Bijbehara Massacre (22 October 1993)

It had been a week since the Dargath Hazratbal was placed under siege by the army on October 15, 1993 to flush out a group of JKLF militants, who had taken shelter inside the shrine complex. The siege caused widespread anger across Kashmir which would find expression in the form of protest demonstrations.

On October 22, after Friday prayers, around 15,000 people gathered in the court yard of the local Jamia Masjid Bijbehara to register their protest against the siege. A procession then started marching through various streets shouting slogans for the ending of the Hazratbal siege and in support of Kashmir’s freedom.

When the procession reached the main road (Srinagar – Jammu National Highway) that divides the town, there was a large contingent of the Border Security Force (BSF). As the whole procession reached on top of the road in the Gooriwan locality, the BSF personnel closed in on the protesters from three sides and started to fire indiscriminately on them, killing dozens of people on the spot and injuring more than 200 others. The firing continued for nearly ten minutes with the troops targeting the crowd directly.

The number of reported dead and wounded vary by source. Amnesty International reported that at least 51 people died and 200 were wounded on that day, which included incidents in Srinagar and Bijbehara. The UN Refugee Agency reported 35 dead and about 76 wounded, citing news reports in The Times. The times of India reported 37 dead.

A local resident who was part of the protest demonstration but survived the attack recalled that when people from outside the procession tried to rescue those who were injured, they too were targeted including medical and paramedical staff. “No ambulances or medical staff was allowed access to those who were lying on the ground, even though the hospital was only yards away from the massacre site”, he said.

Mufti Baha-ud-din Farooqi, the former chief justice of the jammu & Kashmir High Court in Srinagar, authoured a report for the People’s Commision of Inquiry on December 27, 1993, which said, “The men and officers of 74 Battalion of BSF indiscriminately rained bullets on the peaceful, unarmed, innocent and unsuspecting demonstrators”. The report said that 37 persons, mostly young, were left dead, and 92 persons injured, some of the disabled for life.

National Human Rights Commision (NHRC), which investigated the massacre, on January 17, 1994, asked for disciplinary proceedings against 14 personnel of border security forces involved in the incident. In 1996, the General Security Force Court conducted a non public trial and acquitted the all the accused men. The NHRC attemped to review the court files, but was refused access.