Srinagar
In occupied Kashmir, the US President, Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to India has caused fear psychosis among the Sikh community of the Kashmir Valley.
As many as 35 members of the Sikh community were massacred on the night of March 19, 2000 by the men in Indian Army uniform in Chattisinghpora village of southern Islamabad district during the then President, Bill Clinton’s official visit of India.
Jagmohan Singh Raina, Chairman of All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC), an association of Jammu and Kashmir’s Sikh organisations, in a statement issued in Srinagar said that the Sikhs of the Valley had to face such fearful situation whenever a high profile foreign personality, especially, that from the US visits India.
“The whole India seems to be busy in making preparations for Trump’s visit, but for Sikhs of Kashmir, the visit has brought in fears that the members of the community are yet again on the radar [of Indian agencies]. The Sikhs are feeling insecure and they fear that something untoward might happen on the eve of Donald Trump’s visit,” he added.
A local woman had also died of cardiac arrest on seeing piles of bullet-riddled corpses of the victims, raising the toll to 36.
Five days after the massacre, Indian army and police had claimed that five perpetrators were killed in an encounter in Islamabad’s Pathribal area and all of them were ‘foreign terrorists’.
However, as a result of investigations, it turned out to be a fake encounter and all the five slain men were labourers , who were picked up by the Indian forces from different areas of the district earlier and were killed to defame mujahideen. Subsequently, at least, ten more people were killed after forces opened fire on the people protesting against the killing of innocent civilians in the fake encounter in Islamabad’s Brakapora area.—KMS
