I still shiver with fear when I recall the traumatic days when I, along with the other male members of my village, had to wake up at 4 am and perform the most terrible, inhuman, unjustified and humiliating forced labour for the army. With kerosene lanterns in our trembling hands, we would report for the “convoy duty”, so called because we were supposed to provide protection to the army convoys. Since the army feared attacks from militants, we civilians were used as human shields. So it was not just the forced labour, or “begaar” as it is called in Urdu and Kashmiri, that the army forced us into. The hapless inhabitants of my area also faced torture, humiliation and a lurking threat of getting killed or maimed.

The villagers had to do all sorts of manual labour, from cutting firewood to washing clothes and utensils, all without any remuneration of course. From each hamlet of Mawer, a mountainous area in north Kashmir that comprises about 50 villages, a group of four or more civilians, depending on the population of village, had to reach the main road, assemble at a spot identified by the troops and, with kerosene lanterns in their hands, wait for the army jawans to arrive. Once the army personnel approached the group, the villagers had to jump like monkeys just to prove that they were not suicide bombers. Only then the jawans would come closer and conduct body searches to make doubly sure that none of us carried bombs. After this humiliating ritual, the group of civilians, armed with long sticks, would begin its task of searching for landmines along the road. This search would continue until the next locality where another group of villagers waited to take charge and the process would carry on through the last village in Mawer.

After this hazardous “duty”, which normally took two hours, the civilians would be asked to surrender their identity cards at the nearest army checkpoint, located in Qalamabad, Maratgam, Choutipora, Langate and Haril villages. After depositing the identity cards at the army checkpoints at daybreak, the villagers had to report at various posts, camps or any other spot wherever the army would need their “services”. The villagers were required to construct bunkers, get illicit timber from forests, gather firewood, wash clothes and clean their kitchens, construct roads for installations, or anything that the army personnel ordered them to do. However, for most of the time through the day, we had to be around the jawans’ bunkers to protect them from attacks from the militants. It was only in the evening that we were returned our identity cards and allowed to go back home.

It is worth mentioning that skilled labourers like carpenters, masons, timber sawyers too had to work without any remuneration. Besides that, buses, mini-buses, trucks and even personal vehicles had to be kept available for the army whenever it needed them for various purposes.

No inhabitant in our area was immune to this barbarity of the men in uniform. Every day four to five households from each hamlet would send one member from their family for such duty on a rotational basis. However, whenever army would require additional men for any service, either to use them as human shields during encounters with militants or to do manual jobs at their camps, they would pick up anybody irrespective of age and job. Even if somebody happened to be a government servant or the only male member in his family, he still had little choice but to follow the army’s diktat.

Despite being an engineer with the government, I was also forced to undergo this humiliation as my father was a retired teacher and my brother was a student. People outside Kashmir may find it hard to believe this but it is a fact that the army routinely occupied the houses located along the road. The army would come and bundle inmates in one or two rooms every evening. Family members, including men, women and children were ordered not to make a sound and the army would occupy the remaining house and keep inmates hostage till the morning. This was done to check the movement of the militants during nights. My own house was used for this kind of operation on dozens of occasions.

These practices continued for 13 long years, from January 1990 to February 2003.

This seemingly never-ending era came to a close only when I, along with a few youth, took the battle to the roads when an innocent youth Shabir Ahmad Pir of Shirhama village was killed in custody by 30 Rashtriya Rifles on February 3, 2003. People staged a huge protest and inhabitants of the entire Mawer area decided to put an end to the so-called convoy duty for the army. Though we couldn’t bring justice to Pir’s family, the resistance of the villagers ensured that the dark days of forced labour finally came to an end.

Thus Mawer regained freedom, not from the militants but from our own army that was supposed to protect us from the extremists.

Though it was a great day for the villagers, I was made to pay for it. My parents turned me out of home fearing reprisal by the authorities. They had done so twice earlier as well, but this time I had to stay out for four- and-a-half months. My parents’ fears came true when the police jailed me in November 2005 for being a sympathiser of the militants! Even after my release, I continued to be harassed on different pretexts.

Finally I decided to quit my government job and contest the 2008 elections as an independent candidate. The idea to contest came to my mind simply because I felt it was the most democratic way to expose the atrocities of the security forces, renegades and militants. After getting elected to the state legislative assembly, I filed some 24 cases with the state human rights commission on December 10, 2009, on the eve of International Human Rights Day, seeking justice for my people. One of these cases related to the forced labour that I and other villagers had to endure for so long.

I firmly believe that we must respect human rights irrespective of religion, class or caste. A violator is a violator whether he is in uniform claiming to be fighting for the security of the country or a militant claiming to be fighting for liberation. However, the guilt is much greater in the case of the army because the security forces are expected to uphold the law and honour and dignity of the citizens.

My intention is not to embarrass the security establishment of the country, but I believe nobody should be above the law. That is why when I became an MLA I registered a case against forced labour. Now that the CID has established the veracity of my complaint, vide their letter number CID/HR/SHRC/18/2010 Dt: 23/03/2010, I urge the prime minister to intervene in the matter. Let the prime minister apologise to the people of Mawer for the horrors that the army subjected us to for so long.