JOIN US2016, a year Kashmiris won't forget
The year 2016 will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. It began on a politically ominous note as chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed passed away after a brief illness in New Delhi on January 7.
The late Mufti’s daughter, Mehbooba, took nearly three months to decide on whether to continue the PDP’s alliance with the BJP. On April 4, however, she decided to continue the alliance.
She donned her father’s mantle and became the first woman chief minister of the only Muslim majority state in the country. But within days, Mehbooba realised how difficult it was to govern a restive state like Jammu and Kashmir.
On April 13, five civilians were killed in firing by security forces in north Kashmir’s Handwara town as the area erupted over the reported molestation of a girl student by a soldier.
Just days before the Handwara incident, clashes erupted between local and non-local students at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Srinagar, after an altercation over the result of a cricket match.
Before the dust in the Handwara and NIT incidents could settle, Mehbooba had to face another crisis as separatist and mainstream Opposition parties started protesting against the reports of separate colonies being constructed for ex-servicemen and the migrant Pandits in the Valley.
The separatists struggled to evoke sentiments and agitations over the two issues. The timely clarification by the government foiled the separatists’ attempt to start an agitation.
Just when it seemed like the situation was returning to normal, the poster boy of Kashmir militancy, Burhan Wani, was killed in an encounter on July 8.
This triggered one of the most violent summers in Kashmir’s history, with thousands of angry youths spilling out into the streets across towns and villages, hurling rocks and bricks and clashing with the troops. A curfew and a communication blackout failed to stop the protests.
For the next five months, more than 90 civilians were killed in firing by security forces, while thousands were injured. Besides, numerous people lost their vision due to pellet injuries. This will remain a scar on Kashmir’s political landscape for decades to come.
Though the intensity of the protests declined gradually with separatists softening their weekly protest calendars, nobody can claim that normalcy has returned in Kashmir.
Tariq Karra, one of PDP’s founder members and Lok Sabha MP from Srinagar, resigned from Parliament and the party in September due to differences over the handling of the situation by the government. The year also saw a spike in terror attacks on security forces, in which 84 security personnel lost their lives.
The fidayeen attack on an army installation in Uri area near the Line of Control was the deadliest, in which 19 soldiers were killed and 18 critically wounded.