Srinagar, India – The story, as security forces told it, was simple: They’d killed a Pakistani militant in a gun battle in a Himalayan town late last year. The dead man was a member of a Pakistan-based group feared across India.
But Abdur Rahman Padder was actually a 35-year-old Indian carpenter and father of five. He died, authorities now say, as part of a murky plot by rogue policemen who were killing innocent villagers to claim rewards and government honors.
The revelation of his death, and the exhumation of his body and the bodies of at least four other civilians believed to have died in similar circumstances, has deeply shaken Kashmir. It has set off days of protests and strikes, and deepened the cynicism of Kashmiris, who have complained for years that innocent people were being killed by security forces.
“Killers can’t be judges”
“Tyrants leave Kashmir!” hundreds of stone-throwing protesters chanted Tuesday as they marched through Srinagar, Kashmir’s main city. “We want freedom!”
Police used tear gas and bamboo batons to battle the demonstrators, eventually detaining 12, said Ahmed Khan, a senior police officer.
Authorities have promised an inquiry, but few Kashmiris are satisfied.
“Killers can’t be judges. How can the police investigate the killings when they are themselves involved in these deaths?” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an alliance of legal Kashmiri separatist groups.
Padder disappeared Dec. 8, days after paying his life’s savings – about $1,700 – to his cousin, a police official, to secure a government job.
Over the following weeks, police investigators trying to track him down traced his mobile phone to members of the police anti-insurgency squad – and began unraveling the plot. Authorities now believe he was killed the night he disappeared during a staged gun battle.
Investigators say Padder’s cousin, Farooq Ahmed, organized the five killings. He and three other policemen, including two senior officers, were arrested for their role in the killings.
Ahmed’s demand for 75,000 rupees for a job was pure greed, police say.
Ahmed “promised my husband a job, robbed him of his hard-earned money and later passed him on to killers,” said Muneera, Padder’s wife, holding their 3-month-old daughter.
Kashmir is India’s only state with a Muslim majority, and most people favor independence from mainly Hindu India or a merger with predominantly Muslim Pakistan.
India has an estimated 700,000 soldiers in Kashmir and has fought nearly a dozen rebel groups since 1989.
