In north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, the area police chief is on the forefront to declare the incidents of braid chopping, a hallucination, a madness and reaction to it as “mass hysteria.
Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Baramulla Imtiyaz Hussain said “the incidents are a mere illusion and you cannot arrest anyone as it is like chasing a ghost.”
The official claims that he examined two cases of braid chopping. In the first case, a girl, in her 20s, went to a washroom around 2:30 am and the braid chopper cut her hair. The washroom is in the lawn of the house. The alleged braid chopper after cutting her braid disappeared.
In the second case, the officer said, the incident took place around 4:30 am. He said the girl claims a man entered her room dismantling a room wall, chopped her hair, and then escape through the wall again. No crack was seen on the wall. The girl was sleeping in a room along with her parents and they didn’t come to know about it. They only heard about the incident once the girl narrated it. “That is why I say it is hysteria,” Hussain said.
Inspector general of police (IGP) Kashmir, Munir Ahmad Khan, said the police have registered 105 FIRs of the braid chopping incidents across the Kashmir Valley with 55 cases being reported from the south Kashmir.
“I cannot say what it is. But all I would say that the incidents and subsequent panic in the society have put the security agencies in the very disadvantageous situation. This (braid chopping) thing cannot be done by any security agency as it is going to our disadvantage, in every way. Law and order situation worsens due to this and also all my all anti-militancy operations have been impacted,” Khan said as the rumours were spread at some places that the security agencies are involved in the braid-cutting cases.
The Kashmir police chief said the police are facing problem in investigating the cases.
“The police are not getting support from the victims and their families. The investigation couldn’t be held in effective manner because there is no cooperation, neither from the victim nor from his family. There is too much hue and cry but we don’t get support to carry forward investigation”, Khan lamented.
“All we have circumstantial evidence and there are cases which apparently seem beyond the truth,” he said.
Khan added that the frequent complaint is that the unknown masked men spray some substance on the victims and with it they get unconscious and when they regain conscience they see their braid cut, and the masked men nowhere to be spotted. Khan called it a “mystery”.
“To investigate it scientifically, we need to take the blood sample of the accused or swabs of their sweat or skin,” he said.
His main concern is that “some miscreants, anti-national and anti-social elements” have jumped into the braid-chopping incidents to exploit the situation to their advantage.
Khan also sees a larger conspiracy in the braid-chopping incidents and the fear psychosis it has created.
“The women have been confined to the four walls. Khan says people should work to identify who the people are “who want that Kashmiri women should remain confined within four walls. We will not allow this,” he said.
The police may be right as the sight of women on the streets of Kashmir has decreased. The fear psychosis is such that shopkeepers at main women market, Gonikhan, say that female customers have fallen drastically since the braid chopping incidents were reported.
Following the incidents of braid chopping, vigilante groups have been formed by people to catch the alleged attackers. The groups formed in different areas are armed with axes, sickle, wooden boards and cricket bats. At least 18 people including tourists have been rescued by the police from vigilante groups. People had been beaten up by them in different areas including Ganderbal as they lost their way and were taken to be braid choppers. In Srinagar, a transgender was attacked at the posh Zero Bridge area, on the suspicion, that he was a braid chopper. The police rescued him from the vigilante group.
The first alleged incidents were reported from the militancy-hit south Kashmir region on September 14. Since then they continue. “We had 255 reported incidents in Jammu in August and September. The FIRs were filed in three cases only. But in the Valley the wide publicity and involvement of different groups have complicated things”, admits a senior police official, based in south Kashmir.
He said that the braid chopping cases analyzed in UP, Haryana and Jammu have indicated that it has a time period and such incidents decrease within a specific time period and then disappear altogether. However, pervasive fear in Kashmir, media attention and “conspiracy theories” attached to such happenings could prolong the problem, he said.
On Sunday, October 15, around a dozen women stopped traffic movement at the Tengpora bridge. The women said one of the neighbors was in her house when the braid chopper tried to cut her braid after entering the house from the second storey. However, the SHO of the area, Parvaiz Ahmad, said he went to the area to investigate the case. He said he found it was impossible for anyone to enter in to the house and then escape.
Ahmad said on October 10 early morning in the same area at about 3:15 a.m. he visited a family after he heard people of the area protesting against braid chopping. “But I could feel that the alleged victim is talking at incoherently times. But I still collected the cut braid for the investigation”, he said.
He said the lady claimed that an unidentified stranger, in black clothes and white shoes, had chopped off her braid while as another one sprayed a chemical making her unconscious.
In some places, like in Sopore police district, around 55 km from Srinagar, clashes broke out between the police and the people after an incident of braid chopping was reported from the area on October 15. The police resorted to the tear smoke shelling to disperse the protesters, who retaliated with the stones. In the old city, Srinagar, vigilante groups were roaming after the rumours of the braid-chopper on the evening of October 15.
Last month, when such incidents took place in Jammu and earlier in Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir Police dismissed them. In mid-September when the braid-chopping complaints started coming in from different districts of the Valley, the police presumed it to be another “law and order issue” and said criminals were responsible for it. The police were quick to announce the reward of Rs 6 lakh to an informant, who would provide any information about the braid choppers. Now that the police were out to prove it to be hysteria, Khan said when the award was announced it was declared in the good faith.
“That time we didn’t know anything about it. We didn’t know people will pass on a girl from Afghanistan as braid cutter on an internet video”, he said.
On Sunday, a picture of a man dressed in women’s clothes went viral in the Valley as it was passed off as one of a braid chopper, captured by the people. The radio 96.2 FM jockey had then cleared that the picture was of a man from the Middle East, who had gone to meet his girlfriend dressed like a woman and was caught.
As the police look suspiciously about the claims of the alleged victims, it is facing another problem from other institutions like the health department. A senior official of the health department said his department had not seen any case of the braid chopping and he cannot speak anything about the issue. In the Psychiatric Disease Hospital, no case was examined and the top psychiatrists of the valley say unless they wouldn’t see at least ten persons, they can’t give an opinion. With the health officials and psychiatrists’ silent about the issue and the people are reserved about the police claim.
“This whole situation only reinforces the chasm between the state institutions and the people. There is so much mistrust of the state institutions especially on the police in Kashmir that even the police claims in such cases are not accepted,” said Syed Shujaat Bukhari, a political analyst.
However, Sridhar Patel, superintendent police, Kulgam, in south Kashmir said if there is no credibility of the institution of the police, he couldn’t have done what he did in Kulgam. “In my area people protested against braid chopping. I rushed to the spot and, later, I entered the three houses. I explained to everyone that no one could have entered the houses and they all agreed with me,” Patel said.
He said 21 incidents were reported from Kulgam and the department was analysing each and every case.
A senior officer of the police’s intelligence department said the Valley has undergone immense psychological stress in past 30 years of the conflict and the crises over the braid chopping are consequences of being in the perpetual conflict. He said even theories are being weaved that the large-scale incidents of alleged braid chopping in Haryana and some parts of Jammu were in done deliberately to enact it in Kashmir. “Such bizarre things, you can only hear in Kashmir. The conflict has taken its toll on people and its manifestation is for everyone to see. Everyone is scared, even the psychiatrists”, the official said.
However, the Hurriyat Conference and other separatist leaders lay blame at the government. Senior Hurriyat Conference leader, Syed Ali Geelani, said the “forced and military occupation of India is the root cause of all miseries and problems.” He said that “for past one-month fear psychosis has been created and people are facing threat to their dignity and honor. People are reeling under constant fear and braid chopping incidents have created an extreme gloomy situation for our sisters and daughters.”
“Nothing good is expected from ruling elite”, said Geelani.
Geelani drew a parallel with the turbulent past of Kashmir's 1990s. He says “instead of ensuring the safety authorities conceived their devilish tricks like operation catch and kill, operation ghost and now braid chopping like horrible operation and all these follies were aimed to break our resolve and suppress our freedom sentiments”, In mid-1992, the security forces had launched a "catch-and-kill" “operation ghost” to execute captured militants. According to human rights groups, the operation had led to large-scale killing of militants and civilians.
Even the woman rights commission chairman Nayeema Ahmad Mehjoor is not on the side of the police. She tells Outlook the Commission has taken cognizance of the cases and it was investigating some cases on its own. “I don't believe in hysteria theory as the nature of the cases seems different”, said Mehjoor, thus making the job difficult for the police.
“I met few women who I don't think are suffering from some mental illness or seeking the attention of people”, she said.
“There is a one woman I met who has been under depression and seemed bit disorganized and couldn't remember, who came and chopped her hair when she was in a room. I am not buying this theory that all cases are related to mass hysteria. There are criminal elements, who take refuge in hysteria and target vulnerable women. I am doing case to case investigation and will come out with a report based on the investigation involving all sections of society,” Mehjoor said.
The recurring incidents have already created fear among the tourism players of the Valley. The tour and travel bodies went to the chief minister last week and sought her intervention to end the crises due to braid chopping. The CM though is clueless like the police and with Geelani, now, invoking the operation ghost of the 1990s to dent the police narrative, the government seems in a fix. In this narrative and counter narrative, braid chopping is here to stay in Kashmir for some time now.
