he tension between Village Defence Committees (VDC) headed by the majority and minority communities in Jammu is said to be the underlying reason behind the ongoing tension in Kishtwar.

"Most of the VDCs consist of members of the Bakrawals and Gujjars who have traditionally been pro-India. But in the last couple of years, these communities have been forced by the Jammu & Kashmir government to surrender their weapons. In Doda district, 400 arms have been taken away from them. The separatist leaders have been putting pressure on the Omar Abdullah government to disband these VDCs. In the most remote areas, the VDCs are the last wall of defence against the infiltrators. Now since many of the VDCs in Kishtwar have been disarmed, most of them will be forced to migrate to other areas when the Army leaves as they will become vulnerable to terror attacks," said Shakti Parihar, who is associated with the BJP, over phone from Kishtwar.

According to Parihar, the VDCs belonging to the majority community were not disarmed.

However, a section of Kashmiris allege that the "minority" VDCs have among them several Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists. A Special Intelligence Team of the J&K police is looking into the role played by VDCs in the entire Kishtwar riots. SIT sources in Srinagar said that some VDC men were responsible for a shooting at Thatri village.

Commenting on the role of VDC members in the Paddar area of Kishtwar, eyewitnesses alleged that Bajrang Dal activists left for Paddar in a white vehicle on the evening of 9 August, the day the riot took place, and carried out the attack at Thatri the next day with the help of local VDC members.

A senior police officer posted in Jammu confirmed that the Kashmiri separatist groups have been demanding the disbanding of the VDCs and the recent clashes will only strengthen their demands. "Their demand for reducing the army presence has already been accepted and now they have shifted their focus on VDCs. Until now, no major complaint was received against the VDCs. But now it is up to the Chief Minister to decide whether to continue with the VDCs or not," he said.

Separatists in Kashmir regularly accuse VDCs dominated by the minority community of committing organised crimes in Jammu region. "VDCs are the root cause of all problems. Its members are responsible for killing, rape, arson, extortion and the present turmoil," Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani claimed in a recent press conference.

Narrating the sequence of events that started the violence, official sources said that people from the villages of Bandirna, Hullar and Kuleed that surround Kishtwar, were heading for the Chowgan Ground to join a congregational Eid prayer around 9 a.m. on 9 August, when a section of local Hindus objected to their pro-azadi slogans. The riots started around 9.30 a.m.

According to a senior paramilitary officer, who is camping in Kishtwar, the riot was pre-planned. Slogans had been raised earlier that the revenge of the Gul killings would be taken on the day of Eid; and petrol bombs and other such weapons had been kept ready. "It was definitely a pre-planned riot that started at 9.30 in the morning. It was also obvious that the local police force was not stopping the violence. The situation was brought under control only after the Rashtriya Rifles staged a flag march. An Army brigade is based at a distance of 2 km from Kishtwar and yet they could only come at around 7.30 p.m. Why did the local officers take so long to put in a request for the deployment of the Army?"

Local Muslims, however, allege that the tension was started by a Hindu boy who rode his bike into their Eid procession. "The mob beat him up. On seeing this, the CRPF personnel picked up their guns, loaded them and took their position. They were confronted by those who were attending the procession. All this was happening in a Hindu dominated area. And it was at this time that some boys started shouting anti-India slogans. This escalated the situation and the Hindus who had gathered at the ground got furious," said Malik Mohammad Umar, district president of Youth People's Democratic Party, over phone.

But he too admitted that the police, which had rushed to the spot, failed to take any immediate action to prevent the incident from escalating. "In fact the two mobs were allowed to fight with each other and destroy each other's property." Umar noted that the incident was politically motivated: "The vote-bank politics of the region is such that once the vote gets polarised, the Muslim vote goes to the National Conference and the Hindu vote to the BJP."

Another local businessman questioned the role of former J&K Home Minister Sajjad Ahmed Kitchloo in the whole incident. "The home minister was in the city, the divisional commissioner was here and so was the superintendent of police but they did not do anything to stop the violence for close to eight hours. The Eid procession had congregated at the main namaaz ground in Kishtwar and Kitchloo was present there. The crowd was chanting anti-India slogans. Kitchloo egged them on and in ten minutes around 15 shops were burnt. The role of Farooq Qaiser (DSP) and Mushtaq Ahmed (DSP) needs to be probed for they were standing at just ten feet from the crowd yet they did not do anything", a businessman alleged on the condition of anonymity.

Officials confirmed that around 45 guns from a shop owned by the relatives of Sajjad Ahmed Kitchloo were taken by the crowd. These are mostly 12 bore guns and have not been recovered till now.

Locals also questioned the state government's move to ban journalists from covering the incident. "Why has the government stopped the media from entering Kishtwar? Is it because it is afraid of the truth coming out?" another businessman asked.

The clash and the subsequent curfew in Kishtwar has resulted in an acute shortage of food and other essential commodities. According to locals and security agencies holed up in Kishtwar in Jammu, there is a total restriction on the supply of food and vegetables. "Our supplies are shrinking and we have been forced to cut down on our rations. If the situation does not improve in the next couple of days and the curfew is lifted, we will stare at a bigger crisis. No one is highlighting the problems that the locals are facing because of the curfew," said Shakti Parihar.

Personnel of Central paramilitary forces confirmed that there is a shortage. "We are hoping that the curfew is lifted by Sunday, If that does not happen then the crisis will become more acute. Our supplies are running short," an officer based in Kishtwar admitted.It is not certain that the curfew will be lifted by Sunday as tensions are still running high, with communities divided along religious lines and suspicious of each other.