explain how Kashmiri journalists had been—and were still being—harassed, humiliated and even eliminated for reporting the truth which was harmful to the interests of militants and security forces. Nobody dared to tell Imtiyaz Alam how the former counter-insurgent king Kukka Parray’s armed guerrillas once lifted three editors from Srinagar Press Enclave and released them only after making all Kashmiri journalists bow before his might at Hajan. None explained to the Pakistani delegation how members of an organisation were still ransacking newspaper offices and kidnapping editors. Not one explained how a "commander-in-chief" of JKLF (Amanullah) had once beaten dozens of Srinagar-based journalists with his shoes at a Press conference at his hideout near Hazratbal shrine and threatened to kill them all. Imtiyaz Alam asserted that Pakistani media was vibrant and it enjoyed more freedom than in practice in many democratic countries. He said that, like in all other countries, national interest was paramount in certain affairs in Pakistan as well but on most of the issues, journalists were completely free, independent and often critical of the government policies. "We are trying our best to maintain the balance", he said. Alam said that even one-time role models, CNN and BBC, had got completely exposed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nonetheless, he said, there were some objective journalists in the print media in America and Britain. Commenting on criticism to his delegation’s visit from certain quarters in Valley and Pakistan, Alam asserted that the visiting Pakistani journalists had no hidden political agenda and they would see the situation in Kashmir with their own eyes. He claimed that the visit had provided a historic opportunity to Pakistani media to know the reality "from the horse’s mouth". "It’s none of our business to influence what Kashmiris have to do. We are none to fail or promote what New Delhi and Islamabad have to do about Kashmir. We’ll act simply as professional journalists and pave the way for sustaining mobility of journalists in all parts of India and Pakistan", Alam said. ARY TV’s Talat Hussain expressed his gratitude that he was not stopped by anybody when he came out of the meeting hall at the University of Kashmir and shot a pro-Azadi demonstration of a group of students. "We spoke to dozens of students at the University. We also interviewed a number of shopkeepers at Lalchowk. Nobody stopped us", he said. Senior Indian journalist and SAFMA functionary, Dileep Padgaonkar, admitted that there was politics behind permission to the Pakistani scribes’ visit but he asserted that it was not going to hamper the credibility and integrity of the mediapersons. He was hopeful that this beginning would soon lead to the day when visiting both sides of Kashmir, as also India and Pakistan, would be a routine business of journalists in the two countries. Gulmarg and Gondola Parallel to Alam’s interaction with the Kashmiri journalists, a group of four Pakistani scribes reached Gulmarg to enjoy sightseeing, a Wazwan by Department of Tourism and a Gondola ride upto Kongdori. Principal Secretary Tourism Department, Anil Goswani, explained to the guest journalists how a peaceful Kashmir had hosted over 700,000 tourists in 1989 and next year "Pakistan-sponsored militancy" had reduced the number to just 1,400. Earlier today, members of the Pakistani delegation visited University of Kashmir campus at Hazratbal. They had a detailed interaction with senior professors and faculty members. Incharge Vice Chancellor Professor Waheed welcomed the guests and gave them a briefing regarding the studies and research at the University. Exchanging views with the teachers and the students, Pakistani journalists desired to know if their learned hosts had any roadmap of the Kashmir solution in mind. Their hosts explained certain aspects of the hardships of life and socio-economic problems but they did not project any particular political ideology. Most of them believed that a sovereign, independent State should be the political solution to the 57-year-old problem. When the Pakistani journalists were in a session with the University teachers, a group of about 50 students gathered around the venue—Gandhi Bhawan—and started shouting slogans: "Get out the traitors; get out the thieves". They shouted pro-Azadi and pro-Pakistan slogans and alleged that the Pakistani journalists had been "purchased" by New Delhi. In the evening, the Pakistani journalists met a delegation of the Kashmiri human rights activists and lawyers who highlighted the alleged human rights violations by the Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir. They alleged that there was no let up in the instances of forced disappearances and custodial killings by armed forces. Cong reception The delegation was accorded a colourful reception by the Jammu & Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee at the party president Pirzada Mohammad Sayeed’s official residence. Sayeed, who is a Cabinet Minister in Mufti Sayeed’s coalition Government, welcomed the delegation and expressed hope that such visits would bring relief to the people of Jammu and Kashmir on both sides of the LoC. Imtiyaz asked Sayeed a number of questions in view of the points raised by the lawyers and human rights activists. Sayeed told him that his government’s healing touch policy had reduced the incidents of aberrations by armed forces to a large extent and a number of detainees had been released from jails. Reacting to the queries to Alam, Geo TV Producer Nasir Beg Chugtai and Roshan Mughal, senior JKPCC leader and a Cabinet Minister, Taj Mohi-ud-din, claimed that the Indian Army was "the best disciplined in the world". He told the delegation that there was complete peace in Jammu and Kashmir until "the neighbouring country" trained Kashmiri youth in terrorism and managed their infiltration with guns and grenades. He said that the armed militants forced over 200,000 Kashmiri Pandits to leave their home and hearth and they killed thousands of innocent and unarmed Kashmiris in cold blood, turning the Valley into a veritable hellhole. Taj pooh-poohed the separatist leader Shabir Shah’s statement that MLAs and Ministers had reached the Assembly with just 200 or 2000 votes. He said that he himself bagged 25,000 votes while as his opponent, Mohammad Shafi of National Conference, got over 20,000 from Uri constituency in the last Assembly elections. He told the delegation that the separatist leaders were avoiding to participate in elections whenever told to establish their representative character. "They (Hurriyat and other separatist leaders) know it well that they can not hardly get 17 seats among 46 segments in Kashmir valley. I challenge them to contest and prove themselves as the peoples’ representatives. Let them resign later if they don’t want to be in the Government", Taj asserted in his interaction with the Pakistani delegation. |
