Hriday Nath Wanchoo was a Kashmiri communist trade-unionist, who is remembered for ensuring the socioeconomic upliftment of sanitation workers and documenting abuse of human rights by the state.

Career and politics

Wanchoo was employed as the Khilafarzi officer in Srinagar municipality. In May 1992, he was inducted as a member of the Central Committee of the "Kashmir Liberation Council", established by

Ghulam Qadir Wani Ghulam Qadir Wani (11 March 1953 – 4 November 1998) was a Kashmiri scholar, diplomat and co-founder of Muslim United Front, He was also described as "the top Jamaat-e-Islami ideologue". Early life Wani was born in a middle-class family in ...

and others for the cause of achieving Kashmiri Independence from India.

Death

Wanchoo was assassinated by "unidentified gunmen" on 5 December 1992. Local activists accused the government of having released two militants in exchange for an extra-judicial execution, one of whom would be killed in an " encounter";

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

noted Wanchoo's murder to fit into the state's brutal suppression of conversations on human rights. Days before his death, Wanchoo had confessed in private, about threats to his life from local administration as well as the security apparatus.Varadarajan, Patanjali M. ''A Report on Torture, Extra-judicial Executions, Rape, Arbitrary Arrests, Disappearances and other Violations of Basic Human Rights by the Indian Security Forces in Indian-administered Kashmir''. (Undertaken in co-operation with Federation Internationale des Droits de L'Homme)

CBI Investigation

Within days, the state government roped in

Central Bureau of Investigation The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the domestic crime investigating agency of India. It operates under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Originally set up to investigate bribery and gover ...

(CBI) to investigate the murder who concluded a local militant group called "Jamait-ul-Mujahidin" — comprising twelve Kashmiri Muslims — to have planned the assassination. However, by the time the investigation concluded, four of the accused had died and five had absconded, leaving only three —

Ashiq Hussain Faktoo Qasim Faktoo (also known as Mohammad Qasim) is a Kashmiri separatist and militant, serving life imprisonment for the murder of Hriday Nath Wanchoo. He had been among the earliest members of Hizbul Mujahideen. Personal life Faktoo graduat ...

, a budding separatist; Mohammad Shafi Khan, a faculty member of the

University of Kashmir University of Kashmir (UoK), informally known as Kashmir University (KU), is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public State university (India), state university located in the Hazratbal neighbourhood, on the western side of ...

specialising in

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

; Ghulam Qadir Bhat, a constable with the Jammu and Kashmir Police — for trial under

Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

before a special court in Jammu. Confessions were obtained from all of them.

Judiciary

In July 2001, the TADA Court acquitted Faktoo and others in light of procedural deficiencies in obtaining confessional statements and the absence of ''any'' other corroborative evidence. CBI appealed the judgement before the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India is the supreme judiciary of India, judicial authority and the supreme court, highest court of the Republic of India. It is the final Appellate court, court of appeal for all civil and criminal cases in India. It also ...

and in January 2003, S. N. Variava disagreed with the court's characterization of the confession, sentencing all to life-imprisonment. Faktoo and Khan filed a review petition but the Court rejected re-adjudication, in September of the same year, after a closed-court hearing. The judgement appears to be unconvincing among scholars; Seema Kaji and

Sumantra Bose Sumantra Bose is an Indian political scientist and professor of international and comparative politics at the London School of Economics. He specialises in the study of ethnic and national conflicts and their management, with a particular focu ...

continue to suspect the Indian state to have had a role in the murder.

Notes

References

{{Reflist Year of birth missing Place of birth missing 1992 deaths Assassinated Indian people Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front Activists from Jammu and Kashmir Indian trade unionists Indian communists Assassinated trade unionists