The group's
terms of reference were: -

1. Use of coercion (either to participate or abstain from
elections)

2. Interaction with electorate to find out why they participated
or abstained

In this endeavour we formed joint teams comprising of people from
Jammu and Kashmir and different parts of India for four major
regions of the Doda district. The chosen constituencies included
Banihal, Doda, Baderwah and Kishtwar. While our final report with
complete documentary evidence would be made available at the
earliest, we are releasing an Interim Report of the Fourth
Phase.

There are some basic facts about Doda, which leads to the
'hyper-sensitivity' of the district of Doda and an analysis of the
same is very necessary to understand the context in which
elections took place in the district. Doda unlike the Kashmir
valley is a highly mountainous region. Ninety percent of the
population lives in the rural areas. Approximately, one lakh
military and Para military forces, including Rashtriya Riffles,
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Jammu and Kashmir Light
Infantry (JKLI), Border Security Forces (BSF). Moreover 20,000
state police force have been deployed in the district. This is in
addition to the approximately 10,000 Village Defence Committees
(VDC) / Special Police Officers (SPO's), which exist in 31 Pathwar
Halkas. Every Village Committee has merely 8 persons recruited.
The voluminous presence of militant groups in the district too is
reported to be higher than in either Jammu region or Kashmir
valley.

The elections took place in the midst of high security
arrangements. But the threat of some attacks was evident in the
region on the eve of the elections. Hence in many areas the fear
of either of the gun was very evident and in many interior/rural
areas of the district, the stronger gun became the deciding
factor.

In an interesting contrast to the elections in the Kashmir valley,
where urban voters generally boycotted the elections and rural
population participate to vote due to several reasons, many areas
of Doda witnessed the urban populace willingly and actively
participating in the elections and rural areas not showing up for
voting - except in areas where the security forces allegedly
forced them to.

Banihal Constituency - The team visited far-flung areas of the
Banihal constituency, situated in Doda district. Unlike in many
other areas of Doda particularly the towns where coercion was not
visible, it was used as a policy to defeat the boycott by the
people in Banihal, the better exception being the town areas.

Ashar, Banihal - The team reached the area at 10:50 am, after
receiving information about army coercion in the area. The team
was told that R.R personnel had visited the area in the morning
hours to compel people to cast their votes. On reaching the
village, the team saw 17 RR personnel deployed in the area inside
the residential locality, walking along with voters of the village
towards the polling booth. On seeing the team, the army personnel
started moving off and disappearing from the vicinity. But the
team did manage to follow one such jawan who tried to hide himself
inside a rice husker. An argument about the army herding people to
the polling station was made with the soldier who was very furious
with the members.

Later after visiting the polling booths in nearby areas, the
reason for the army's involvement was clearer. There were 4 votes
cast in polling booth No. 5 out of 527 at 11:20 am and at Booth
No. 6, the votes cast was 22 out of the 613 total.

Duligam, Banihal - Around 30 people, who were seen sitting on the
road guarded by two army persons (opposite the polling booth at a
lower plain), complained to the team in their presence that they
were being herded there by the army team, who had left them at the
road, and had gone to collect the remaining villagers. These
people had resisted to vote until the whole village was not
brought to the place were they were seated. The people were open
in their resolve to support only a "referendum" and not any
elections for the administrative purpose.

In the meantime, many other villagers were brought to the area by
army personnel. Children and the old were seen together with this
crowd, which featured even the semi-blind Imam of the local mosque
- aged 85.When on enquiring from the R.R. regarding the alleged
coercion, the RR personnel retorted by refuting the allegations
made by the villagers. They also send a word of caution to the
Commanding Officer of the area regarding the teams' visit, which
later stopped the team on their way back and insisted the team
members to accompany him to verify the allegations.

The need for this kind of coercion can be understood from the fact
that at 1:15 pm, there were no votes cast in the nearby poling
station (polling booth No. 12), where there were 1253 voters as
per the rolls.

Doda constituency - The elections started with the attack of
militant groups on the polling booth No. 4 situated inside the
Town Hall at Doda in the heart of the town. Three people were
killed in the attack including two CRPF soldiers and a militant.
It was generally perceived as an attempt to make sure a lesser
voter turnout in the city areas of Doda and need to be understood
as a mode of coercion. This pattern was seen again in two other
polling booths of Babore and Hanch were there were grenade attacks
(without casualities) were reported by the people.

There were many reasons cited by those participated in the
elections, including the anti-trifurcation wave, which was present
throughout among the minority and majority voters from the areas
visited by the team. Local issues as well as the family
affiliations to the local candidates too were cited. In the
otherwise secular and communally friendly areas of Doda, political
competition between the two communities was evident, leading to
large voter turnout.

Roti Padarnah, Doda - Leaving beside the city polling booths where
voter turnout was willing and active, the interior areas of Doda
did bear the grunt of the armed forces' might and thus coercion.
This village situated almost five kilometers away from any main
road (the polling booth No. 28 was on a hill-top needing three
kilometers of trekking) had 13 people casting their votes till
12:30 p.m. and in the next two hours the numbers had gone up to
283 out of the 928 total voters- with many more awaiting their
chance. On talking to the people, the team was made to understand
that the CRPF force, which had the security charge of the area
during the elections, had gone to the nearby villages (Roti
padarnah, Taishal, Chapna, Shirshi, etc) and had herded people to
the polling booth. The illiterate villagers did not even know the
candidates or their symbols to cast their vote. Those who gave the
team narrative evidence of the coercion included the Presiding
officer from Jammu as well.

Posta, Doda constituency - In Posta village, the CRPF personnel
went into the village at around 12:45 pm and gathered people,
including those working in the fields and forced them to go to the
polling booth (almost 3.5 km up from the village). The villagers
later told the team that they did not want to cast their votes as
elections were no solution to their issues. They also added that
in normal circumstances, there was no security provided to them by
any of the security forces and that there was a ban imposed by
militant groups on voting.

Babore, Doda constituency - In this urban polling booth (PB
No.26), people were participating in large numbers and by 11:55
am, there were 250 votes cast out of the 864 total number of
voters. But minors' voting (the team spoke to one of the minor
voters - a girl of fourteen) and the presiding officer's
enthusiasm to lead people (especially illiterate women voters) by
their fingers to press the button of the voting machine did put
shadow over the fairness aspect of the election. Photographs
available with the team can very well illustrate how women were
made to press the same button in as many as 20 consecutive cases.
The presiding officer was from the Rajouri district.

Baderwah constituency - In Baderwah there was willful
participation of the voters, in urban areas. The team visited
Banzla 8 km from Baderwah, starting polling booth number 44.
Baderwah constituency has 107 polling stations out of which 17
polling booths were located in towns and 90 in remote areas.
Amongst 107 polling booths 55 were described as hypersensitive and
52 sensitive by the Election Commission. The team visited the
polling booths no 34 at Baderwah Degree College, Govt. Girls
Schools Sartingal (PB. no. 44), Govt. Girls Schools Masjid Mohalla
(booth no 40), Thara Mohalla (booth no 36) Havelli (PB. no 39),
Town Hall (PB. no. 38), Qilla Mohal, Ydrana and Shiva (PB. no 58).
The people from both the communities were participated in
elections with enthusiasm and without any coercion. The members of
the majority community stated that they were voting for
developmental and civic issues and they are conscious it is no
solution to the Kashmir issue. The members of Majority community
apprehended fears about the outcome if only the minority community
was to participate in the elections. The competition between the
two communities for voting and to elect their respective
representative was visible. However, at two places in Baderwah at
Mathala Baderwah where one person was killed people abstain from
voting. At Marmat where security forces had reportedly burnt 120
houses on 20th of August and a section of people had migrated,
they were threatened to vote or face consequences. The team also
came across allegations of rigging due to non-participation of the
considerable number of people, who have boycotted the polls. One
family claimed that they have 500 votes in their clan and alleged
that though all of them abstained from voting, their votes were
polled.

As stated earlier, the incidents we are quoting in the Interim
Reports are only sample ones among the many similar instances the
CCS teams have come across. In this phase, due to the geographic
range of the Doda district, our teams were able to visit only four
out of the six constituencies, which went to polls on the 8th of
October 2002. We couldn't cover the Lolab constituency of Kupwara
District were postponed elections were taking place along with the
rest of the fourth phase.



On Behalf of the Civil Society Coalition,


Adv. Mir Hafizullah Vijayan MJ
(Gen.Secy, J&K CCS) (Convener, CSI- India)
Phone: (0194)-456381 Ph: (011) - 6561743 / 651484