 Hello and welcome to Newsclick. Jammu is facing significant tensions as the number of ceasefire violations are increasing and communal tension in the area is also going up. So to discuss the situation in Jammu, we have with us today Anuradha Bhasi in Jamwal, who is the executive editor of Kashmir Times. So Anuradha, welcome. And the Kathwa rape case and then these attacks on the Sunjwan camp in Jammu have both contributed to this rise in communal tension. And firstly looking at the Sunjwan camp, the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly speakers said that the Rohingya Muslims are responsible for harboring militants. But looking at the population composition of that area, what do you think of this statement? Look, there is around Sunjwan camp, one side of it, there is a substantial Muslim dominated area. The other side of it is completely Hindu dominated. And in that pocket itself, there are a lot of these Rohingyas. Maximum number of Rohingyas are in Jammu and they are living there. But I think, without any evidence, it is a preposterous statement. First of all, the Sunjwan camp is highly fortified, an area. And they should be first looking at the security lapses that have happened by the army, within the army, and their own intelligence failure rather than blaming other people. It is a possibility that some people are involved, it could be this area or any other side of the area. So you can't, I mean, without any evidence, you can't be blaming any community, which I think is irresponsible because Jammu and Kashmir is already a very sensitive state. Jammu has faced a lot of communal polarization in the recent past. And so I find these statements extremely irresponsible because they enhance the threat of communalization in the area. And already, when you say Rohingya, of late in the last few years, Rohingya has become a euphemism for Muslims. So whenever you want to start an anti-Muslim tirade, so you start demonizing the Rohingyas who are actually one of the most dispossessed and deprived communities, they're not even citizens of the country, they're refugees. And they come from extremely poor background, economically poor background. And secondly, as you said, the communal tension in the area is increasing. And we've also seen that with the Kathwaren case. Because I think historically, the communities, Gujar Bakarwal and Hindus have existed with relative peace with each other. So do you think this communal tension, is it possible for these to just emerge on their own? Or is there some sort of organized effort behind it? There has been organized effort. And in fact, it has been going on for a long time. The initial period, which is sometimes beginning of 2000s, was very silent and we didn't realize it happening until 2008. The Ammanath Land Road, when the states divided between Jammu versus Kashmir, is when we actually started realizing that it had been existing and Hindu right wing organizations. When we looked back and we tried to probe what was happening behind the scenes, we realized that the Hindu right wing organizations like RSS, Bajrang Dal, VHP, they were making inroads into and several other fringe outfits. They were making inroads into various areas and pockets of Jammu region, across Jammu region. And also gradually entering post 2008, from the towns they started shifting, not just shifting, but enlarging their base towards the rural areas as well. Earlier, I mean, it was in 2013, we had cases where communal violence happened in villages. So there were signs that this is existing. We have people talking about Shah Khas opening up in areas which were unknown, I mean rural pockets, even the border belt. So this is something very unusual. This Kathua case as well, what do you think of the coming up of this Hindu Ekta Manj? What is the motive behind all of this? The Kathua case, I think it started as a very localized. If there is one report, and I'm quoting a report which quotes the crime branch of Kulis, which is investigating the case, saying that the rape and the murder was committed to scare away the Gujar population. Now, if that is true, there is a possibility that the motive behind this wasn't really Hindutva, but there was a local caste-based divide. This happened in a village which is upper caste dominated, Hindu upper caste dominated. And they're pretty influential people with connections, well-connected people at the local level. And most of them have some BJP affiliation or RSS affiliation. Many of them are not saying all. And these Gujjars have been, they are nomadic people, the Gujjars and the Bhakarwals. They have been coming for years. And these, the local villages, the Hindu upper caste people have been leasing out land to them for staying for a few months, the winter months when they come down from the hills. Now what happened was that these lands are not, they don't have ownership rights to these lands. These are custodian property, which is evacue property is a property which was owned by people who left in 1947. You know, since JNK stands disputed, people who left from this side to the other side of Jammu and Kashmir, those properties are being protected by the state as evacue property. And settlers who came from the other side, they were allotted these lands, but they don't have property rights over this. They can only, they only have usership rights. Now this land was being leased to these people at very, and the rates were being increased subsequently. So there had been a conflict there, the land conflict was there, the forest rights conflict was there. And besides in recent years, there's been a lot of demonization of Gujjars trying to encroach the areas, bringing in terrorism or radicalization, and there's been a lot of propaganda going on. So that might also have worked. There might not be a direct influence of initially, of any Hindu right-wing organization, but there was an indirect influence to it. However, I mean subsequently, when earlier the police failed to investigate, in fact, even for a week that the girl was missing, the parents tried to lodge a report and the police was procrastinating over the entire matter. When her body was found, there wasn't, it was only when he went cry, reached the assembly session, which was on, and some leaders took it up, and that it became a major issue that the police started investigating. Now from there on, there was first one SIT created for investigating the case, then the second SIT came in. So investigations have been transferred from one hand to another as soon as they start investigating. So the investigation is passed on to another one. So is there somebody trying to manipulate or sabotage of the investigation? Now when crime branches started investigating the case, two SPOs have been arrested and now the voices for handing it over to CBI have started increasing. And the Hindu right-wing has openly stepped in to defend the rapist. This is something from a gender justice point of view, I think unacceptable. And besides, it's also causing a lot of communal polarization. So finally, moving on to the increasing number of ceasefire violations. The violations are going up we see and we also see that the government, the BJP is doing everything it can to defend those. And now as you know, there were reports of sedition charges being filed against people protesting BJP. How are people in Jammu viewing these violations? They are opposing them, but then what is the current status of those? There isn't a very strong, I think there is a very strong peace constituency, but the voices for that within that peace constituency are not as yet very strong enough. I mean, recently, we heard of, you know, people in the border areas, even the Hindu dominated border areas along the international border. There are people who had been so taken in by the Modi wave about four years back. And soon after that, that the ceasefire violations began and there was a lot of shelling and a lot of loss of civilian lives post 2014 in 2015 and so on. There at that point of time, people were saying, you know, I think there is a realization even in those villages that the war cannot be a solution. So they've been asking for now, they're saying permanent resolution. Final solution, final peace in these areas. In the other, you know, along the line of control, and those people have borne the brunt of the hostilities for the last 70 years, there has been a realization that it was only during the lasting of the ceasefire agreement that in 2003 and the sanctity of the ceasefire being maintained in the next one decade is when they tasted a bit semblance of normalcy for the first time in their lives in 70 years. So there's a realization that these kinds of CBMs, you know, like opening up the roads or the trade route and ceasefire violation is what brought development to their doorstep for the first time in their lives. And they've been saying all along that India and Pakistan should resolve their dispute amicably through negotiations, even within Jammu, you know, the city which is far off from the border and there are increasing voices, but they're still not loud enough. People are a little hesitant, people are a little scared, people feel a little intimidated talking about peace, because of incidents like as you mentioned, this whole threat of sedition charges being pressed against people who are going to speak for peace. I mean, I've been speaking for peace for a long time. And there's a constant demonization of propaganda going on or she's pro-Pakistani or she's pro-Kishmiri. So these kind of, I mean, I've been facing for a long time. So that's all the time we have today, Anuradha. Thank you for speaking to us as the situation in Jammu progresses. We hope to come back to you again.