Amarnath Tragedy: Security Lapse or What?

amarnath-bus-and-security-personnel

All sections of Kashmir Society have condemned the dastardly attack on a bus ferrying  Yatris to Holy Amarnath cave. Seven yatris were killed  in the cowardly attack and many more injured.

While feeling grieved and outpouring  of emotions is a  natural human trait, what is bad and loathsome, is the mention of Islam & Muslims in their condolence messages. Many have  loaded  their messages with the words ‘ this is against the basic tenants of Islam’ or  ‘The killing is unislamic’ etc. etc. These messages pre-suppose that the Yatris were killed by Muslims or Islamists. I take umbrage at these pre-drawn conclusions.

The attack on the Yatri bus raises more questions than it answers. Here are  the questions which need answers & explanations:

  • How come that a bus carrying nearly 60 yatris was allowed to proceed to Baltal, one of the two launching points for the Yatra. Normally all vehicles carrying yatris are supposed to be registered with Amarnath Shrine Board and in the instant case, the bus was plying without the said registration. Not only did the bus reach its first leg of journey, it was allowed to proceed on its return journey as well.
  • Leave aside the bus, Even Yatris have to get themselves registered individually or in groups. For this purpose, various registration centres, managed by  designated banks, have been opened all over India. It is now established that none of the yatris travelling in the ill-fated bus was registered.
  • All Yatri vehicles are barred from plying after 7.00 PM. In the instant case, the accident happened at 8.30 PM, well beyond the stipulated time.
  • According to news reports, a police patrol vehicle was plying ahead of the ill-fated bus.(Hindustan Times 11th July).If the police version of cross fire is taken at its face value, the security personnel in the said vehicle should have been the first persons to face the bullets &  got injured in the process. So far no such injuries have been reported.
  • The theory of cross fire has been trashed by a senior Journalist of the State, Ahmed Ali Fayaz. After uploading the picture of the damaged bus, Look at his tweet, posted on 11th July at 2.24 PM.

“@ahmedalifayyaz

What a ‘crossfire’ dear J&K Police! All bullets through windows. None on body. 6 of the 7 dead yatris are women. No cop, no militant injured”

  • Local residents have reported that the security forces reached the spot 25 minutes after firing incident & didn’t allow them  to provide relief to injured yatris, who were screaming & crying for help from inside the bus (Greater Kashmir 12th July).
  • It needs to be noted that that the accident spot is barely 200 meters away from Army Garrison. A police post of ‘Special Operations group’ of Anantnag police is also in close vicinity ( HT/GK-Supra)
  • Only few days ago, a Hindu militant namely Sandeep Kumar, said to be an associate of Bashir Lashkari, a top militant(Since killed), working in the same district, was caught alive in a security operation. While his revelations post interrogation,have not been made public but J&K Police did generate some intelligence reports to the effect that an attack on Yatris was in offing with huge causalities planned to provoke a backlash in rest of India. The said intelligence input was ignored by all security agencies.
  • The Driver of the bus, Salim, who miraculously survived the deadly attack has been rewarded instead of being put in prison for plying the bus  illegally, without registration with Shrine Board. The actual owner of the bus has still not been identified for questioning.

The above apprehensions or doubts can only be cleared by a high level independent enquiry, preferably by UN. But till such an enquiry is held and perpetrators of this ghastly crime identified beyond any reasonable doubt, it is quite inappropriate and preposterous to presuppose involvement of Muslims in the incident. To achieve this it is of paramount necessity to preserve the evidence like damaged Bus & isolate evidences like Surviving Yatris & Driver Salim from Govt. influence.

And yes- By lacing condolence messages with words like Islam etc. ,one is  doing a biggest disservice to the objective itself which should be to identify the perpetrators & award them an exemplary punishment.

(The author is a practicing chartered Accountant. Feed back at [email protected])

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