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Journalism of Courage
Apparently disconnected events sometimes provide important insights on the same story. In J038;K, two developments on Thursday 8212; yet another killing of innocents, this time a school teacher and his two sons in Gopalora, and the claim by the Jamiat-ul-Muhajideen of having downed a MiG-21 that had crashed in Badgam district 8212; could speak of a terrorism in decline and of the desperation of those who make a political cause in butchering people. Notice the new trend of seeking out soft targets 8212; women who don8217;t wear burqas, devotees in temples, children playing outside homes, school teachers who have nothing to do with politics. Notice, too, the eagerness to make bombastic claims like downing aircraft, and such like. Could all this possibly speak of a terrorism that fears it own decline?
Those who have closely studied the militancy phase of Punjab politics speak, interestingly enough, of a conscious shift to easy targets that characterised the declining years of terrorism in that state. As people got increasingly disenchanted with the ubiquitous terror and tragedy that marred their lives and searched for democratic alternatives to violence, the masked men with their AK-47s tended to perpetrate more and more desperate acts of violence. Of course, what happened next in Punjab is well documented. The state, firmly and unequivocally, turned its back on the militants and on the politicians who gave them legitimacy and respectability. It is, of course, premature to draw any parallels between the Punjab of the nineties and the J038;K of today, but the significance of the emerging pattern of violence must not be overlooked.
