What really goes on here

Zakir, along with three other SPOs, is attached to the ninth paramilitary commando unit, a cluster of 30 trained anti-terrorist hands. The affiliation has earned him the wrath of Imtiaz who, therefore, has punched him and pulled him out of the bus. Zakir runs. Imtiaz chases him in broad daylight, brandishing a sharp instrument. Zakir is overpowered and stabbed todeath.

At Zakir8217;s funeral that day someone makes the frightening announcement, quot;We shall avenge this one death by killing 20quot;. That night assailants enter houses in Sallian, shooting and hacking to death 19 people. In a corner of one of the houses, a half-formed foetus hanging out of a split stomach completes the macabre scene.

It is impossible to reach Surankote from Srinagar except in the Chief Minister8217;s helicopter. First you have to fly along the Pri Panchal pass, the ancient Moghul route to Kashmir, which touches the 258-km line of control between Poonch and Rajouri. But to reach Surankote you have to bear right, hovering over a maze of craggy passes in numerous directions like a magnified, Himalayan version of the Chambal ravines. In one of the more convoluted of these passages, on a sharp incline is Sallian village, suspended like a beehive. Walking to it is an adventure, like rock climbing.

We land in a field soaked with rain next to the mass grave where the 19 have been buried. Farooq Abdullahand the villagers make a circle around the grave, their hands lifted for prayer or fateha.

Meanwhile a restive crowd transforms itself into a mob, defying fierce-looking security men at the gate of the Dak Bungalow to fill the room in a series of semi-circles around the Chief Minister seated on a sofa. Since all speak out of turn, everyone being someone else8217;s proxy, all one can register is a general cacophony. If you listened very carefully you would decipher a chant, quot;Inko hataoquot; Remove them.

I ask a police officer virtually crushing against me quot;who are the people they want removed?quot;

quot;The Army,quot; the officer whispers, quot;But they don8217;t name the Army because some in this room may report them to the soldiers and there may be retaliationquot;.

Suddenly two young men in their twenties, Shabbir and Latif, the latter with a thick, bushy beard, are pushed past all the others in the crowded room until they find places on the floor, their hands resting on the coffee table in front of FarooqAbdullah.

quot;Hamari baat sunoquot; Listen to us, Shabbir thumps the table. He is shaking with rage. quot;Hamari baat sunoquot; he shouts above the din, thumping even louder. Farooq leans back on the sofa like a boxer leans against the ropes, making room for his lunging opponent to jab the air.

A sort of murmuring silence descends on the room. It turns out that Shabbir is the only survivor of the Sallian massacre.

quot;Please tell us what you saw,quot; Farooq defuses the tension. Imagine the suspense. The majority in the room have, by hint and innuendo, sought to place the guilt at the Army8217;s door, the 9th para stationed nearby. And now, the lone survivor is about to give his testimony before the Chief Minister in a room filled with all manner of partisans.

But Shabbir8217;s very first statement detracts from quot;the Army is guiltyquot; theory. quot;It was very dark,quot; he says. quot;I could not see their faces. All I could see were shadows and heard the sound of bullets and women and children screaming.quot;

By now the beardedman, Latif, is in a state of high agitation. quot;Tumne yeh bheriye kyoon chhorey hain ham par?quot; Why have you let loose these wolves upon us?

Which quot;wolvesquot;? There was no proof against the Army. Moreover, why would the Army hack and slit throats? It would simply shoot.

Obviously, Zakir8217;s relatives and friends, other SPOs would be motivated to take revenge against the family of Imtiaz, Zakir8217;s killer. Why would the Army be so motivated?

quot;9th para commandos are a crack unit,quot; two Sikhs lean over the police officer for my attention. quot;They have intercepted numerous militants crossing over from the LOCs.quot; Cross-checking with two or three others in the room is revealing: no one actually refutes the excellent reputation the commando unit enjoys. An elderly man, his skin like crumpled parchment, picks up the theme.

quot;On normal days the Army would open fire even at the sight of fireflies,quot; he asks. quot;Why did it not open fire when rounds were being fired in Sallian 8212; and the unit camp is barely 200 yardsaway?quot; Someone shouts it may have been another group of militants out to discredit the Army.

It is like Kurosowa8217;s Roshomon. There are shades of truth in every hint, statement or innuendo: Farooq , as bewildered as the rest of us, announces that a high court judge will investigate the massacre. This calms tempers.

What is the moral of the story? Pakistan8217;s low-cost proxy war, the simple injection of one Imtiaz, creates an upheaval that ruptures relations between the people and the armed forces essential in the area. By killing large numbers of Hindus along the Chenab, the idea is to invite a Hindu backlash in Jammu and beyond. And cajoling an army commander here, controlling a traumatised mob there, hopping from one point along the LOC to the other in his helicopter, mornings, evenings and afternoons, is the solitary figure of Kashmir8217;s much-maligned Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah. It is time the Prime Minister came out of his silence and made an appearance alongside the lonesome figure of theembattled Chief Minister.