Determined to shake guilty consciences, a famous Bollywood filmmaker is preparing a movie exposing the rampant fake killing of Muslims in strife-ravaged, India-administered Kashmir.
"Custodial deaths and fake gun battles of police are a menace in Kashmir," Indian producer and director Mahesh Bhatt told Reuters on Tuesday, March 6.
His new project, "Dhoka" or Betrayal, will dramatize on the silver screen routine fake encounter staged by Indian police against innocent Kashmiri Muslims to wing rewards and earn promotions.
The movie, to be co-directed by his daughter Pooja, tells the story of a young Muslim man whose life is ripped into tatters by the staged killing of someone close to him.
Fake killings by police forces have become an epidemic in Kashmir, where some 8,000 Muslims have gone missing since 1989.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned last month that security forces often execute Muslims on claims of fighting terrorism instead of bringing them to trial.
Many Kashmiris told HRW that police demand bribes or threaten civilians with extrajudicial executions, warning them that their bodies would be left in the jungle and identified as "foreign militants."
The well-known Bollywood director hopes his "Dhoka" will bring the long-running "state atrocities" in the Muslim-majority Himalayan province to the spotlight.
"There is a need to speak about the misdeeds of the state, the betrayal of police in each of those regions where human rights are trampled upon everyday."
HRW has charged Indian authorities of overlooking routine human rights violations in Kashmir and promoting an atmosphere of immunity.
Bhatt, who is known for handling controversial subjects such as Hindu-Muslim tensions, says the movie aims to prick the country's long-sleeping conscience.
"The conscience of the country hasn't been questioned on these gross violations of rights of the people of Kashmir," stressed the longtime activist for freedom and religious harmony.
In the Indian film industry, the world's largest by number of tickets sold, the light was rarely turned on Muslims' sufferings.
Bollywood's offerings on Kashmir have generally stereotyped neighboring Pakistan and Muslims as the villains while celebrating security forces as heroes.
The Muslim-majority Himalayan region is divided between Pakistan and India.
Since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, the two nuclear-armed neighbors have fought two of their three wars over the disputed region.
From April 1948 to 1957, the UN passed a series of resolutions, affirming the right of self-determination of the people of Kashmir in accordance with a referendum to be held under international auspices.
Source: Islam-Online
Publication time: 8 March 2007, 19:24
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