Page 98 - The Winter of Islam and the Spring to Come

THE WINTER OF ISLAM AND THE SPRING TO COME
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the British. Kashmir has been living under Indian oppression ever
since.
The Kashmiri Muslims wished to resist the oppressive Indian rule
and to gain their independence. Indian forces carried out three major
massacres in the country, in 1947, 1965 and 1971. Tens of thousands of
Kashmiri Muslims were killed. More than 4,000 women were tortured
and raped. Schools providing religious education were shut down in
order to prevent any Islamic awareness. The killing and assimilation
18
movement took on its most ruthless form after 1990. People were de-
tained for no reason and tortured to death. Homes were looted, de-
fenseless people subjected to all kinds of persecution, and newspapers
and schools shut down. Nor was the Indian government content with
restricting itself to armed violence. Dams supposedly needed for agri-
cultural purposes were also employed to oppress Muslims. They were
filled up to the brim and then suddenly opened when the monsoon
rains came. The lower-lying areas, Kashmir and Pakistan, were thus
flooded. Thousands of people lost their lives as a result, and the affected
areas suffered great damage.
In October, 1993, there was a major attack on the Hazratbal
Mosque in the Kashmiri capital, Srinagar. The Indian authorities sur-
rounded the mosque, which they said was being supposedly used as a
military base of operations by Muslims, for about a month. More than
100 people were killed during that time. A further 300 innocent people
were detained. Electricity and water supplies to the city were cut off.
In addition to the persecution by the Indian government in
Kashmir, there is also a serious refugee problem. Below you can read
the impressions of Sefer Turan, a television reporter for Turkish chan-
nel Kanal 7, of the refugee camps in question. These alone are enough to
stir a person's conscience:

The Ambor refugee camp was set up in 1990 for Kashmiris fleeing
Jammu Kashmir. Living standards are far below the norm. People are
crammed into tiny mud houses. In the one-room house we entered,
there was a single bed. When I asked how many people lived there, I
was told, "Nine." The camp consists of 214 families, or 1,110 individu-