It was October 1, 1990. Handwara was a hotbed of militancy. The locals remember the town reverberating with ‘Azadi’ slogans. On that day, security forces came under attack from militants at the “gadi kochee”(fish market). In the retaliation, 22 civilians including a mother and toddler were killed, as per the State Human Rights Commission. The market was left in ashes that day, and the town sank into mourning.
34 years later, on the same day in 2024, the mood in the town seemed festive as people came out to vote. By 5 pm, the constituency had registered over 69 per cent polling.
Handwara constituency has an estimated 97,000 voters. The main competition here is among People's Conference chairman Sajad Lone, veteran National Conference leader Chowdhary Mohammad Ramzan, and AIP candidate advocate Abdul Majid Banday. PDP’s Gauhar Azad Mir and BJP’s Ghulam Mohammad Mir are also in the fray.
For 64-year-old Abdul Rashid Chopan the last 10 years have been “woeful”. He says the people in Kashmir have witnessed “poverty” with incomes dropping significantly. “It is salaries of government employees that is running the show in the Valley. Everything else is bakwaas(nonsense),” he says.
For 80-year-old Abdul Aziz, his rationale behind casting his vote this time is to bring back local officers at the helm of affairs and also to end unemployment in Kashmir. “All officers in top positions are alien to us. We want to put at end to this,” he says.
However, several people in the town have issues beyond unemployment, roads and electricity to vote.
There is the ex-militant gravedigger who trained in Afghanistan’s Khost during the turbulent 90s and a man slapped with charges under the Public Safety Act (PSA). They are voting to end their “miseries”. They want to secure their future and erase their “bleak past” that continues to haunt them.
For a former militant, his miseries started when he returned from Pakistan to India via Nepal. After having spent years in jail, he is still summoned by security agencies whenever there is any trouble or any big event in the district. “They think I am the reason for all trouble. Hope vote will change my destiny now,” he says.
Wali Mohammad (name changed) turned a gravedigger in the 90s as the dead bodies piled up. He says he has suffered for the job he took up voluntarily. A former National Conference worker, Wali says he switched to the ‘Azadi’ side in the 90s. He used to give “decent burial” to the militants killed in gunfights with security forces as Handwara town falls along the Line of Control. Adjacent to the town is the Pappat forest range from where, the gravedigger says, militants used to sneak infiltrate via Bungus Valley. “I have buried militants from Sudan to Afghanistan to Pakistan,” he says. The last time he buried a man in the local “martyr’s graveyard” was in 2016 when a local cricketer was killed.
He now has a kidney ailment. Nobody has helped him except some “nice people” from Delhi. He now hopes to bring a change with his vote.
The man with the PSA charges has spent many years of his youth in jail. After the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, he spent another one-and-a-half years in Agra jail. Now released, he hopes to “end his miseries” as “he is being rounded up” every time any law and order situation erupts in the district.
