By Momin Iftikhar 

 In the killing fields of Kashmir no poetic justice could have been timelier. Just as Manmohan Singh was embarking upon his much awaited visit to Sri Nagar in the first week of June, to renew his offer of talks to the separatists, the entire IHK went on the boil over the exposure of a fake encounter by the Indian Army at Machil on 30 April. The rather rare exposure of a routine crime, where killers were caught red handed, served to convincingly expose the phenomenon of fake encounters in IHK, routinely conducted by the Indian Army on the LoC, with persistent claims of foiling infiltration bids from Pakistan. It also brought into sharp focus the harrowing state of human rights violations in the IHK, calling into question the Indian negotiating strategy that frames Kashmir Issue as an offshoot of terrorism sustained from across the border. The episode started in a mundanely routine manner when an Army unit conducting counter insurgency operations claimed that it had shot and killed three Lashkar-e-Taiba ‘terrorists’ while infiltrating across the LoC from Azad Kashmir. Soon after, however, the relatives of the slain youth, belonging to Nadihal village in Baramula district, raised hue and cry that the shot ‘Pakistani terrorists’ were in fact their loved ones who, days before, had been lured away by soldiers of 4 Rajputana Rifles. On a tip off by the locals to the bereaving families the trail led to a grave yard near the Unit’s camp at Kalaroos, Kupwara district. Such incidents are wont to be hushed up but the large scale protests and the sensitiveness of timings, when India and Pakistan are picking up threads for resumption of the stalled Composite Dialogue, forced a response. Hours before Manmohan Singh landed in Sri Nagar, the Army announced that it had removed Colonel D K Pathania, commanding officer 4 Rajputana Rifles from command of the Unit and suspended Major Upinder who stood out as the central character in conduct of the fake encounter. Colonel Pathania, incidentally, became the second commanding officer to be removed from command for conducting fake encounters; first being Colonel Gloria who was removed for killing three boys in Dudipora, Handwara in North Kashmir in Feb 2006. Machil encounter amply underscores the institutionalized phenomenon of fake encounters by Indian Army in Kashmir that are used to falsely frame Pakistan and used by the Indian spin doctors to discredit the Kashmiri struggle for liberation from India as a terrorist movement. These are heartily accepted by the Indian Foreign Office as well which is working overtime to project Pakistan as a state sponsoring terrorism. Stage managed encounters come handy as they provide India with a handle to regulate the ebb and flow of political interaction with Pakistan. The attack on Indian Parliament on 13 December 2000 was a trend setter, where within days and without any tangible proof of Pakistan’s involvement, India launched a full mobilization of armed forces that went on for ten months, taking the subcontinent to the brink of a nuclear conflict. It is instructive though to note that almost five year later the Indian Supreme Court verdict, after having taken into account the entire gamut of evidence produced by the prosecution, precluded any Pakistani role in the attack.The capitulation of Taleban before the US onslaught facilitated by Indian protégées in Northern Alliance, in Nov 2001, provided India with an ample supply of clay pigeons that could be used as gun fodder in fake encounters in IHK. Northern Alliance warlords opened the gates of their jails where thousands of Taleban prisoners were readily available for pick and choose by the Indian intelligence teams. An unknown number were transported from Panjshiri Jails to Dushanbe from where IAF’s IL-76 planes brought them to India. How many were used to sustain the thesis of “cross border terrorism” will never really be known. However most of them are believed to lie in the soggy bottom of the mass graves that dot the IHK landscape close to the LoC in the proximity of the Indian Army’s camps – much like the nameless graves in the Karloos graveyard where remains of the latest victims of fake encounter were identified. Mass graves in the IHK containing victims of fake encounters are an aspect that is clamoring for global attention. Not that there is any dearth of evidence. The International Peoples Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice has compiled 2700 unmarked graves with nearly 3000 bodies across 55 villages in Bandipora, Baramulla and Kupwara districts of Kashmir which belong to those killed in fake encounters or custodial killings. The report; BURIED EVIDENCE: Unknown, Unmarked and Mass graves in Indian Administered Kashmir compiled and released in 2009 through the hard work of Angana Chatterji and Parvez Imroz provides precise information about the location of mass graves in IHK but the Indian Government has turned a Nelson’s Eye to the issue; refusing to launch any investigations.Incidents of fake encounters are likely to rise in the coming days and the portents are not good. As the two countries prepare to engage in the Composite Dialogue Process, Indians have suddenly started reporting infiltration attempts across the LoC. In Apr-May 2010 alone Indian military reported killing over thirty militants in encounters while allegedly attempting to infiltrate to the Indian side. With fake encounters order of the day in IHK, how many of these were locals killed in fake encounters; remains an open-ended question. Given the scenario, Pakistan needs to actively pursue the demand made by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq to take up the issue of “fake encounters” with India on the negotiating table. Machil encounter could be a good starting point.