>
ADRIAN LEVY AND
CATHY SCOTT-CLARK
The Meadow
Terrorism, Kidnapping
and Conspiracy in Paradise
For all of the injured, the dead and the missing
The headlights filled the road. Everyone cried
out for mother and father’s love and as the
doors to the ascent opened the ballad began
again. For his disappeared love he went from
hole to hole, grave to grave, searching for the
eyes that don’t find. From gravestone to
gravestone, from cry to cry, it went through
niches, through shadows, and it went like this.
FROM RAÚL ZURITA, SONG FOR HIS DISAPPEARED LOVE, TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY DANIEL BORZUTZKY
(ACTION BOOKS, NOTRE DAME, INDIANA, 2010)
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Southern Kashmir and Doda District
Trekking and Pilgrimage Routes in Kashmir Valley
Dramatis Personae
Abbreviations
Prologue
1. Packing
2. A Father’s Woes
3. The Meadow
4. Home
5. Kidnap
6. The Night Callers
7. Up and Down
8. Hunting Dogs
9. Deadline
10. Tikoo on the Line
11. Winning the War, Call by Call
12. The Golden Swan
13. Resolution Through Dialogue
14. Ordinary People
15. The Squad
16. The Game
17. The Goldfish Bowl
18. Chor-Chor Mausere Bhai (All Thieves are Cousins)
19. Hunting Bears
20. The Circus
Epilogue: Fill Your Arms with Lightning
Acknowledgements
A Note on Sources
About the Authors
By the Same Authors
Copyright
About the Publisher
1. The route to the Meadow, photographed by Hans Christian Ostrø shortly before he was kidnapped. (Marit Hesby)
2. Julie and Keith Mangan and Catherine Moseley trek towards the Meadow in early July 1995. Photo by Paul Wells. (Bob Wells)
3. Cath, Keith and Julie trek towards the Meadow. Photo by Paul Wells. (Bob Wells)
4. Setting up camp en route to the Meadow. Photo by Paul Wells. (Bob Wells)
5. Hans Christian Ostrø being made up for his kathakali dance graduation show in Sreekrishnapuram, May 1995. (Marit Hesby)
6. Ostrø on board Montana houseboat, Dal Lake, Srinagar. (Marit Hesby)
7. The Heevan Hotel in Pahalgam. (Courtesy Conveyor magazine, Srinagar)
8. The wives and girlfriends of the kidnapped men leaving the first press conference at the Welcome Hotel in Srinagar on 13 July 1995. (Agency photo)
9. Rajinder Tikoo, Inspector General of Crime Branch at the time of the kidnappings. (Undated photo, courtesy Kashmir Times)
10. Members of the al Faran kidnap party. (Courtesy Maqbool Sahil)
11. One of the first hostage photographs, taken by al Faran outside the herders’ hut from which John Childs had escaped in the early hours of 8 July. (Agency photo)
12. Lt. General (retired) D.D. Saklani, Security Advisor to the Governor of Kashmir. (AP)
13. John Childs reunited with his daughters on 15 July 1995. (Agency photo)
14. Childs shortly after his rescue. (Agency photo)
15. A picture of the hostages and their captors that was delivered to the Srinagar Press Enclave on 14 July 1995, shortly before the first deadline expired. (Marit Hesby)
16. Hostages photographed inside an unidentified herders’ hut, probably in the Warwan Valley. (Marit Hesby)
17. The Warwan Valley, where the hostages were held for eleven weeks. (Authors’ archive)
18. Sukhnoi village. (Authors’ archive)