Aman Zutshi
RAJOURI: “Layi Vi Na Gayi, Te Nibhayi Vi Nai Gayi/ Maine maarda jahan mainu sara/ Teri meri yun tut gayi soniye/ Jive tutya ambar ton tara aa…..”
When Kamal Kumar sang this song (see video here), time seemed to stand still; his pitch-perfect tone effortlessly scaled heights and plumbed depths, leaving listeners in awe. The voice was cut short on December 16, 2022, when he along with Surinder Kumar, was mysteriously killed at the entrance of an Army Camp near the village in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir.
What remains today are memories of their family members trying to piece together their lives, or videos recorded by Kamal Kumar’s friends and family members with his unpolished but mesmerising voice. What also remains is the unfulfilled quest for justice and truth.
The two, both in their thirties, were killed while another was injured after the firing began outside an army camp in the Rajouri district on December 16, 2022. This in turn led to massive protests and demands for a fair probe.
The Incident of December 16, 2022
Local accounts in Phaliana village of Rajouri, where the deceased lived, state that army guards fatally shot the two men, identified as Surinder Kumar and Kamal Kumar, at the base’s entrance on that early Friday morning. Both were working in the army canteen inside the camp.
However, the Indian military claims that armed rebels killed the men outside the military hospital in Rajouri. A third individual from Uttarakhand was reportedly injured in the incident.
Villagers living adjacent to the TCP Army Camp said that early at 6.30 AM they heard some shots being fired. When they came out, they saw the bodies of the two men lying in a pool of blood. The family members were informed and reached the spot at 7.00 AM.
The incident left the victims’ families devastated, with Kamal and Surinder leaving behind three and two children respectively, according to villagers, who blocked the highway for several hours, seeking justice.
Villagers contest the army’s version of events and continue to await justice and compensation, including jobs for one member of each kin, till today.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of them alleged that the army killed the civilians without provocation as they were heading to their routine work at the base, where they had been employed as labourers for over a decade. They were Dalits and their families have been pushed into acute poverty after their death.
To quell the initial protests, the administration ordered a probe and also assured jobs to the family members.
The case was handed over to a Special Investigating Team of the Police headed by the Superintendent of Police, Rajouri. The probe report is still awaited.
Unending Quest for Justice
Meanwhile, the families are still awaiting the fulfillment of the promises of a fair investigation, compensatory relief, and jobs. Barring admission of their children to the Army School, none of the other assurances have been fulfilled, as yet. They are still urging the administration to provide them with the promised jobs so that they can continue to carry on with their lives.
Much worse, the immediate family members were scared of speaking to the media, fearing retribution. “They will threaten us,” is all that one of them could say.
One of them mustered some courage to say, “We want justice and we aren’t asking for too much.” He questioned whether it was their Dalit identity because of which the government had adopted a dilly-dallying attitude, “After all,” he said, “the victims of Dhangri’s terror attack got jobs in no time, even laid a concrete road till their house. We have also suffered a tragedy. We don’t even have proper roads to walk on. Is there a delay in giving us jobs because we are Dalits?”
The Army camp gate is adjacent to the village along the road flanked by modest-looking houses. But a small stretch further, the village diversifies into small roadless treks and the texture of houses begins to change. The path to the houses of Kamal Kumar and Surinder Kumar’s houses is a narrow kuccha (Unpaved) rugged trek that winds up and down the hill. The humble-looking huts, some in dilapidated condition, dot this serene hilly landscape, some in haphazard clusters.
Kamal Kumar’s wife, sitting outside her small mud tenement, said, “Our children have got admissions to Army School but we also demand justice”. Surinder Kumar’s wife also echoed her concerns, saying, “The army has admitted kids in the school but they have given us no jobs.” She added, “We don’t know who killed them, they went to their work just like a routine” and shrugs her head in disbelief, unable to come to terms with the tragedy, one-and-a-half years on.
Villagers Question Official Claims
Surinder Kumar’s brother chipped in, “They used to go to the Army Camp at the crack of dawn to open their canteen. It was a little dark that morning and when they reached in front of the army gate, they were fired upon and died. We are not clear, who killed them as many probes have been done by the army and investigations are still going on in this case by different investigating agencies. As yet, there are no clear answers.”
“Whenever we go to an officer in the local administration to ask them about leads in our case, they tell us probes are going on,” he added. “If inquiries are going on then why things are not getting clear regarding this incident almost two years later?” he quizzed.
Distant family members, who spoke, talked on conditions of anonymity. A relative of one of the victims, speaking to the Kashmir Times, revealed that after the incident, the families of Kamal and Surinder were warned by the soldiers not to say a word against the army. “Else there will be consequences, they were told,” he says.
He adds, “We all know who did this but even we are afraid. They were good men. They killed and then some people also wrongly tagged them as militants. That hurts us. Our families have served in the Indian Army.”
This is why the villagers recall the attitude of some of the soldiers as provocative.
A relative of the deceased recounted: “We were protesting outside the Army Camp gate at Phaliana. An Army Captain came out, asking why we were causing a disturbance. When we told him our family members had been shot dead, he callously replied, ‘People die, it’s normal.’ His response angered us, and he fled when we expressed our outrage.
The Captain was aware of the incident and even told us where the shooting occurred, questioning why we were protesting at the gate. This shocked all the protestors.
Later, when we threw stones at the army camp in protest, the media labeled us as ‘stone-pelters.'”
The villagers continue to feel dejected and disbelieve the official claims about the incident.
One relative picked holes in the army theory of terrorists killing them. “If they killed them right under the nose of the army, why was there no retaliatory fire? How could they just let them be gunned down.” He paused and added, that if they show the CCTV footage, it would be clear what happened but he fears that this may have been deliberately destroyed.
“Whenever the villagers have asked about the CCTV footage of the surveillance cameras installed at the army gate, the army has denied us the clip saying “Cameras Kharaab Hai“, (the cameras don’t function),” he said.
Another villager claimed that the Army’s White Night Corps Twitter (X) handle first said that they had killed two militants outside the TCP gate in Phaliana, but later, they deleted it and wrote that two civilians had died in a terrorist attack. “We still want that tweet. It will be helpful and can aid in clearing the mist surrounding the incident,” he added.
Villagers also claim that a local truck driver, who was passing by saw the army men firing at the two men. After seeing him in a pool of blood, “he peed in his pants out of fear and ran away.”
“We don’t know when and where the third man was shot at and injured. ……It may have been inside the camp. Once he was discharged from the hospital, where he was recuperating for a while under heavy security presence, he was sent back to Uttarakhand and remains untraceable,” one of them says.
Villagers say they found unused foreign-made bullet cartridges on the road where the men were killed. They suspect that these were kept there to cover up the footprints of the incident and confuse us. “Some of us have been former soldiers and we can differentiate between a used cartridge, which carries a distinct smell of smoke for over a day, and an unused one,” one of them said, and added the question, “Why would terrorists leave behind unused bullets?”
If this was a terror attack, no Standard Operating Procedures were followed, they question.
A long-held baggage of injustice
Beyond this one incident, the issues of injustice percolate deep into the psyche of these people caught in a militarized zone. It is about daily lives caught in a time warp with no hopes of improvement.
A villager, related to one of the deceased, lives in a mud house close to the army camp. He reveals, “I worked hard to collect money to build a concrete house in place of this one,” he said, adding, “When it rains heavily, the house gets damaged.” But the army does not allow them to build pucca houses, he claims. “When we requested, all they gave us was a tarpaulin to cover the hut during rains….. But that is of no use,” he said with a lament.
Prakasho Devi, another villager, who lives with her son and daughter-in-law revealed, “The rainwater enters our mud-house from the ceiling as well as from the ground and our house seems as if it can fall anytime. We have been living here since 1960 and the army won’t let us build concrete structures. If something happens, who will be responsible?”
“Our lives are consumed by the regular monotony of grappling with the predicaments of being roofless and shelterless,” she said. Tragedies like the brutal murders of Kamal and Surinder have now multiplied their vulnerabilities.
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