DR. FAROOQ HAIDER`S LETTERS
AND
APPLICATION TO THE SPECIAL COURT
Kashmir freedom fighters were
subjected to torture by several agencies during their internship in connection
with the Ganga hijacking case. Efforts were made to extract from them statement
against Maqbool butt and myself. One of these freedom fighters was Dr. Farooq
Haider who described the tortures he had undergone in his various letters. Here
we reproduce these faithfully.
Hashim
Qureshi.
Dear Brother M. Mir Sahib,
Lahore Fort
Hashim Sahib.
June 5, 1971
Aslaam Alaikum.
I
have lost hope of life at this moment. The police has lashed me and given me
electric shocks. For several weeks I lay unconscious. The police are demanding
that I do against Maqbool Sahib and Hashim Shahib. I am told that Gogi (Javed
Saghar) has been shot dead. I am the lone survivor. They are attempting to
dishonor me. Please save me for God`s sake. Produce a bail in the court. I
shall wait for three days and if nobody helps, I shall understand that all of
you are dead and that I am also dead. I shall now give a false statement as
desired by the police. I wish this letter reaches you.
Brotherly,
Farooq
G.M. Mir Sahib
C/O Mumtaz Hashimi, Advocate Mirpur
Azad Kashmir
(Note: this letter has been put on the
original file by Jenab G.M. Mir, Acting Secretary General, J&K Plebiscite
Front for Azad Kashmir and Pakistan)
In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the Merciful.
From the Prison House
March 22, 1972
Dearer than life Ansari Sahib, Aslaam
Alaikum
A co-prisoner with us here is called Yasin
Dukhi Lahori. The poetry of freemen is also free. I give heer some of his verses
(Verses in Urdu) Ansari Sahib, I cannot find the ointment
for the wounds. Time does not seem to have its remedy. The remedy is that these
wounds be raked and deepened. Ansari Sahib, you might have heard of the sect
called “malamatiya”. The police had thrown round my neck a canister full of
dirt. I dipped my shoes into it and slapped them on their face. Ansari
shahib”when I say that I am an Indian agent, why then does the court ask me
this question”. Now it is proved that your organization and you are genuine and
it is proved also that you were financially well off and the brutal murder of
your elder brother is still in your mind. Do you still maintain that you joined
NLF for the sake of money”?
Ansari shahib, tell me for the God`s sake
how am I to prove that I am an Indian agent? We are so loyal that when we speak
this lie with our tongue, nobody is prepared to accept it. Why, after all?
For God`s sake, also tell me when I say
that the Indian aircraft was hijacking on the instance of the Indian
Intelligence agency, why does the following statement come out from my diary.”
36 members of AL FATAH arrested. A.I.R reports claim that whole of the
organization is wiped out. Let them be happy. Next time we will strike more
severely.”
Why was the aircraft hijacking just a month
after this? Kindly tell me that when I say in the full court that NLF has no
connection with AL FATAH, why the following statement appears in my diary.”
Srinagar Radio says that students’ organization Youngman’s association and
National Liberation Front were linked with AL FATAH.
Ansari Sahib, I have now decided to keep
pen- name as “Indian Agent” this is so because in future whenever the police
accused anybody of being an Indian
agent, there can be no better a certificate of being loyal to this country than
that accusation.
“Tyranny
and oppressions are tolerated by a man. I am also made of flesh and bones as
other are. But in this fort, there are occasions when a man out of share
frustration calls for the angel of death but the angle does not appear. Hanging
upwards down, lashing and giving electric shocks is a common place torture
method. Have you ever heard the name of Sherwali cell or a cell of cobras or of
spiders where sugar is rubbed onto the leg of human beings and insect are let
loose to eat it up.
There is a cup like thing in which an
insect that makes a hole into the earth is kept. A tube is attached to this cup
by which air is gradually taken out and then this cupped insect is placed on
the navel of man. Two things happen. One that the cup sticks to body and
secondly when the insect inside feels the lack of air, it begins to scratch the
navel. Anyway, these are common things.
The S.P. who on listening just a whimper
from Javed Sagar would hide under the table becomes a Pharaoh in the presence
of twenty strong men. We do not know what thing you placed inside our souls.
The darker it is, the brighter is that thing within us. Once I was put in a
strong frame and was given electric current shocks. One of the shocks was long
enough to harden my body. When my head fell backwards, the tyrant told me that
the wooden slippers on the ceiling of the room were brought by Akbar by
Kashmir. I told them that the sleepers had supported the ceiling of your prison
for centuries and you are now adamant to set them on fire. He said that the
Kashmiris were always the agents and that this happened to be our profession.
I
told them that unless the snow melted from the mountains top of my country,
milk would not come down in the breasts of you mothers. The difference between
me and the others is that my daughter had the privilege that Butt Sahib had put
his munificent hand on their hand. My wife and my sister used tossed food for
Hashim. This sun of freedom had risen from my house.
In the custody of police was a writing of
my sister in which she had sent a message to Hashim in code words about arms.
Dr. Farooq has given in .I could not have seen the dishonoring of my mother,
sisters, wife and daughters. I surrendered my arms. Still they did not trust
me. They asked me to turn towards the Shahi Mosque and answer and swear in the
name of God and his Prophet that I would not renege from my pledge. Then the
tyrants let me loose.
Ansari sahib I have been
looted, I have lost everything. When my wife came to see me in the jail after I
had deposed, she was in tears. I told her that she and the womenfolk of my
house were responsible for this day. I wish Dr. Farooq Haider had no sister, no
wife, no daughter, my wife reported that the next day after my deposition, my
elder daughter still reading in class one, asked her, “Mummy, what is an agent?
My wife told me that were not many respectable families humiliated in 1947. How
were we different? What can be my answer to this and how am I to explain to my
daughter what agent means?
Ansari Shahib, what am I say to the mother whose eyes had fixed the gaze on my lips. I have been done great injustice but I hope God Almighty may have something good for me. Perhaps the people were to know in full detail the real face of our organization. Perhaps the God desired that the greatest dictator of Pakistan calls us traitors and the supreme institution of justice given us a certificate of loyalty so that this tantrum is closed once for all. I shall not stop until I have taken these”Kharak Sing” to the other side of Ravi along with the Indian forces.
Ansari Sahib, I had once told you
that God was making our job easier this way. Sometimes I doubt that there is a
saint among us. The word of atheism was disliked by Allah. Therefore in order
to maintain the cover for himself and thi9s saint, he made to give this
statement. God alone knows the secret of mysterious world.
Yahya Khan has been decimated (by us )
and now remains the turn of “Kharak
Sing””. The last scene will come to an end with India. The funeral if Indian
Imperialism will be carried out from Kashmir. I can see it clearly with my own
eyes. I am listening to the music of the waters of Jhelum. I am listening to
the mirthful songs of the boatmen and I am drinking the water of Wular. As far
as Jammu is concerned, I consider him a kafir who calls a Kashmiri as men from
Jammu or from Poonch. We all are one and of course destiny is different for
each of us. Somebody gets the crown and somebody is humiliated. You cannot do
anything in that case nor can I do. It lies in the hands of our master
whomsoever he wants to give honor is honored and whomsoever he would put to
shame, that happens. God desired this for me and I should only thank him that
at least he has not forgotten me in whatever position I may be.
Ansari
Sahib, I have preserved that black cap of NLF in the jail. I got a military
man`s service shirt. The day I am freed from here, the beauty will exhibit its
glamour and love will have its own fancy. It has to be known that one aspect of
love is humiliation. I am gifted with this quality. Then again we shall walk
along the roads of Azad Kashmir and Dr. Farooq will be on the wheel. The songs
of freedom will be on his lips Insha Allah.
Keep”Kharak Singh” with care because if he
slips out of hands then for the entire life this objective cannot be achieved.
Basharat Sahib had come to meet me yesterday. I warned him. Tell him on his
face that until I take him back to the other side of Ravi to Kathua, I shall
not rest. Now we have become incidental and have seen the wost type of torture
by police. Alavi sahib must be smiling. What about snuff? Does it continue or
not? How about Sabir Sahib? Of course they will be in the jails. Now the people
must come openly in the field. These devils have not let even a single person
of our group to stay outside. Otherwise they should know how one momin is far
more strong than several Kafirs. You are privileged to be breathing freely in
my and your dear native land. The confluence of Neelam and Jhelum is coming
closer to you. The sound of gushing waters comes to your ears. There is some
space left and I write down a poem I recently composed. This is also my
weakness.
Salaam to Alavi sahib and others. WA Asalaam.
Yours Brotherly,
Dr. Farooq Haider
Note
The Approver Dr. Farooq Haider has sent an
application to the special court and requested the he be recalled to the court
so that he exposes the stories framed by
the police and given a statement based on facts that the court arrives at the
truth and does justice to the freedom fighters.
In the special court constituted under
Criminal Procedure Special Court 1970 vide Presidential order No. 13 1971
issued at Lahore.
State (plaintiff) versus Mohammed Hashim
and other (accused) Crimes under section PPc 435- 342-B/120 of section 31
Official secrets Act sub item 3 Enemy Agents Ordinance
Application for summoning the plaintiff for
submitting statement based on facts.
Sir,
I submit as under:
1)
I appeared in the above
mentioned case as an approver,
2)
The statement which I gave in
the court was made as the result of intimidation and harassment by the police.
3)
I was arrested during the martial law period.
The section of police to which I was handed over tried all the methods of
torture. Not only were lashes inflicted on my body, I was also suspended upside
down. I was stripped of all clothes and made to go about in burning sun, for
several days at a stretch I was not allowed to sleep. Once I had fallen half dead
as a result of torture, I was informed that Javed Sagar, the only son of my
sister was shot dead. This news made me out of my mentalbalance for several
hours. When I came to my senses, the police told me that they were sending for
my mother,sisters and my wife into the fort. The police telephoned my mother in
Rawalpindi in my presence and enquired where my wife . I was told that that all
of them would be summoned into the fort and that they would be abused. After
this threat. I lost whatever perseverance I had in me.
4)
I am administered intoxicating drugs. I can
give its full details in the court. Police officers used to come inside the
jail into my room and issued threats to me. They would make me memorize the
statement which they themselves had prepared. At a time when I was brought to
the court to depose before it, I had lost all balance.
5)
I do not think human being had
ever been tortured like me. I could not see the honour of my family members
being put at stake. We had disclosed to Noorul Arifin Commission about our
party decisions. The police also intercepted the letter from my sister in which
she had written to Maqbool Butt about harms in a code language. This letter has
been recovered from our house. The police had come to know that my wife used to
send cooked food for Hashim. The police now wanted to bring the womenfolk of my
house to the fort and humiliate them. These circumstances made me lose my
balance and I prepared myself for speaking the truth. The police succeeded in
seeing to it that its story was being accepted. I shall submit further details
before the court.
6)
The story of Article 164 is heart rending. I
was blind folded and taken to several places. The impression was given that I
am before a magistrate. If I spoke about torture inflicted on me, the fake magistrate
would send me to the police custody. In this way the police would renew its
process of torturing me. Having gone through these conditions at least twice I
almost broke down and stop speaking of oppression.
7)
A police officer made me learn
by heart all that was being poured into my ears from morning till evening. I
had to learn a story by rote only to save myself from a life taking punishment.
This had to be repeated. This system continued until the time that in Your
Lordship`s court my statement came to an end after answering the questions.
Dr. Farooq Haider
Kotlakhpat jail Lahore.
This article is published in my book "Kashmir: The unveiling of
truth", 1998