Martyrs of Kashmir
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A.K. Raina |
Biography of Vivek who lost his father to terrorism:
My basic introduction is very simple. I am a Kashmiri Pandit, internally displaced in my own country and running from pillar to the post. Kashmir, which was a paradise in this world lost this identity because of terrorism. All the Kashmiri Hindu families were made to flee from the valley in order to save their lives and honor. Nobody in the world would have thought ever that Kashmir will become hell for Kashmiri Hindu families and they will have to run like that. Initially, everyone thought that our status of displacement would only be for a few months and that the Government of India will be able recoup the situation and bring normalcy back in the valley. However, things worsened by the day. More and more people were killed. People lost any expectations from their Muslim neighbors when in every area they saw all of them, including women and children assembling in mosques in night hours and shouting anti-Kashmiri Hindu and anti-national slogans through huge loud-speakers. We used to think that a million people are approaching to kill our isolated families. They would shout “Allah-ho- Akbar, Naraye Takbeer: Bata challiv , magar batinev varay”. We used to hide our women and sadly even keep petrol, diesel, kerosene, whatever ready, if in the worst case our ladies have to sacrifice themselves after us to protect their honor. All this in an environment of a complicit police force and administration forced Kashmiri Hindus to leave home and hearth and save their honor. From those who stayed, every day, there would be a new flash that another Kashmiri Hindu had been killed. To my shock, many Kashmiri Hindus on higher posts in the police department or the intelligence services were killed. Only a few survived and even they were served with notices by terrorists to leave the valley within a night. Kashmir Hindus were routinely kidnapped and at many times killed. Who in the local government and administration compromised the Kashmiri Hindus in the Government in such a manner that they were so easily targeted by militant organizations should have been an easy question to answer but has not been answered till date. Coming to my life, I remember that we had been considering leaving Kashmir for a few weeks, during those days of the early 1990s. Yet, at the same time, the words I used to hear from my father were,” No body can touch me as I have never hurt any one till date, neither have taken any bribe. I have always been honest”. His salary payments were being delayed with a note from the Government that it did not have funds. This happened for more than two months but then his salary was released on 14th March or so, not exactly sure about the date. However, I do recall that one Assistant Director in the Passport office was killed just outside his residential gate around that time. My father knew him and they used to meet daily while going to office. As soon as my father heard this news, he became depressed with all that was going on. Although it was nothing new to hear that one or the other Kashmiri Hindu official had been killed, the news still alarmed him. The everyday atmosphere of Kashmir was like this: Bandh, schools and colleges closed and lots of processions. Most of the time Kashmir would be under curfew but people would still come out and assemble in processions and raise anti-national and religious slogans through loudspeakers. It was an unbelievably scary environment for Kashmiri Hindus. Since curfew was on most of time, my father being on higher post would always be on magisterial duty. His department used to be categorized under “Essential Services” and hence he had to remain available, whether it was a Sunday or any other regular day. My going to school was stopped from the middle of October or November, after the exams were over as somebody had warned my parents not to send me to school. There was a risk of kidnapping for me. Even in those times, I was active with social work and also used to attend morning health club. We used to assemble in Shamshaan Bhoomee, Karan Nagar and Drawaj Pranam etc would be the start. I used to love the morning exercise and morning walk and was very active. Believe me or not I had my own small library at that time with lots of books in it and children from different areas used to come and meet me in order to take books for reading purposes. I remember that we had started packing some important belongings which are needed in an emergency so that we may also leave the valley and reach some safer place. Yet, while all of Kashmir was alarmed due to threats, my Papa used to tell us that he will send us to Jammu with some other person or will drop us at Jammu and then come back to Kashmir in order to rejoin his duties. Being a high official he was not supposed to leave station without informing higher ups. He was a disciplined and God fearing man; My father Late Sh. A.K Raina was serving as Deputy Director Food and Supplies that time. On 19th March we heard that the owner of Vikas Bakery was killed and on the same day Mr. Ganju XEN BSNL was killed in rice drum. It confirmed that all Kashmiri Hindus on senior posts are being targeted. On 20th March 1990 morning, I had pain in my stomach and complained about it to my father. A doctor lived nearby and he was related to us. He being our family doctor, my father advised me to visit him. On that day my father had woken up early morning and had done his meditation and Puja for more than 3 hours as was his daily routine. He joked a lot on that day. He left for his office and I went to the doctor’s place. I went to sleep when I came back. One of the staff members from my papa’s office came and told us that there had been a bomb blast and my father had got injured in that. He was crying like anything. My brother and his friend and also his parents left to see my papa in the Food and Supplies office at Shaheed Gunj . There they saw the facts. My father had been gunned down. He had been hit by 3 gun shots. Two had been pumped in his heart, injuring the middle finger of his right hand and one in his back, on his upper. While Bitta Karate was firing on my father, my father had fought bravely, moving the big table in front of him to get some safety but it was all in vain. The whole office had blood all over. He was shifted to the SMHS Hospital and later to Rainawari hospital. He died while reaching the hospital and was declared brought dead. Finally, the dead body of my father was received by us. At least for 10 days after that, I was aware that my father had been killed by bullets but I was under the impression that something happened during a bomb blast as we had been told earlier and that he would be fine in the end. I was very attached to my father. I would not even have thought about living without my father ever. I was emotionally attached to him that he was even a friend to me. In the evenings, I used to report everything back to him, whatever had happened during the day. When he was on tour I used to count days, when he would be back and used to miss him a lot. Sometimes, I used to skip my food when he was on tour. After the death of my father, we shifted to Jammu. Initially it was quite difficult to cope with life without him. One of the best schools was finalized for me which was the Army School, Jammu. My aunt’s husband was in the army and he made me to appear in entrance test for admission and spoke with some of his friends to ensure that I get admission in this school. Life was very different from what it had been earlier. The pension of my father was not approved for more than five years and when it was finalized, it was only for the basic salary due to some technical issues, as my mother also worked for the government. She had been transferred to Jammu and we were dependent on her salary till Papa’s pension was released. The salary packages were not good. At that time, my brother got admission into the MBBS program at Patna and moved to Patna. I was fond of writing from my school age. I used to pen down everything that had happened during the day and whatever I had learnt. I also used to write about life and my thoughts. From 1990 to 1993, I evaluated myself and was a bit depressed for whatever had happened. It was hard to get by and there were a number of crises. My family had to go through a lot of pain but we did our best believing that God is always there for us. I used to concentrate on my studies but most of the time I was only thinking about my Dad and what ever had happened. It was a major shock for me. I had severe headache most of time and was not able to concentrate on anything. I wanted to take revenge for whatever had been done even though my father was honest and a spiritual person. I used to remember his face in death and used to recall old days when my father was alive. I was in deep shock and depression. Once I visited PGI Chandigarh just to take consultation from doctors why there was pain in my head. They referred me to the psychiatry department because of my depression. But as far as counseling with doctors, they were happy to see that I was trying by myself ways to come out of this depression and frustration. When my father was alive, I had been interested to register an NGO as I used to work for one organization for children called the Sewa Dal. We were all school going children from different areas. We used to collect money for the Prime Minister’s Fund, to help children in need and so on. My father used to encourage me in this. He had decided with my Mamaji that he will get this NGO registered so that objectives of the NGO move in the right direction. He used to inspire us by saying, “I want you to be like Mother Teresa”. I still remember the gleam in his eyes while saying all this. I had a big group of friends. I used to visit my Guru’s place on a regular basis. I had a few friends who used to live near my Guru’s place and I used to visit them often. I used to visit one of my best friends very often, in fact on a daily basis. One day I went straight to my this friend’s place before going to my Guru’s place and left my school bag at his place. He took out my dairies from my bag and read everything that I had penned down in them. He came to know that I want to form an NGO for the needy and poorest of poor. He felt that I could have wasted my life in the wrong direction because of the recent tragedy with me but I was instead turning this pain, anger and frustration in the right direction by working for humanity. He discussed a lot of things with me and helped me to make a road map. He called all my friends and we discussed about forming of an NGO. I had name in my mind YOUNGS INDIA. I had been doing a lot of social work after the death of my father even before registering or forming this NGO. I used to read a lot of books in order to convert my anger into positive energy. I read books of Swami Vivekanand, Khushwant Singh to know more about Indira Gandhi and the Emergency time. I also read books on Indira Gandhi, books by Salman Khurshed and other books on Kashmir and politics. I strived to learn more about Jawahar Lal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi as they were major people who ran the government after independence. I read books on M.K.Gandhi despite never liking him for his decisions regarding Pakistan after independence. Anyway, he was a master mind, to make India independent. I used to find articles on Mother Teresa and sayings by Mother Teresa in order to inspire myself. In later stages, till her death we used to write to each other. Surprisingly I had developed a spiritual mindset . I used to pray most of time and hum the Gayatri Mantra in mind. My Guru ( Smd. Raghunath Kokiloo) tried to put all good things in me. I was more dependent on him on day to day basis. I used to stay in the house for weeks without speaking ( total mon daaran) and used to only take fruits or juices as diet without food and think about my mission about how to establish NGO. It was kind of meditation and psychotherapy. I developed a lot and was a different person. The only thing I couldn’t control was my temper. I was short tempered sometimes when I used to see something wrong happening. I tried to control a lot on my short temperedness. In 2004 we formed NGO with all youths in it; most of them doctors, engineers and graduates. I also sent mails to the government, CBI and other agencies to be part of this NGO. The first function that we organized was a painting competition. We had decided to receive Rs, 10/- from every participant. We organized awards, certificates, the best judges, drinks and eatables. It was an open competition. All the schools of Jammu sent their students to participate in this painting competition. I couldn’t believe that even though, I had booked one full premises of a school for the competition, the school had to open other premises to accommodate the huge rush of participants. Even after that we had to close the counter and call police for help to run this competition smoothly. Some parents had come with the letters of higher officials to make their wards to participate in competition. Those officials who I never knew also wrote their personal notes to me. The function was conducted smoothly. As this was my first event, my family gifted me a watch. My family supported me in all events that I organized. They also helped me monetarily most of the time. They encouraged me like anything. At the time of this painting competition, my brother was in Jammu and his contribution added colours to make this event successful. After this we conducted anti-AIDS awareness campaigns. We visited all schools and colleges in Jammu in order to make them aware about AIDS. By that time I realized that I am very much interested to work for children, mainly focusing on education, expression, health and sanitation. Seeing Youngs India working so hard, a lot of NGOs , International NGOS met me to take interviews. Meanwhile I approached the Rural Sanitation Deptt and asked them to allot me some work on construction for rural people. There was a scheme for village people whereby they could pay 50% and 50% subsidy would be paid by the government built individual latrines, hand pumps , washbasins as part of an environment and sanitation programme. I was allotted work at Ranjeetpura village where I built many individual latrines, handpumps etc. This gained me experience in rural sanitation. This experience I used when we had a project for individual latrines for Kashmiri displaced people, a project I undertook in coordination with KOA-USA. Meanwhile UNICEF had visited in order to meet me but I was not at my place. I called back and finalized to meet the UNICEF representative myself. At Delhi UNICEF India’s HeadQuarters I met the state representative and he was quite happy to see me and young people like me in Youngs India who had come forward to work on these kinds of projects. The State Representative had been hearing a lot about problems in refugee camps of Kashmiri Hindus. I was advised by him to work on the issues of refugee Kashmiri Hindus and draft a project proposal. It became wide knowledge and my signature later that I was a leading social worker for the cause of displaced Kashmiri Hindus. In the year 1999, we decided to organize a cultural programme for orphan children and it was a grand success. We were able to collect a lot of money for orphans and same was donated to one orphan organization by the chief guest. By the year 2000 YOUNGS INDIA was a significant group of brilliant people in the social service area and a story for everyone on how to utilize the power of youth. The media highlighted our programme a lot and me as the brain behind functioning of YOUNGS INDIA. Nobody in the government ever asked me for bribe. They were afraid to do so because of my honesty and positive approach towards life. I helped a lot of people whose papers were stuck with the government. I got their issues resolved. I got the first drive for jobs in the police department organized for displaced Kashmiri Hindus. I had to stop my education midway because of different reasons but later on I continued my education and was able to become more competent. I have really been someone who wanted to grow into a person who could help other people in need. I could have gone in a wrong direction because of the tragedy that happened in my life. I lost my father who was very close to me and dear to me. A person can take to the wrong path if he or she has gone through pain, agony, tough time, anger and trauma. I could have lead my life to hell but instead I always tried to lead myself into positive energy and received encouragement from several people during the course. Whatever happens, make yourself whole every time and live every day with a positive attitude. Vivek with his wife Neetu |
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This poignant story epitomizes the false sense of security that we would not be harmed because we had been honest and hardworking, dutiful, friendly and accommodating. It was wrong to ignore the warnings and signs, and lethal to deny the daily killings of KPs. There is no denying that we were besieged by excruciating hatred and ill will, and that each one of us was marked for being a Batta. It is incredible how Vivek moved on in life, he is a hero.
Added By K L Chowdhury
Kudos to Vivek Raina for showing the way to victims of violence. He must have made his father in the heaven proud.
Added By Shyam Lal Razdan
Vivek Jee's description of those times gave me goose bumps. All the scary memories came alive.
Added By Tej Nath Kaul
sonu bhaiya...this is speechless-this is painful for everybody...hope you doing well. Yes you are the actual Hero...God bless villy
Added By rimi bhat
Bro I was very much touched when I open this site as family I know what kind of person we lost in those brutal days.i still remember when I use to visit your home how much particular he was for morning prayers. Great job done bro
Added By vikram koul