2000 Chittisinghpura massacre

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

Last updated April 22, 2024

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

Killings

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.^[13] They ordered them to line up in front of the gurdwaras and opened fire, killing thirty-five people.^[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.

Related Research Articles

Lashkar-e-Taiba is a Pakistan-based terrorist group, militant and Islamist Salafi jihadist organisation. Described as one of Pakistan's "most powerful jihadi groups", it is most infamous outside Pakistan. The organisation's primary stated objective is to merge the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan. It was founded in 1985–86 by Hafiz Saeed, Zafar Iqbal Shehbaz Abdullah Azzam and several other Islamist mujahideen with funding from Osama bin Laden during the Soviet–Afghan War. It has been designated a terrorist group by numerous countries.

The insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, also known as the Kashmir insurgency, is an ongoing separatist militant insurgency against the Indian administration in Jammu and Kashmir, a territory constituting the southwestern portion of the larger geographical region of Kashmir, which has been the subject of a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947.

The 1998 Wandhama massacre refers to the killings of 23 Kashmiri Hindus in the town of Wandhama in the Ganderbal District of Jammu and Kashmir, India on 25 January, 1998. The massacre was blamed on the militant outfits Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen. The victims included four children and nine women.

Operation Tupac is the codename of an ongoing military-intelligence contingency program that has been active since the 1980s and run by Pakistan's main intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). It has a three-part action plan to provide covert support to anti-India separatists and militants in the insurgency in Indan-administered Jammu and Kashmir. The program was authorized and initiated in 1988 by the order of the then-President of Pakistan, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.

Yasin Malik is a Kashmiri separatist leader and former militant who advocates the separation of Kashmir from both India and Pakistan. He is the Chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, which originally spearheaded armed militancy in the Kashmir Valley. Malik renounced violence in 1994 and adopted peaceful methods to come to a settlement of the Kashmir conflict. In May 2022, Malik pleaded guilty to charges of criminal conspiracy and waging war against the state, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The 2002 Qasim Nagar massacre was the killing of 29 Hindu labourers in Qasim Nagar on the outskirts of Jammu city in the erstwhile Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir by militants

2006 Doda Massacre refers to the massacre of 35 Hindu civilians by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants in the Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir, India on 30 April, 2006.

The Chattisinghpora, Pathribal, and Barakpora massacres refer to a series of three closely related incidents that took place in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir between 20 March 2000 and 3 April 2000 that left up to 49 Kashmiri civilians dead.

Attribution of the 2008 Mumbai attacks were first made by the Indian authorities who said that the Mumbai attacks were directed by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants inside Pakistan. American intelligence agencies also agree with this attribution. Pakistan initially contested this attribution, but agreed this was the case on 7 January 2009. To back up its accusations, the Indian government supplied a dossier to Pakistan's high commission in Delhi. The Pakistan government dismissed the dossier as "not evidence," but also announced that it had detained over a hundred members of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity linked with Lashkar-e-Taiba. In February 2009, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik agreed that "some part of the conspiracy" did take place in Pakistan.

2003 Nadimarg massacre was the killing of 24 Kashmiri Pandits in the village of Nadimarg in Pulwama District of Jammu and Kashmir on 23 March 2003. The Government of India blamed militants from the Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba but failed to secure convictions.

The 1998 Chapnari massacre was a massacre of 25 Hindu villagers in Chapnari village in Doda district of Jammu & Kashmir on 19 June 1998, by terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.

2004 Teli Katha massacre was the killing of twelve Muslim Gujjars by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants on 26 June 2004 in the village of Teli Katha in Surankote Tehsil in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir range from mass killings, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and sexual abuse to political repression and suppression of freedom of speech. The Indian Army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Border Security Personnel (BSF) have been accused of committing severe human rights abuses against Kashmiri civilians. According to Seema Kazi, militant groups have also been held responsible for similar crimes, but the vast majority of abuses have been perpetrated by the armed forces of the Indian government.

The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), intelligence agency of Pakistan has been involved in running military intelligence programs in India, with one of the subsections of its Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB) department devoted to perform various operations in India. The Joint Signal Intelligence Bureau (JSIB) department has also been involved in providing communications support to Pakistani agents operating in Indian-administered Kashmir. The Joint Intelligence North section of the Joint Counter-Intelligence Bureau (JCIB) wing deals particularly with India. In the 1950s the ISI's Covert Action Division was alleged for supplied arms to insurgents in Northeast India.

On 10 July 2017, the first Monday of the month of Shraavana, 8 Hindu civilian pilgrims on the way from Amarnath Temple in Kashmir Valley, in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, were killed in a terror attack. The pilgrims mostly belonged to the Indian state of Gujarat. Eight people were killed and at least 18 people were injured in the attack.

On 30 July and 6 August 2002, in the month of Shraavana, 11 people were killed and 30 injured in a terror attack by Islamic extremists from Lashkar-e-Taiba's front group of al-Mansuriyan, on Nunwan base camp at Pahalgam of the Amarnath Hindu pilgrimage (Yatra) to Amarnath Temple glacial cave shrine in Kashmir Valley in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. In the spate of attacks on Yatra in the third consecutive year, 2 pilgrims were killed and 3 injured on 30 July when terrorists threw grenades at a civilian taxi of pilgrims in Srinagar. Further, 9 people were killed and 27 injured on 6 August by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists' hail of bullets at Nunwan base camp at Pahalgam.

Indian Army operations in Jammu and Kashmir include security operations such as Operation Rakshak, which began in 1990, Operation Sarp Vinash in 2003 and Operation Randori Behak in 2020. Other operations include humanitarian missions such as Operation Megh Rahat and operations with a social aim such as Operation Goodwill and Operation Calm Down. The Indian Army works in tandem with the other arms of the Indian Armed Forces and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir such as during Mission Sahayata or joint operations.

Shujaat Bukhari was an Indian journalist from the former state of Jammu & Kashmir, and was the founding editor of Rising Kashmir, a Srinagar-based newspaper.

The People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF) is a militant terrorist organization actively engaged in insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, an ongoing armed conflict between Kashmiri separatist militants and Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir. PAFF was established in 2020 by Jaish-e-Mohammad or Lashkar-e-Taiba, two Pakistan-based Jihadist groups.

The Resistance Front or TRF is a separatist militant organization involved in the ongoing insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir. The organization has positioned itself as a secular organization fighting against the Indian government for Kashmiri freedom, in contrast to past Kashmiri insurgents which have been Islamist. The Indian government has accused the TRF of being an offshoot of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a claim that TRF has denied. TRF operates primarily in the Kashmir region, with a main base in Srinagar.

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.
1 2 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.
1 2 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.
1 2 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.
↑ 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.
↑ "'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.
↑ 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.
1 2 "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 on 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.