2000 Chittisinghpura massacre

Chittisinghpura massacre
Chittisinghpura massacre
Location	Chittisinghpura, Anantnag district, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Date	20 March 2000
Target	Sikhs
Attack type	Mass murder
Deaths	35
Perpetrators	Undetermined

The Chittisinghpura massacre refers to the mass murder of 35 Sikh villagers on 20 March 2000 in the village of Chittisinghpura (also spelled Chittisinghpora) in Anantnag district, Jammu and Kashmir, India on the eve of the American president Bill Clinton's state visit to India.^[3]^[4]^[5]

The identity of the perpetrators remains unknown. The Indian government asserts that the massacre was conducted by Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).^[6]^[7]^[8] Other accounts accuse the Indian Army of the massacre.^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]

Killings

Wearing Indian Army fatigues, the killers arrived into the village in military vehicles in two groups at opposite ends of the village where the two gurdwaras were located. The killers marched from home to home, introducing themselves as Indian Army personnel and ordered every male member of the household come out for security checks.^[13] They ordered them to line up in front of the gurdwaras and opened fire, killing thirty-five Sikhs.^[14]

Aftermath

The massacre was a turning point in the Kashmir issue, where Sikhs had usually been spared from militant violence.^[15]

Shortly after the massacre, hundreds of Kashmiri Sikhs gathered in Jammu, shouting anti Pakistan and anti Muslim slogans, criticising the Indian government for failing to protect the villagers, and demanding retaliation.^[16]^[17]

Following the killing, Syeed Salahudeen, Pakistan-based leader of the largest Kashmiri militant group Hizbul-Mujahideen, denounced the massacre, accusing India of it, and assured the Kashmiri Sikh community of the militants' support.^[6]

Perpetrators

Survivors interviewed by journalists insisted that the perpetrators had looked and spoken "like people from South India" and had shouted pro-India slogans after the massacre.^[9]^[12] According to Lt-General KS Gill, "[Indian] army officers up to the rank of a captain were involved in the 'fake encounter'. They kept visiting Chhatisinghpura for routine 'checkups'. After obtaining full information about the Sikh, they lined them up and shot them dead one day."^[18]

In 2000, Indian authorities announced that Mohammad Suhail Malik, a nephew of Lashkar-e-Taiba co-founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, confessed while in Indian custody to participating in the attacks at the direction of Lashkar-e-Taiba. He repeated the claim in an interview with Barry Bearak of The New York Times while still in Indian custody, although Bearak questioned the authenticity of the confession.^[19] In 2011, a Delhi court cleared Malik of the charges.^[20]

In an introduction to a book written by Madeleine Albright titled The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (2006), Hillary Clinton accused "Hindu militants" of perpetrating the act,^[21] which evoked outrage of some Hindu and Sikh groups. Clinton's office did not return calls seeking comment or clarification. The publishers, HarperCollins, later acknowledged "a failure in the fact-checking process" but did not offer a retraction.^[21]

In 2010, the Lashkar-e-Taiba associate David Headley, who was arrested in connection with the 2008 Mumbai attacks, reportedly told the National Investigation Agency that the LeT carried out the Chittisinghpura massacre.^[22] He is said to have identified an LeT militant named Muzzamil as part of the group which carried out the killings apparently to create communal tension just before Clinton's visit.^[23]

In 2005, Sikh organizations headed by the Bhai Kanahiya Jee Nishkam Seva Society demanded a deeper state inquiry into the details of the massacre^[24] and for the inquiry to be made public. The state government ordered an inquiry into the massacre.

References

^ "21 years after Chittisinghpura killings, kin of slain Sikhs look for answers". The Times of India. 21 March 2021.
^ "Kashmiri Sikhs demand re-investigation into Chattisinghpora massacre". Deccan Chronicle. 19 March 2016. Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
^ "Kashmir killings overshadow Clinton visit". BBC News. 21 March 2000. Archived from the original on 28 January 2020. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
^ Popham, Peter (22 March 2000). "Massacre of 36 Sikhs overshadows Clinton's tour". The Independent. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
^ Swami, Praveen (1 April 2000). "The massacre at Chattisinghpora". Frontline. Archived from the original on 7 March 2021. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
^ ^a ^b Harding, Luke (22 March 2000). "Killing of Sikhs clouds Clinton visit to India". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 24 August 2013. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
^ "Lashkar behind Sikh massacre in Kashmir in 2000, says Headley". Hindustan Times. 25 October 2010. Archived from the original on 14 January 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
^ Daiya, Kavita (2011), Violent Belongings: Partition, Gender, and National Culture in Postcolonial India, Temple University Press, p. 1, ISBN 9781592137442, archived from the original on 16 January 2023, retrieved 27 March 2023, On March 21, 2000, in the war-torn state of Kashmir in India, Islamic militants massacred thirty-five Sikh men from the village of Chitti Singhpora. It was Holi, the festival of colors. Militants with bright Holi colors on their faces wore Indian military uniforms, arrived in the village, told the villagers they were from the army, and dragged the Sikh men out of their houses on the pretext of an "identification parade." All the Sikh men, young and old, were lined up against two walls in the village, and then shot to death. Since the targeting and subsequent exodus of Hindu Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir, this was the first time the Sikh community was targeted and brutally massacre.
^ ^a ^b Bhat, Saima (26 March 2012). "The lone survivor: Nanak Singh". Kashmir Life. Archived from the original on 24 March 2017. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
^ Bhat, Aamir Ali (21 March 2019). "'Names of killers still reverberate in my ears': 19 years after Chittisinghpora massacre, lone survivor recounts night that killed 35 Sikhs". Firstpost. Archived from the original on 21 March 2019. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
^ "Rift in the valley". The Economist. 24 August 2010. ISSN 0013-0613. Archived from the original on 29 October 2019. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
^ ^a ^b Singh, Gurpreet (19 March 2018). "India Owes Answers For The Killings Of 36 Sikhs And 14 Others In Kashmir". Countercurrents. Archived from the original on 1 July 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
^ "Chittisinghpora Massacre: When shadowy gunners in army fatigues widowed 30 Sikh women". Free Press Kashmir. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
^ "'Names of killers still reverberate in my ears': 19 years after Chittisinghpora massacre, lone survivor recounts night that killed 35 Sikhs". Firstpost. 21 March 2019. Archived from the original on 21 March 2019. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
^ Dugger, Celia W. (21 March 2000). "34 Massacred In Sikh Town In Kashmir". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 20 October 2021. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
^ Jameel, Yusuf (3 April 2000). "Slaughter in Singhpora: A Village Becomes Kashmir's Latest Victim". Time Asia. Archived from the original on 27 January 2001. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
^ "Man arrested in connection with Sikh massacre". The Independent. AP. 16 August 2013. Archived from the original on 29 October 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
^ Jaaved, Amjed (25 March 2021). "Chhattisgarh massacre : will the Sikh ever see justice?". www.globalvillagespace.com. Global Village Space. Archived from the original on 25 March 2021. Retrieved 29 June 2021. According to Lt-General (Retd.) KS Gill, army officers up to the rank of a captain were involved in the "fake encounter". They kept visiting Chhatisinghpura for routine "checkups". After obtaining full information about the Sikh, they lined them up and shot them dead one day.
^ Bearak, Barry (31 December 2000), "A Kashmiri Mystery", The New York Times Magazine, archived from the original on 7 January 2016, retrieved 4 November 2009, The conversation was mostly in Urdu, once again a language I did not speak. I could study his eyes but not his phrasing or inflections, the little clues as to what was being held back in the privacy of his head. When we left, I asked Surinder Oberoi, my journalist friend, if he thought Malik was telling the truth.
'Yes, I think so,' he answered after a pause. Then he added a cautionary shrug and a sentence that stopped after the words 'But you know. ... '
Malik showed no signs of physical abuse, but, as with Wagay, the torture of someone in his situation would not be unusual. Once, over a casual lunch, an Indian intelligence official told me that Malik had been 'intensively interrogated.' I asked him what that usually meant. 'You start with beatings, and from there it can go almost anywhere,' he said. Certainly, I knew what most Pakistanis would say of the confession -- that the teenager would admit to anything after persistent electrical prodding by the Indians. And it left me to surmise that if his interrogators had made productive use of pain, was it to get him to reveal the truth or to repeat their lies?
^ "Sikhs' massacre in Chattisinghpora: Two Pakistanis acquitted". The Times of India. PTI. 10 August 2011. Archived from the original on 6 November 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
^ ^a ^b "Clinton goofs up on J&K killings" Archived 9 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine, The Times of India.
^ "Lashkar behind Sikh massacre in Kashmir in 2000, says Headley". Hindustan Times. 25 October 2010. Archived from the original on 14 January 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
^ Jupinderjit Singh (25 October 2010). Chittisinghpura Massacre: Obama's proposed visit makes survivors recall tragedy Archived 16 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine. The Tribune, Chandigarh. Accessed 20 October 2021.
^ Sikhs want CBI probe into Chittisinghpura Massacre Archived 1 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Tribune India. 11 November 2005. Accessed on 20 October 2021.