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2000 Chittisinghpura massacre

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Chittisinghpura massacre
LocationChittisinghpora, Anantnag district, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Date20 March 2000
TargetSikhs
Attack type
Mass murder
Deaths35
PerpetratorsUndetermined[1][2]

The Chittisinghpura massacre refers to the mass murder of 35 villagers of the Sikh faith that was carried out on 20 March 2000 in the Chittisinghpora (Chittisinghpura) village of Anantnag district, Jammu and Kashmir, India on the eve of 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] Other accounts accuse the Indian Army of the massacre.[8][9][10][11]

Killings

Human rights abuses
in Jammu and Kashmir
Notes
1990
1991
1993
1995
1995 kidnapping of Western tourists in Kashmir
1996
1997
1998
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2006
2009

Wearing Indian Army fatigues, the killers arrived into the village in military vehicles in two groups at separate ends of the village where the two gurdwaras were located, while the villagers had been celebrating the Hola Mahalla festival.[12] They ordered them to line up in front of the gurdwaras and opened fire, killing thirty-five people.[13]

Aftermath

The massacre was a turning point in the Kashmir issue, where Sikhs had usually been spared from militant violence.[14]

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.[15][16]

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]

Anantnag killings

Five days after the killings, Indian Army troops stopped and killed five people near Anantnag, claiming they were Pakistani perpetrators of the massacre. Soon, however, reports surfaced that they were all local villagers. After a public outcry, the government ordered genetic identification of the victims in order to show that they were not related to local families. However, the tissue samples sent by the government to a genetic laboratory in Hyderabad turned out fake.[17] A subsequent public inquiry revealed that the victims of the Indian Army killings were all random people with no relation with the Chittisinghpura massacre.[18]

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.[8][11] 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."[19]

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.[20] In 2011, a Delhi court cleared Malik of the charges.[21]

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.[22] This created a major incident, with both Hindu and Sikh groups expressing outrage. 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.[22]

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.[23] 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.[24]

In 2005, Sikh organizations headed by the Bhai Kanahiya Jee Nishkam Seva Society demanded a deeper state inquiry into the details of the massacre[25] and for the inquiry to be made public. The state government ordered an inquiry into the massacre.

References

  1. ^ "21 years after Chittisinghpura killings, kin of slain Sikhs look for answers". The Times of India. 21 March 2021.
  2. ^ "Kashmiri Sikhs demand re-investigation into Chattisinghpora massacre". Deccan Chronicle. 19 March 2016.
  3. ^ "Kashmir killings overshadow Clinton visit". BBC News. 21 March 2000. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  4. ^ Popham, Peter (22 March 2000). "Massacre of 36 Sikhs overshadows Clinton's tour". The Independent. Retrieved 4 March 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ Swami, Praveen (1 April 2000). "The massacre at Chattisinghpora". Frontline. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ "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.
  8. ^ 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.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ "Rift in the valley". The Economist. 24 August 2010. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ Bhat, Aamir Ali (20 March 2018). "Chittisinghpora Massacre: When shadowy gunners in army fatigues widowed 30 Sikh women". Free Press Kashmir. Retrieved 27 August 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ^ "'Names of killers still reverberate in my ears': 19 years after Chittisinghpora massacre, lone survivor recounts night that killed 35 Sikhs". Firstpost. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  14. ^ Dugger, Celia W. (21 March 2000). "34 Massacred In Sikh Town In Kashmir". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  15. ^ 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.
  16. ^ "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.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  17. ^ "Kashmir DNA cover-up claims rejected". CNN. 7 March 2002. Archived from the original on 12 May 2021. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  18. ^ "'Innocent civilians killed' in Kashmir cover-up". CNN. 16 July 2002. Archived from the original on 20 July 2016. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  19. ^ Jaaved, Amjed (25 March 2021). "Chhattisgarh massacre : will the Sikh ever see justice?". www.globalvillagespace.com. Global Village Space. 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.
  20. ^ Bearak, Barry (31 December 2000), "A Kashmiri Mystery", The New York Times Magazine, 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?
  21. ^ "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.
  22. ^ a b "Clinton goofs up on J&K killings", The Times of India.
  23. ^ "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.
  24. ^ Jupinderjit Singh (25 October 2010). Chittisinghpura Massacre: Obama’s proposed visit makes survivors recall tragedy . The Tribune, Chandigarh. Accessed on 20 October 2021.
  25. ^ Sikhs want CBI probe into Chittisinghpura Massacre, Tribune India. 11 November 2005. Accessed on 20 October 2021.

See also

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