Kidnapped in Kashmir
This is a true story.
Jammu and Kashmir state is divided into three sections. A small part of its North-eastern area is occupied by China. Another major part of it North and North-west are occupied by Pakistan and the rest of Jammu and Kashmir state is occupied by India. The word “occupied” is defined by the United Nations Security Council. All these areas are being administered by these three countries since 1947.
Kashmir, administered by India, is the most beautiful place on the earth. While Switzerland is considered to be the most beautiful place but it has quite a bit of human influence that makes it look very beautiful and an ideal place for tourists. Kashmir, on the other hand, has an enormous natural beauty but the state has remained in turmoil since 1947 when the first war between India and Pakistan took place within 2 months of their independence. Both the countries are thus concerned and fighting for the land and nobody is concerned about the people of the state.
Jammu Kashmir state per se also has another beautiful area called Ladakh province. Ladakh is broadly divided into two parts. Kargil and Leh districts. Ladakh has been unaffected by the armed insurgency that began in 1989 in Kashmir province. It also affected parts of Jammu province. The state of Jammu and Kashmir has enjoyed a special status of Article 370 of the Indian constitution. The article is the only link between India and Jammu and Kashmir and in the absence or by abrogation of the article the state of Jammu and Kashmir will cease to be the part of the Indian union. The BJP government surprised everyone when they made the article inactive on August 5, 2019. It is due to the turmoil that continues to haunt the people of Kashmir as well as the states of India and Pakistan. This is also the reason why no tourists visit the state except most of the visiting Indian tourists on their religious pilgrimage.
I visited the state in 1989 as a professional rally driver. The only Indian international rally that ran through Jammu and Kashmir to Ladakh and back to Delhi was canceled due to the inception of the armed militancy in Kashmir. I decided to visit Ladakh via Kashmir for a Guinness Record of riding the highest motorable road in the world. I fell in love with Kashmir and Ladakh on my visit in 1991.
According to my assessment, Ladakh is good for a week or ten days trip. Kashmir is a huge place and offers a great opportunity to explore that would take more than six months. After I was done with Ladakh, I decided to stay in Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir for a while. Srinagar is the central place to visit all other tourist places in Kashmir valley. Jammu and Kashmir have two capitals. Srinagar is the summer capital and Jammu city is the winter capital. Kashmir gets cold in winter while Jammu which is nearly 280 km from Srinagar remains relatively warm in winter.
After I reached Srinagar riding my bike, the central part of Srinagar city looked like a graveyard. There were hardly any people on the streets and I saw no vehicles plying. It was shocking. People lived indoors. All I could see was some Indian army making sudden appearances in their trucks. There were no police visible. I was told that the state police did not have the training and equipment to fight the armed insurgents. They preferred to live in their hideouts.
One day as I was traveling near the Rainawari area of the city, I saw armed militants in their unique uniforms holding AK47 guns and grenades in the streets of Srinagar. There was none to check them. It seemed they were running the show.
I stayed in Srinagar to explore some parts of Kashmir. Soon, I realized it was a mistake. I should not have visited Kashmir. for the next few years. One of the medical doctors who got to know of my expertise in Bio-Medical engineering spread the word around. The next day, I was also approached by a premier hospital in Srinagar to help them to fix some of the high-end medical diagnostic equipment. No medical engineer would visit Kashmir because of the prevailing circumstances. I visited the hospital situated in Soura and fixed the equipment. After fixing the problems, I left the hospital alone towards my place of stay.
The next day another hospital administration approached me. This was the hospital for gynecology. Meanwhile, more people approached me for help. This was noticed by the local administration. The administrators tried to provide me bulletproof vehicles to ensure my safety. But this was misconstrued by the militants. It took them no time to jump to the conclusion and one day when I was driving on Moulana Azad Road, four guys armed with guns stopped me and took me to a nearby place called Koker Bazar near Lal Chowk. I had been kidnapped. I was told that the militants thought I was an agent of the Indian secret agency RAW.
I don’t remember my reactions and expressions. I was confident that they will let me go after a while but that was not going to happen. To them, I was an enemy but I don’t know why they kept me alive until I was in their captivity.
It was an old typical Kashmiri traditional house. Nobody lived in that house. The house was used by the militants for the purpose of holding their kidnapped people and torturing them. There were armed guards at the entrance and another half a dozen armed militants kept roaming about most of the time. I was taken to the ground floor for interrogation and torture and then put back on the 2nd floor of the same house as a prisoner. The house did not have glass panes in the windows. The house was not in a good shape. The owner must have left the house unattended for years.
The armed militants were aged between 16 to 25 years. Sometimes a couple of boys would come and show me how to dismantle AK47 rifles. Russian-made AK47 is a very popular close combat gun. Once a very young boy came close to me with a grenade in his hand. He suddenly pulled the pin and told me the grenade is ow active and will burst as soon as the plunger is released. This was so terrifying. I was so worried. What if this boy makes a mistake and the plunger or whatever it is called gets released or malfunctions? I wanted to run away from them. After seeing my face he shoved the pin back in. Another boy pulled a pistol from his pocket and began to fire in the air. I think it was a Chinese pistol. This was the first time I saw an AK47 gun, a grenade, and a pistol.
Their practice was to nearly drag me downstairs to the ground floor. The ground floor had 3 rooms. I could see two of them near the entrance of the house. The house was surrounded by many small traditional houses. It looked like all the houses were empty. I could not see anyone popping out of their windows. But the houses were occupied by their owners who preferred to stay indoors.
On the 3rd day, at 4 pm, I was brought down to the ground floor of the same house. I saw ropes hung over the wooden beam running in the middle of the ceiling of the room. I had noticed the wooden ceiling many times. There was nothing else to look at and admire. It was a thick rope made up of jute. Perhaps the same rope that we often see in movies that are used to hang the people inside prisons. After being around for 3 days, I knew they don’t let their captives stay alive. Perhaps most of them are hanged by the necks.
There was nothing new today except an old folding steel chair. Two militants in their early twenties walked in with steel chains and pistols. Others surrounded me with their AK 47 guns. They were whispering for a while. I could not understand anything.
Suddenly, someone came in running and whispered that nearly 2 dozen Indian army men were patrolling the street outside. Everyone in the room looked worried and fled the place. They left the house leaving me in the room guarded by people two youths with pistols in their hands.
The change of circumstance made me think hard. It was an opportunity for me to give these two young men a slip and run away. My mind was working at lightning speed. I was scared, nervous, and flabbergasted. I suddenly realized that this is the time to do something.
I had learned Karate when I was in my teens. I decided to act. All the thinking and acting took me less than a minute. My right-hand punch landed on one militant’s nose and a round kick on another guy’s throat. He managed to duck a bit but I promptly hit his groin with my instep. Both fell to the floor. I ran away at full speed. I did not look back and kept running for a place called Karan Nagar. The next day, I left Kashmir. There was no time to do anything else.
I still remember all the horror which scares me.
Many of my friends and colleagues told me that my story resembled that of the Hindi movie ‘Roza’. I was told to write a book. The days spent in captivity shook my soul. I was trying to be a normal person. The post-trauma stress disorder (PTSD) lasted for more than a year. The bottom line is that I lived to tell the tale.