LASSA
KAUL: THE HONEST, COMPASSIONATE AND FEARLESS BROADCASTER
(Lassa
Kaul)
In 1989 when Kashmir started witnessing stray bomb blasts or
cross-firing incidents, many people felt puzzled. Kashmiri society had never
seen such things. Initially, it was very difficult for Kashmiris to believe
that such incidents could be the result of a well-planned armed insurgency
aided and abetted by the enemy across the border. The general comments that
cropped up at such incidents were:-
“It is a ploy used by the central government. Possibly they want
to topple the elected government.”
“To gain political mileage, some people are doing these blasts
and firing. It is just a temporary phenomenon.”
“What can happen over here with the all-around army’s
presence? We are all safe here.”
“These blasts are not directed towards the Pandit minority. No need
to panic.”
National Conference activist, Mohammad Yusuf Halwai was gunned
down in August 1989 for he dared to leave his lights on during Independence
Day in August 1989 when JKLF had called for a total blackout. And by September
1989, indications pointed towards the presence of Pakistan-trained and highly
motivated young boys with automatic guns and other deadly ammunition in their
hands. These highly motivated boys had instructions from their handlers to wipe
away all sympathisers of India or Indian presence in the valley.
After Neel Kanth Ganju (retired judge killed on November 4,
1989), Tika Lal Taplu (B.J.P. leader killed on September 13, 1989), Prem Nath
Bhat (senior advocate killed on December 27, 1989) and some more killings in
the second half of the year 1989, panic, fear and gloom had set into the minds
of the minuscule Kashmiri Pandit community. Noted Persian scholar and
historian, Kashi Nath Pandita says this:-
“In September 1989, when Tika Lal Taplu was killed, there was
fear and fright on all faces. Through a widely circulated English newspaper, I
addressed a letter to Azadi movement leaders to clear their stand towards
Kashmir Pandits and other minorities. The reply received by me closed all
options. We were told to join the Azadi movement or leave Kashmir. No other
option was put forth. The situation at that time was a clear signal to the
Hindus and other minorities living in the valley.”
From December 1989, things started worsening in the Kashmir
valley. Abductions, killing of the innocents, bomb blasts, fear,
suspicion and the complete breakdown of law and order created panic in all
minds. Many armed militant groups trained and supported by Pakistan started
arriving on the scene. On January 4, 1990, Kashmiri Pandits shrank in fright
when the militant organization, Hizbul Mujahideen issued a public notice in the
widely circulated Urdu Newspaper, Aftab threatening all Hindus to leave Kashmir
immediately or face consequences. On January 14, 1990, another Srinagar-based
Urdu newspaper, Al-Safa republished the same warning. Panic gripped the entire
Kashmiri Pandit community on the intervening night of 18th and 19th January 1990 when loudspeakers from the mosques in the entire Kashmir valley blared pro-Azadi slogans asking people to come out on the roads. That night, the
intimidating slogans in the streets asked people to make Kashmir free from all
the enemies of the Azadi movement. Hit lists were pasted on the outer walls of
the mosques. These lists had names of many Kashmiri Pandits alleged to be
working as informants. This created panic in the minds of the listed persons
who had either to leave Kashmir to save their lives or stay and get killed.In
this hostile and charged environment, the minuscule Kashmiri Pandit community
felt threatened and unsafe. Anybody could be killed and labelled as Mukhbir
(Informant) and nobody dared to react. Kashmir with its age-old traditions of
tolerance and brotherhood became a dangerous place to live. Fear defined the behavioural response of people to any and every incident. Out of fear, Muslim
neighbours kept silent when an innocent Pandit was killed by the armed
terrorists. Many Kashmiri Pandit families were advised by their Muslim
neighbours to leave Kashmir. They admitted that they had no control over the
events and the way things were shaping up. The gun culture changed the social
discourse in Kashmir. From tolerance and pluralism, it shifted to exclusiveness
and fundamentalism. With none to fall back upon, the Kashmiri Pandits felt
helpless, insecure and alienated. After a spate of killings was unleashed upon
this hapless community, they left Kashmir carrying their bare bodies with them.
The plight of Pandits at that time can be felt from a couplet by the Urdu poet,
Ali Sardar Jafri who has written:-
“Kaam ab koyi na aayega bas ek dil ke siwa
Raaste bandh hain sab koocha-e-qaatil ke
siwa.”
(No one shall now come to our rescue except our own heart,
For us, other than the assassin’s street, every path lies
blocked.)
A split between Pandits and Muslims had been tactfully
engineered by the armed militants. These militant groups succeeded in creating
a situation where no person looked beyond hate and prejudice towards the
Pandits.
Capt S. K.Tikoo remembers those dark days and said this:-
“What hurt minorities terribly was when he heard the horrifying
slogans in the street: ‘Aessi chhu banavun Pakistan. Batav ross ta batiniev
saan’ meaning ‘we want our Pakistan, without Pandit men but with Pandit women’, ‘Aey kaafiron aey zaalimon Kashmir hamaara
chhorr do’ meaning ‘O unbeliever! O cruel! Get lost from our Kashmir’ and
‘Jisko Kashmir mein rehna hai, Allah-ho-Akbar kehna hai’ meaning
‘anyone who wants to live in Kashmir will have to convert to Islam’. One would
also see groups of young boys holding Kalashnikov rifles in their hands
singing:-
‘Jago! Jago! subah huyee,
Roos ne baazi haari hai ,
Hind pe larza taari hai ,
Ab Kashmir ki baari hai ,
Jago ! Jago ! subah huyee.’
(Wake up! wake up! It is already dawn,
Russia has already been defeated.
Now India is under attack
and it is the turn of Kashmir.
Wake up! Wake up! It is already dawn.’)
This environment and the slogans had thrust a dagger into the
backbone of the centuries-old composite culture and shared living in the
Kashmir valley. And then the gun-wielding and Pakistan-trained militants spared
none who was deemed to be Indian in any manner or who they felt was acting
against the objectives of the Azadi movement. They killed Mushir ul Haq (V.C.,
The University of Kashmir), B K Ganju (engineer employed in B.S.N.L.),
Sarvanand Koul Premi (poet), Lassa Koul (the then director Doordarshan,
Srinagar), Molvi Mohammad Farooq (religious leader), H.L. Khera (General
Manager, H.M.T., Srinagar), Prem Nath Bhat (advocate), Maulana Masoodi
(religious scholar and aged politician), Mustafa Mir (politician) and many
government officials and pro-India leaders. These compulsive killers killed
people coming out from the mosques after offering prayers. They killed innocent
and helpless women and children. They killed innocent people eating food with
their family members. Calling them Indian agents, hapless Pandits were
used as ducks to test their newly acquired guns. Innocent men, women, and
children were killed. Many women and girls were raped and tortured. I shiver
when I recollect those painful memories.”
Lassa Kaul was martyred at a time when Kashmir had become a
dangerous place to live especially for Hindus and pro-India groups or
individuals. He was the director of the Srinagar Doordarshan Kendra during the
peak days of Pakistan-supported armed insurgency in the Kashmir valley. To
begin the story of Lassa Kaul and his life, one can’t resist the preponderant
issue of the tragic assassination of this brilliant officer in 1990.
Unfortunately, this brilliant officer, who had qualified for IBS (UPSC), became a martyr
for not toeing the terrorist line at the peak of Pakistan-supported armed
insurgency in the Kashmir valley.
Lassa Kaul was not going out of the station for many days. On
the fateful day, he had planned a visit to his ailing parents and decided to
move out after sunset in his car driven by his trusted driver. He was fired
upon the moment he reached his house at Bemina colony and came out from his
car. Informed about his movement, the killers were already waiting for his
arrival. Many sources say that he did not die on the spot. Much time was wasted in
the hospital and he was kept unattended. Possibly during those days, the
hospital employees in the Kashmir valley were also swayed by the terrorist
dictates who had warned them not to attend to what they called Mukhbirs and
Indian agents. This happened with many victims of terrorist
killings during those days. About his death, the media wrote this:-
“February 13, 1990: Director Doordarshan Kendra Srinagar,
Lassa Kaul is shot dead by terrorists who considered him a stumbling block in
meeting their nefarious designs. Rumours were then agog that some of his
colleagues/insiders were involved in facilitating his murder by passing on the
information to terrorists about his whereabouts and movements. Lassa Kaul was thus
fighting a battle on many fronts. Added to his vows was the fact that the writ
of the state was not running during those crucial times. He had sensed the
danger of it as all his fears were based on facts. Finding no one to listen to
his distressed calls he for a while avoided being seen on the familiar routes
and mostly imprisoned himself within the walls of his office which by now had
become a fortification of sorts. The filial bond however gave way. He
desperately wanted to attend to his very sick father and having already sent
his family to Delhi, decided to visit the ailing father like the dutiful son he
was on that fateful evening of thirteenth February 1990…… The ambush of the
evil terrorists had worked. Bullets pierced his head and abdomen. An illustrious
son of the soil, a distinguished civilian, a loving innocent father to his
children and an illustrious son to his parents who laid his life for the country. Giving his life in the line of duty, Lassa Kaul had worked both in
Radio Kashmir Srinagar and Doordarshan Srinagar at a time when the situation in
Kashmir seemed to have attained the point of “No Return”..”………( Source ..Lassa Kaul – Kashmir-rechords.com)
“Moslem militants shot and killed the director of Srinagar's
government-run television station Tuesday just hours after radicals lynched a
suspected government informant and nailed the victim's body to a tree. Police
said militants shot Lassa Kaul, 45, director of the government-run television
station, at about 7:15 p.m. as he stepped from a vehicle in front of his home.
Members of Kaul's family heard the gunfire and found Kaul next to his vehicle.
He was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital, police said. Kaul is
the most senior government official killed by radicals since wide-scale
pro-secession violence erupted in the Kashmir Valley on Jan. 20. Militants,
critical of the television station's news reports on pro-secession violence,
had threatened Kaul with death, police said. Virtually all of the region's 3
million Moslems back the pro-secession movement. Kashmiris want to secede from
India because they believe their collective interests have been neglected by
the Hindu-dominated central government in New Delhi.”………(Source…https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/02/13/Militants-kill-television-director-and-suspected-informer...Ghulam Nabi Khayal)
In his book,’
My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir ‘, Jagmohan writes (page 533) this:-
“The terrorists were unhappy with him for not fully
complying with their instructions about the contents of news releases. They had
already intimidated the subordinate staff, some of them were, in any case,
their sympathisers and collaborators. That is why the news telecasts from the
Srinagar Doordarshan were heavily loaded in favour of the subversionists. Some
of the news items were virtually based on the handouts of the terrorists
organisations. Even publicity was given to their programmes. For instance,
sometimes it was announced that the’ namaz e janaza ‘of ‘martyrs’ would be held
on a certain date at a certain time. Shots of such ‘janaza’ were also shown on
the television. Lassa Kual wanted to correct this imbalance. This was not to
the liking of the subversive organisations. They believed,’ if you are not
willing to serve as our tool, you are our enemy, and have to be eliminated ’.
The arrest of Shauqat Bakshi brought to light the manner in which the crime was
planned and committed. Kaul stayed in his office on the night of February 11
and 12. Having come to know that he is likely to return to his home on the
evening of February 13, to meet his handicapped father who was living there all
alone, his family having gone to Delhi earlier, Shauqat Bakshi and Hanif hid
themselves near his house in Bemina.When Kaul alighted from his car, Shauqat
Bakshi fired at him from a pistol which Ashfaq Majid Wani had given to him,
killing him almost instantaneously.”
Lassa Kaul
was born at Sathu Barbarshah in Srinagar. Later, he built his own house in
Bemina and had been living there with his family and aged parents. He was tall,
handsome and the only child of his parents. The name Lassa (blessed) or a
person with a long life was given to him after he survived amongst his
seven siblings. A brilliant student all along his school and college days, he
joined AIR and served in various capacities at various places within the state
and outside. Sanjila Kaul writes this about her father:-
“My father was a handsome and charming gentleman. When he
entered a gathering, all eyes used to be on him. He had a flair for poetry and
used to recite the same to us. He had a fire in his belly and wanted to upgrade
himself as also his parents. To achieve these ends, he had to work hard in
trying financial and personal situations. His mother used to be bedridden most
of the time. He loved to live for the moment. One big fault with him was that
he used to trust people blindly. His love for everyone was all-pervading and he
never distinguished between his own and others. This was the trait that led him
to believe that he would be never harmed. He had two soft spots; the
organization he worked for and love for Kashmir. The last surpassed everything.
He was a caring friend, empathetic boss, loving son of his parents, the world
of his wife and the Hero of his children. Nature had made him for bigger things
which he would have achieved as he had dreams in his eyes when his life was cut
short so soon.”
(Young Lassa Kaul)
Lassa Kaul’s
career in broadcasting was driven by a commitment to serve people. As the
Director of Doordarshan’s Srinagar Kendra and having worked for All India
Radio, Kaul served Kashmir during the most trying circumstances. Despite
pressures and pulls from all sides, Kaul remained a guiding light of
uprightness and professionalism. He didn’t bow to the dictates of the
terrorists or any political pressure while discharging his duty. His behaviour
was such that he hardly made any enemies ever. His cultured demeanour had won
him maximum friends and well-wishers among the Muslims as well. But the rising
voices of radicalism and fundamentalism in the valley projected him as the man
responsible for launching a cultural aggression on the Muslims through his programmes
from Doordarshan Kendra in Srinagar which he headed as a director.
He was warned to stop airing Chitrahaar and other programmes which according to
the radicals were unIslamic. As reported by his friends and colleagues, he was
also asked to move out from the valley by a terrorist organization.
Threatenings were also conveyed over the phone to him and his family members. He
knew everything but stayed put serving the nation during those critical days.
He left his wife and daughter at a relative’s place in Ghaziabad. His son was
at BITS, Pilani.
Lassa Kaul was the only
top official in the government-controlled media to launch public grievance
programmes that exposed corruption. This made them respected, loved and also
targeted. Targeted by the corrupt and shady who got exposed for his style of
work. Wherever he served, he earned the love and affection of people and his
colleagues. Noted writer and theatre critic Ravinder Kaul has this to say:-
“I knew Lassa Kaul since the late seventies of the last century.
At that time he was the Station Director of Radio Kashmir, Jammu. He was fair
and transparent in his work. Merit was the only criterion for him to approve any person in Radio or allotting work. He approved me as a casual announcer for
Yuva-Vani after listening to some recordings. I never knew him nor did I ever
approach him. I was allotted regular work by AIR during his tenure. Those
who visited Radio Kashmir Jammu during his tenure were happy and satisfied with
his conduct and fair dealings. Met him in Srinagar later. He was always very
helpful, very decent and very polite and above all very professional.”
(Lassa Kaul)
Fayaz Shaharyar,
former DG Akashwani had this to say about Lassa Kaul:-
“Lassa Kaul's tragic and brutal murder at a
stage of his career that offered him an opportune time to take off and rise
even higher was not only an irreparable loss but a slur on the reputation of
equanimity of his dear motherland which he loved beyond possible degrees. He
started with the passion of Public Service Broadcasting and died working for
it. He knew his audience, he kept feeling their pulse and urge, designed the
programme structure for them and won their hearts. In this task of altruistic
electronic media functioning, he had the sacred footprint of his senior guide
late Som Nath Sadhu who breathed, dreamt, lived and worshipped the broadcast
profession. Both were selfless and ruled the Kingdom of the listening public, particularly of Kashmir. Providence didn't give much time to Lassa Kaul to be
on television but Radio remained his 'Karmakshetra' until he was forced to
forsake his
life. He paid a price for his virtues and qualities.”
(Lassa
Kaul with his colleague Sharif Uddin)Inder Krishen Kilam, former DGM of Punjab National Bank
has this to say about his association with Lassa Kaul:-
“Lassa Kaul and I visited village
Kilam together in 1970 /1971 on account of the marriage function of our radio
colleague HK Munshi with one of my maternal cousins Nancy Kaul. Lassa Kaul
wrote a small poem on my first-ever visit to Kilam village wherein he put
forth all my feelings/perceptions at that stage. Unfortunately, I don’t have
that piece of poetry. Later, when I joined PNB as a Technical Field Officer (SSI),
one of my tasks was to visit the village Khanpyath in Kulgam under PM's 20-Point
Programme. I recall Lassa Kaul interviewed me in the English language for a
radio programme. And again, in one of our outstation duties, Lassa Kaul and I
were in village Tangamarg for a day where we enjoyed the full day together and
trekked to Gulmarg up and down. There was no hill road then. He came specially
to see me at Ranbir Bhawan Srinagar when Brig. Madan and I were part of the Kashmiri Pandit Meet
sometime in 1987. He was the Director of Radio Kashmir those days. He and I
remained in touch even after I left AIR in 1973, and he progressed ahead in AIR
in Srinagar, Leh, Jalandhar, Jammu and then in Doordarshan. He was a good
friend for many years. Sadly, terrorists gunned him down and we lost him too
early.”
After the death
of Kaka Bhaiya (a name given to Lassa Kaul affectionately by many elder
relatives), the family had to shift to Jammu and finally to Delhi. The new
breed of brokers of Kashmiri Pandit property in the Valley took no time in
forcing the family to go for a distress sale of the house. His wife Kanta Kaul
(Tathi) put in a brave struggle to bring up her children and give them a much-needed education. His son Neerad Kaul (Nigu) completed his engineering degree and
lives in the UK at present while his daughter Sanjila (Witty) lives in Vasant Kunj,
New Delhi.
Lassa Kaul was a
bright star that fell so early. A star that had just appeared and had to shine
till dawn. He was a fragrant flower, mercilessly plucked from the garden by
cruel hands. In Kashmir, he remains unknown. However, for his friends and
family, he continues to smile and ever smile from his celestial abode up above.I
end this write-up with a mini poem of Faiz Ahmed Faiz:-
(Phooi
Murjha Gaye Saare)
“Phool murjha gaye saare
Thamtey nahin aasmaan ke aansoo
Shamein be-noor ho gayi hain
Aaine choor ho gaye hain
Payalein bujh ke so gayi hain
Aur in baadalon ke peechhe
Duur se raat ka dulaara
Dard ka sitara
Jhunjhuna raha hai
Muskara raha hai “…(.Faiz
Ahmed Faiz )
(All The
Flowers have withered Away)
(All the
flowers have withered away.
No let up in
the flow of sky’s tears.
The lamps
have gone lusterless,
The mirrors
lie shattered,
And all the orchestras
have played themselves out.
The ankle
–-bells have done their jingling
And behind
the clouds,
far away,
this night’s beloved,
the star of
pain
is
twinkling,
tinkling,
and
smiling.)
( Avtar Mota
)
PS
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