Embers of pain in a bloodied Valley

Over the years, Jammu & Kashmir has seen hundreds of incidents of violence in which thousands of civilians have lost their lives. In the last 6 to 7 years, however, a new trend has emerged where every civilian killing by security forces is followed by more violence.

After every civilian killing, the response of the government remains more or less the same: Impose curfew, suspend internet services, order probes and constitute inquiry commissions, curb the protests and buy the time. On the other hand, separatists who always wait for such incidents, call for strikes and protest calendars, leading to further killings.

While the government-ordered probes never see any conclusion, strike calls by separatists result in further killings during the subsequent protests. In between, it is the common man who suffers immensely due to this mindless violence which has become a norm in Kashmir.

The latest violence over reports that a teenaged school girl was molested by an army personnel in Kupwara district last week claimed 5 innocent lives.

Immediately after the incident, as usual, tempers ran high across the Valley with protests erupting and leading to government imposed restrictions. Separatists backed strikes for almost a week. It happened when the academic session was in full swing in the Valley and tourist season had just begun. Like previous times, to calm down the tempers, the state government ordered a magisterial inquiry into the killings. However, questions are being raised over what happened to similar probes ordered earlier this year into civilian killings elsewhere in Kashmir.

For example, in February, deputy commissioner of Pulwama ordered a magisterial inquiry into killing of two students—Shaista Hameed and Mir Asif–by security forces, following massive public outcry. A similar inquiry was ordered by the divisional commissioner of  Jammu into the killing of a civilian in Samba when police opened fire on Gujjars protesting against demolition of their hutments.

In 2015, when the PDP-BJP alliance came to power, the government ordered 6 probes into civilian killings in firing by security forces. However, no action was taken to bring the culprits to book. Similar was the situation during the previous National Conference-Congress regime. Though the unending era of strikes started right from the 1990’s when armed insurgency broke out in Kashmir, since 2008, issuing strikes and protest calendars on every civilian killing has become a routine for the separatist camp.

Outwitting each other

In order to outwit each other and take credit for “who issued the strike call first”, the separatist leaders leave no stone unturned. Of late, moderate separatists headed by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq have realised the changing mood on the ground against strike politics, but the competition among themselves forces separatist leaders to continue the cycle of violence. Though the intensity of protests and shutdowns has come down since 2011, the losses continue to mount.

The hartal politics of separatists coupled with curfews and restrictions by the government has crippled the economy of Kashmir. Hundreds of days of work have been lost in the past two-and-a-half decades due to the strikes, restrictions and curfews causing immense loss to the economy and prosperity of Kashmir.

 Kashmiris don’t mourn, they seethe. Each killing fuels a tempest. If you ask a Kashmiri, he yearns for peace or wants a full and final war between India and Pakistan so that he doesn’t have to die every day. The choices are limited but Kashmiris know the results very well – they are caught between a devil and a deep sea situation from where, at the moment, there is no escape route.
Kashmiris want an end to this lingering pain and suffering.

The Valley is littered with unmarked graves, orphans, widows, half-widows, amputees, handicapped, tortured and maimed. Speak a word about the types of brutality, and Kashmir has an example. A common question people ask is: Why shouldn’t we be left alone by both the parties involved in the conflict and allowed to live their life with dignity and without any harassment? Why should violence, killings, arbitrary arrests, strikes and curfews be made to make Kashmiris tow a particular line?

It is high time the Centre realised this and took all the stakeholders into confidence. Same can’t be expected from the separatists as they are outlaws in the eyes of the establishment. So, the onus to bring back peace into the bloodied Valley lies on Narendra Modi’s government.