Encounters With Reality

The news of Davinder Singh’s arrest brings a strange hope, of closure of wounds, for the besieged eight million people of Kashmir whose memories are alive with the past injustices of the Macchil, Chattisinghpora, Pathribal and Barakpora massacres.

- Shams Irfan

THE ARREST OF DAVINDER SINGH HAS shaken Kashmir’s complex security grid like never before. He told his interrogators that he was helping the militants he had been with when he was arrested get outside the Kashmir Valley against payment of Rs.12 lakh. The motive and the final destination of the militants are still not known. But Davinder Singh’s initial confession instantly evoked memories of the Parliament House attack in 2001, which brought India and Pakistan to the brink of an all-out war.

According to a letter written to his lawyer by Afzal Guru, the accused in the Parliament House attack case who was hanged and then secretly buried inside Delhi’s Tihar jail, it was Davinder Singh who forced him to take a militant named Mohammad to Delhi. Mohammad was among five Pakistani militants who carried out the attack.

But despite Afzal Guru’s confession before the court, Davinder Singh’s role in the Parliament House attack was never probed. The court only believed the part that Afzal Guru brought Mohammad to Delhi, but not the part that he did so at Davinder Singh’s behest. While Afzal Guru was hanged “to satisfy the collective conscience of the nation”, Davinder Singh remained untouched.

As Davinder Singh’s name kept cropping up after the attack, he was transferred to the Traffic Police Department, apparently to let him cool his heels.

But the attempts to whitewash Davinder Singh’s crimes by the system only made Kashmiris certain that justice was far from their reach. Afzal Guru’s trial and subsequent hanging have become a benchmark of India’s justice system for ordinary Kashmiris.