Unlike most MLAs, the recently-elected village heads and other members of gram panchayats in Jammu and Kashmir have been in close touch with the people and truly the focal point of contact between them and the government officers and agencies.
This could have changed the tide in the real sense of the word in a state ruptured by years of militancy. Hence, they are the new and preferred target of militants.
That is how the police and other security agencies read the increasing incidence of attacks on sarpanches and panches by suspected separatist militants across the state particularly the Valley. Also, MLAs enjoy foolproof security and in contrast, the members of village level statutory institution of local self-government virtually remain sitting ducks, the fact publicly acknowledged by the police authorities. Paradoxically, the legislators are against empowerment of the panches and sarpanches in the belief that it could make them somewhat irrelevant in the scheme of things.
Repeated incidents of violence involving the sarpanches and panches at different places across the Valley have raised serious questions on the credentials of what are described as flag-bearers of democracy at the grassroots level. The police top-brass has at a series of meetings held over the past couple of days reviewed the issue yet expressed their inability to provide security cover to all of them as the number runs in thousands.
Jammu and Kashmir has 4,128 panchayats, with 29,719 panches and 4,130 sarpanches.
Apparently, finding themselves susceptible and helpless, many more panches have announced their resignations and pleaded they be allowed to live lives of ordinary villagers. On Friday, more than a dozen of them, including a few women, sought to publicise their “resolve” not to remain associated with any mainstream political party in the future through paid classifieds in vernacular newspapers here. This follows a series of attacks on the village workers and fresh threats issued by militant outfits.
Jaish-e-Muhammad chose to ask the elected sarpanches and panches to quit within a week’s time through leaflets circulated locally or posters found pasted on walls in various villages of the southern part of the Valley. The plea for no-affiliation with the mainstream political parties is identical.
“Due to unfavourable circumstances, I’m resigning from the membership of panchayat” or “family and personal compulsions leave me with no option but to call it a day”.
Director-general of police, K. Rajendra Kumar on Thursday chaired an emergency meeting of officials in Anantnag to discuss security of rural body members in various districts in the southern Valley. It was after this and other such meetings that the security forces have revived the earlier practice of area-domination through night patrolling.
“The practice of joint night patrolling (area-domination) by the Army, CRPF and the Jammu and Kashmir police has been revived in several parts of the Valley following the latest incidents of violence,” the outgoing general officer commanding (GoC) 15 Corps, Lt. Gen. A.M. Hasnain said.
He added that the Army had, after a few “untoward incidents”, stopped night patrolling but apparently the militants seized the situation to ferry explosives and other ammunition and swap places besides striking against soft targets particularly in southern districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama.
“Now the Army has together with the CRPF and the J&K police resumed area domination during the night in south Kashmir and we are hopeful that things will again be under control soon,” the military secretary-designate said. While state’s panchayat and rural bodies minister Ali Mohammed Sagar reiterated that the government is committed to empower the panchayats and ensure sarpanches and panches discharge their duty without any security or other problems, former chief minister and patron of Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Mufti Mohammed Sayeed sees the vulnerability of the panchayat members is rooted in the government’s “reluctance to establish a proper empowerment system prevalent in the rest of the country.” Strongly condemning the recent attacks on the members of the elected village institutions and some other innocent victims, the Mufti called for a halt on such “mindless violence”.
He also charged, “The state government has failed to build upon the opportunity provided by the people through their massive participation in last year’s panchayat elections with the result that both the people and their elected representatives are now disillusioned with the exercise. The state of drift led to chaos in villages regarding developmental programmes and the panchayat members are becoming sitting ducks for the enemies of peace.” Panchayat polls were held in Jammu and Kashmir in 2011 after a gap of 34 years.