When Kargil cover-up failed, Pak showered money to douse the anger

On June 26, 1999, political activists (in the Northern Areas) raised slogans against the manner in which the Kargil operation was being handled. At least a dozen leaders were later jailed on sedition charges. More trouble broke out in Skardu where militants of Al-Badar Mujahideen started arriving in late May to act, according to locals, as decoys. These militants forcefully occupied a house in July to establish their office, leading to an exchange of gunfire between them and the local people.

To prevent further public outbursts, top state dignitaries started making whirlwind tours of the Northern Areas (NA) and extravagant rewards were bestowed on the martyrs and their families. The elevation of the paramilitary Northern Light Infantry (NLI) to the status of a regular Pakistan Army regiment with all benefits and privileges, and the bestowal of over 40 medals of courage on NLI personnel (the largest number ever won by a single infantry regiment in Pakistan), appear to have partially appeased injured pride.

Monetary rewards seemed to have played a significant role. Each bereaved family received 500,000 rupees out of the prime minister’s package, 60,000 rupees from the GHQ (through corps commander Pindi), and 30,000 rupees announced by Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf. In addition, each family has received anywhere between 200,000 and 400,000 rupees. “The government has washed all my wounds,” says Guizari of village Damasu, the young widow of Sepoy Saboor Khan of 11-NLI who has two children. She received 900,000 rupees, and may soon marry her brother-in-law.

But in the neighbouring Bejayot village, the widow of Sepoy Hazrat Qabool of 4-NLI has refused to remarry. She has already received 900,000 rupees in compensation and expects to receive a further 300,000. She has two sons and two daughters, and says she will spend her life raising them.

Not all widows are as lucky. In village Manich (Yasin subdivision), the widow of Sepoy Mohammad Isa (4-NLI), being issueless after three years of marriage, had to leave her husband’s house in keeping with local tradition. This has given rise to disputes over the distribution of compensation money between Isa and her parents. A more instructive case is that of Havaldar Major Lalak Jan (12-NLI) the recepient of the Nishan-e-Haider. Having lost his first wife in childbirth, he remarried five months before his martyrdom. After his death, there were rumours that Lalak Jan’s elder brother, Gul Sambar Khan, a Havaldar in 30-AK Regiment, had been given 9.6 million rupees as compensation by the government. The widow kicked up a fuss and, when told that it was not true, refused to believe her brother-in-law and went away to her parents’ house.

Subsequently, Gul Sambar Khan apparently prevented the authorities from issuing the prime minister’s reward of 500,000 rupees in the widow’s name, as is generally done. He also prevented the settlement of Lalak Jan’s pension in his widow’s name. The dispute is still pending.

“These disputes have become the order of the day,” says Zarawar Khan, Lalak Jan’s cousin and the general secretary of the Al-Madad Welfare Organisation, founded by Lalak Jan three years ago. “The widows are taking off to their parents’ houses along with their children and the compensation money, abandoning the parents of the martyrs who, in some cases, are too poor and weak to fend for themselves.”

Contrary to the orthodox Muslim society in Pakistan, local NA customs encourage an issueless widow to remarry at once, and do not prevent young widows with children from remarrying if they so desire. But the Kargil rewards have changed all that. “The war widows are not remarrying because they will have to forego the pension, and because they will only get a widower as their match, something which they may not like with all the wealth they now possess,” says Zarawar Khan. “Even their parents would rather keep the rich daughter home than encourage her to remarry. This is corrupting our riwaj (custom).”

This came to the fore during the Haj season this year when the war widows of Kargil were offered a free Haj package. While the policy required them to be accompanied by a mehram from the husband’s family, widows attempted to fake the identification documents of their own brothers and fathers to get them on board. “We caught dozens of cases of fake identity in Ghizer alone, while many of them were helped by conniving officials to slip by,” says a senior district administration official.

However, when the glitter of the new-found money rubs off, another set of disappointments lies in store for these families. The war affectees may not get the houses they were promised by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The present government has already revoked that promise, offering instead a plot and 200,000 rupees in cash. None of the families has received any of these benefits, and they are likely to wait a long time before enough plots can be spared for them.

Second, they may end up chasing shadows in their bid to get the martyrs’ children into proper schools. The children were promised free education, boarding and food at NLI schools with the condition that they cleared the primary classes at home. While more than 1,000 children of the martyrs are yet to complete primary school, children past the primary stage are reported to have been denied admission in some NLI schools.

“The martyrs have departed, but life goes on with all its simplicity, hardships, cunning and deception,” says Nawaz Khan Naji, chairman of the the Balawaristan National Front. “One only hopes that the lives of their children will not be treated as casually by the rulers as were those of the martyrs.”