Impunity Continues In Kashmir
Introduction
The first six months of the year 2015 prove to be disastrous for the civil rights of nearly thirteen million Kashmiris living under Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. The territory remains at the center of an international dispute for the 67th year, with close to two dozen United Nations resolutions waiting implementation, and more than half-million Indian soldiers deployed in one of the most militarized zones in the world.
While awareness and civil rights improve worldwide thanks to education and technology, Kashmir is seeing backward march as India tries to dampen Kashmiri demands for freedom and end to military occupation. New Delhi’s choice methods to do are to restrict education options for young Kashmiris, and to impose censorship on electronic and social media.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hailed as a business-friendly leader, though his country remains to stall opening up in trade negotiations with Europe, United States and China. He was elected in a one of the largest electoral exercises in the world, in terms of the overall number of voters in densely populated India. But this has not translated into more civil rights for Kashmiris who live under Indian control.
If anything, Kashmiris are seeing a regression in civil rights under Indian military rule. Prime Minister Modi’s several political rallies in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, brought along heavy censorship and a clampdown on social media in the name of security.
Kashmir remains off-limits for human rights activists and United Nations rights assessment teams. International news organizations face censorship if they refuse to toe India’s official version on Kashmir and adhere instead to the UN version that says Kashmir is an international dispute awaiting resolution.
Kashmiri students who can and want to pursue education outside Kashmir are often denied travel documents. India uses the right to higher education as a tool to subjugate young Kashmiris. Kashmiri students studying in Indian colleges have seen a spike in incidents of harassment and physical assault, mostly for being Kashmiris, as intolerance grows in Indian society toward Muslims and toward Kashmiris who publicly associate with Pakistan, for example during sporting events.
Extrajudicial killings is a frequently used term in the Indian occupied Kashmir. In 2015, India continues to use arbitrary killings in Kashmir, and has given wide powers to Indian army under a law known by its acronym AFSPA, which stands for Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Kashmiri and Indian rights activists say AFSPA grants Indian soldiers wide powers to jail, kill and sexual molest Kashmiris. Perhaps every street of the Kashmir valley has a tale to tell of extrajudicial killings, where a son or a father has become victim to them.
Thousands of unmarked graves in Kashmir are validation of this fact. Over the past two decades many such incidents have taken place where innocent civilians have fallen victim of the fake encounter conducted by the Indian military in the valley, which is recognized as the most heavily militarized areas of the world. Whenever, these cases have been opened for trial, sadly they have mostly ended in acquittal of the accused Indian soldiers.
Although there have been many cases of extrajudicial killings but some of them have garnered enough media and public attention. One of them is the famous case of Pathribal killings that took place on March 25, 2000. Five innocent Kashmiri civilians were killed by the Indian occupation army.
India claimed they were terrorists who infiltrated from Pakistan. But relatives of the dead proved they were Kashmiri peasants. The Indian army killed the Kashmiri civilians and claimed they were the killers of 36 Kashmiri Sikhs who were killed earlier in mysterious circumstances on the eve of the US President Bill Clinton’s visit to India.
Apparently, the Indian army first killed the Sikhs, a persecuted minority in India, and blamed it on Kashmiris to gain the sympathy of visiting President Clinton, and then killed innocent Kashmiri peasants and showed their dead bodies to the media as terrorists who infiltrated from Pakistan, and pinned them for the Sikh killings.
But the plan apparently backfired were enough witnesses stepped forward to destroy the case that the Indian army tried to build.
The Pathribal killing case could be one of the worst and the most cynical cases in the world of extrajudicial killings by an occupation army.
India Plans Israel-Style Segregated Settlements To Stoke Religious Conflict In Kashmir
The rightwing government of Indian Prime Minister Modi announced in early 2015 a plan to establish separate ‘townships’ for Kashmiri Hindus, who are also known as Pandits. The Pandits are basically a sub-caste of the Hindu social hierarchy. They are estimated to be 200,000 to 300,000 in numbers have been living in exile in India for the last quarter-century.
The ruling BJP of PM Modi is currently in power in the occupied state of Jammu & Kashmir along with a regional partner PDP.
The Indian Interior Minister Rajnath Singh agreed to the plan with India’s current ruler in Kashmir, ‘chief minister’ Mufti Saeed. The chief minister is elected in elections organized by the Indian military and not recognized anywhere in the world. Saeed promised to make available Kashmiri land for the Hindu settlements. Later, Kashmiri residents of the lands where the settlements were to be built protested and delayed the Indian plan.
People in Kashmir have serious reservations regarding this step by the Indian occupation regime. Kashmir has historically been a place where religious minorities have lived peacefully with Muslim-majority Kashmiris, and continue to do so. The religious harmony has always been a source of pride for Kashmiri people. The major concern being raised is that these Hindu-specific ‘townships’ will lead to isolation and segregation of Hindus and Muslims. The initial plan rolled out by the BJP government in India envisages the Hindus living in separate ‘satellite townships’ guarded by Indian military personnel.
This step is akin to the separate Jewish settlements initiated by Israel in Palestinian territories. The Modi government in India wants to implement Israeli ideas in the Kashmiri occupied territories.
Kashmir, which has been a Muslim majority area, now fears that the Indian plan aims at gradually converting the Muslim majority into a minority.
The paradise valley of Kashmir has always been a symbol of harmony. Hindus and Muslims have lived together side by side for centuries and shared each other’s gloom and joy. A case in point is the recent devastating floods in which Hindus and Muslims worked side by side rescuing and aiding one another.
At a time when the Indian-installed administration in Kashmir appeared nonexistent, the Muslims and Hindus of Kashmir set new examples of mutual cooperation. There were instances where Kashmiri Muslims saved many Hindu temples. Many Hindu and Sikh families took refuge in local mosques where they were looked after and properly fed.
Unlike India, whose history is replete with religious pogroms and genocides, Kashmir is proud it never witnessed any religious riots or hate crimes.
But this could change if the extremists in the rightwing government of Modi succeed in constructing Israel-style Hindu-only settlements in Kashmir.
Modi wants to gel Kashmiri Hindus into a voter bloc to counter majority Kashmiri Muslims on religious lines. This will help him and help India’s religious extremist parties in elections.
But this short term interest spells disaster for Kashmir. In this new environment of Hindu-only residential settlements, even a minor misunderstanding between a Kashmiri Muslim and a Hindu would ignite deadly riots, and destroy centuries of religious peace in Kashmir. This might suit Modi’s religious extremist allies in New Delhi, but it would create future humanitarian tragedies in Kashmir, and could further worsen relations between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India.
Killing Kashmiri Youth During Peaceful Protests
Unarmed Kashmiris who choose the option of peaceful protest to demand political rights face extra-judicial killings, illegal detentions and house arrests, gang rapes, student expulsions and beatings at Indian colleges, targeted killings of young men, and enforced disappearances by Indian occupation forces.
On 21st May 2015, 16-year-old Hamid Nazir Bhat casually took part in a peaceful protest against Indian military presence in Raipora Palhalan, District Baramula. The activity included sloganeering and carrying placards.
What was the Indian occupation police response?
Here is the report of The Hindu, one of India’s largest daily newspapers, posted on 25th May 2015, and titled, ‘Police Pellets Blind a Kashmir Teen’:
“Hamid Nazir Bhat, 16, has lost vision in his right eye pierced by pellets, and nearly a hundred of these tiny iron balls have pierced his skull, jaws, lips, nose, and brain. The police fired them during a protest in his village, Palhalan, in north Kashmir on Thursday.”
One doctor treating the teenager said more than a 100 pellets pierced his skull.
The high-velocity pellets caused a vitreous hemorrhage in the right eye, and now his left eye holds out the only hope, Waseem Rashid, an ophthalmologist at Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Bemina, told The Hindu. “He had a corneal-limbal tear in the right eye, and we operated on it on Saturday. But he has no vision in it, and it seems he will not able to see with that eye again,” the doctor said.
Hamid Bhat is not alone. India’s occupation police force in Kashmir routinely uses iron ball pellets for crowd control. Young Kashmiris are victims. This has resulted in large number of families, mostly poor, being forced to travel to India, the only country they can access, for treatment, often selling their valuables. Many Indian doctors and investors have set up profitable businesses in Indian regions near Kashmir, where severe cases of injuries from iron pellets used by Indian paramilitary are treated.
India is trying to crush the nonviolent indigenous freedom movement of Kashmiris. Indian commanders have apparently concluded that the best way to do this is by targeting young Kashmiri men, who fuel Kashmiri resistance through political organization and action. Sadly, New Delhi is ignoring a shift among Kashmiris from armed resistance to peaceful and unarmed political protest. The reaction of Indian occupation troops in Kashmir to any form of Kashmiri peaceful protest is as violent as it would be if Kashmiris were armed.
Take the example of 19-year-old Khalid Wani, a medical laboratory technician. Medical evidence and eyewitness accounts suggest this Kashmiri teenager was killed by the Indian army to punish his brother Burhan Wani, a known armed resistance fighter in Tral. Khalid’s murder was also a punishment for his father, Muzaffar Ahmed Wani, a school principal. The senior Wani is a proud man who did not condone violence but held strong views against the Indian occupation of Kashmir.
The Indian army said the teenager was killed in an ‘armed battle’ in the Kamala forests of Tral on April 13.
But when Khalid’s body arrived at his father’s house, there were no bullet marks, or anything that would indicate Khalid died in a gun battle.
“His skull was broken, his nose was broken and there were rope marks on his wrists,” Wani said. He said Khalid, who worked at a diagnostic centre, was working at the laboratory till 12 noon after which his whereabouts were not known, “until they received the news of his killing”.
The Tribune India’s website, which carried a story datelined April 15, where the above quote was published, said the extrajudicial killing of the teenager led to massive peaceful protests the following day.
Another major Indian newspaper, The Hindu, ran a moving account of Khalid Wani’s murder by Indian soldiers.
“Why did they kill Khalid? He was not a militant,” Mr. Wani said. “They should have fought my militant son who was armed. They should have killed him if they could. Why Khalid when he had no guns on him?” – Muzaffar Ahmed Wani, father of Khalid, quoted in The Hindu, India, April 15, 2015.
In one incident during the 2008 and 2010 uprisings (a series of peaceful protests by Kashmiri youth demanding India implement UNSC resolution for plebiscite and the complete demilitarization of Jammu & Kashmir), Indian occupation army killed six Kashmiris in Srinagar (2008) and 112 Kashmiri people including many teenagers and an 11-year-old boy in Baramulla in 2010.
On 11th June 2010, as Tufail Ahmad Mattoo, 17, a Kashmiri student, headed home from a tutoring center where he was studying for medical entrance exam. A tear gas canister fired from close range bashed a hole in his skull. He died instantly. That morning Tufail had been simply a student with a rucksack full of books. By day’s end, he was being called a martyr across Kashmir.
There are many examples of how India treats peaceful protests in Kashmir.
On 21st January 1990, under the curfew, Indian forces killed 55 peaceful protestors in the localities of Gawkadal and Basantbagh in Srinagar, Kashmir.
On 1st March 1990, Indian army killed 33 peaceful protesters who were calling for the implementation of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution regarding a plebiscite in Kashmir, at Zakoora Crossing and Tengpora Bypass Road in Srinagar. 47 people were injured. It led Amnesty International to issue an appeal for urgent action on Kashmir.
On 22nd October 1993, Indian-occupied army arbitrarily opened fire on a crowd and killed 51 unarmed Kashmiri protestors in Bijbehara after protests erupted over the siege of the mosque by Indian troops in Hazratbal, Kashmir.
These are some examples of how India brutally treats Kashmiris engaged in peaceful political activism.
Punishing Kashmiris For Hoisting Third-Country Flag
Human rights activists worldwide are facing a new legal question in Kashmir: If Kashmiris raise the national flag of another country, say Pakistan, during peaceful protests, can India’s occupation administration try them under Indian national laws on sedition?
Recently we saw few incidents in Indian Occupied Kashmir where hoisting of National flag of Pakistan caused trouble to the administration & Government of India. Firstly Indian police registered an FIR against Jammu and Kashmir leader Asiya Andrabi for unfurling Pakistan flag on its national day in Srinagar and now Masrat Alam has been arrested in the case registered in police, connection with the provocative actions during the rally where Alam hoisted the National Flag of Pakistan.
If we look into the recent history of Indian Occupied Kashmir, hoisting of Pakistani flags is not new, whenever Kashmiris get a chance and whenever they have to show their love towards Pakistan and express their hatred against India, Kashmir turns Green. Hoisting of Pakistani flag has not just been seen during the political rallies in Kashmir, but Pakistani flags get hoisted on 14th of August (Independence Day of Pakistan), 23rd March (National Day of Pakistan) and during every Match Pakistan play or wins against India. Those wearing green shirts during the Cricket world cup were not any political workers, they are common Kashmiri youth. Those Kashmiri students expelled from their university and threatened with sedition charges because they cheered for the Pakistani cricket team during a televised match against India, are the new generation representing the sentiments of Kashmiri youth.
India knows the sentiments of Kashmir, if one says India is unaware that would be a lie, India knows how Kashmiri thinks, what they want, that’s the reason India has always used delaying tactics when it comes to giving the Right of self-determination to the people of Kashmir.
Many of my Indian Friends in reaction to hoisting of Pakistani Flag in Disputed territory of Indian Occupied Kashmir commented that “We wonder how Pakistan and Pakistanis would react if a Baluchi unfurled the Indian flag”. I don’t understand why my very intelligent Indian friends become so ignorant when it comes to the issue of Kashmir. The Kashmir dispute is the oldest unresolved international conflict in the world today. The United Nations does not consider Indian claim of Kashmir being integral part, as legally valid: it recognizes Kashmir as a disputed territory. With the exception of India, the entire world community recognizes Kashmir as a disputed territory.
Those who are creating this hype after hoisting of Pakistani flag in disputed territory of Indian occupied Kashmir are mum when Indian Flag is hoisted by the Indian army on 26th Jan, Why so blare over Pakistani flags? If Kashmir could not become India despite Indian flag being hoisted here for the past 68 years how would hoisting of Pakistani flag for an hour or so make it Pakistan.
The most concerning thing should be RSS plan of proving Kashmir the integral part and the refusal of BJP ministers to hoist State flag by saying that we have always believed in one flag for Bharat and no other flags beside it. Why all voices become silent when the recognized disputed land is subjected as ones territory, why so silence when the identity of Kashmir is in danger, why so quiet when those wearing Indian army uniforms kills the future of Kashmir so brutally, and at that time no voices in favor of these so called people of integral part. Why selective affiliation with Kashmir, you kill us, rape us, torture us, disappear us and when we show response you own us? Why don’t you own us when we are being killed? At that time we are some separatist and when we act as separatist, seditious charges are applied as you believe we are part of the country and can’t go against the law!
So those booking Kashmiris under seditious charges, if they are really worried about the respect of their country and flag and don’t want to see the disrespect against it, should have never allowed its army to illegally occupy the land & lives of people of Kashmir, they should have raised their voice even after the killing of 94000 innocent lives, or most recently they should have helped this drowned nation in the centuries worst flood instead of taunting them to go and seek help from Pakistan. Let the people of this disputed area decide what they want and let them live with respect the way you are expecting it for yourself!!
Detention For Public Speech: The Case Of Peaceful Political Activist Masarat Alam
Strong courage of Kashmiri youth, armed with stones in their hands, in a group of no more than a few hundred at a time, facing Carefully welded network deployed at least 7,00,000 occupational soldiers in uniform, and another 1,00,000 civilian intelligence and surveillance operatives. The strongest is always the militarization, however prepared you are with “Stones in your hands” in the presence of uniform and guns, facing them, living with them is much harder than one can just imagine.
Why this youth of Kashmir is on roads, why are they holding stones in their hands, why are they raising the slogans of freedom, an example of this stone-palter is an alumnus of Kashmir’s posh missionary school, Masarat Alam, born in an old city of Srinagar in July 1971. His family had a business of garments and it was at peak till Masarat Alam started raising his voice for injustice being done around him by Indian-occupational army and as a result Indian-occupational forces crushed his family business. He was first arrested in 1990 but was released more than a year later, in November 1991. He was detained for a second time in 1993 and kept in custody for more than four years. His custody was prolonged through repeated extensions of detention orders, Alam was released only in February 1997. Alam, according to the petition, was detained for a fourth time in January 2001, and released in August 2003. Two months later, he was detained for the fifth time on October 7, 2003 and held until July 2005. In all, from 1990 to 2005, Alam was served with as many as nine detention orders and was imprisoned in various jails across the state. Sixteen detention orders under the Public Safety Act were issued against him during that period.
Reason of all these detentions is Just a stone in their hand against the illegal occupation of their Homeland. One of the reason he was arrested, is the distribution of CD’s the transcript of Masarat Alam Bhat’s CD titled “Quit Jammu & Kashmir” addressed to the occupational army reads: “We appeal you to lend solidarity with the people of Jammu & Kashmir for the states’s rightful self-determination, and the right to the people of Jammu and Kashmir to be free. We call on your conscience to end the long chapter of deception, tyranny, and death. Your actions have killed 100,000, disappeared 10,000 and orphaned 60,000. Alam mentioned in this CD that they are against terror & in solidarity with all who oppose violence and repression, we seek truth, justice and freedom.”
Indian-occupational forces martyred 122 youth of in the summer of 2008 and 2010 and what measures they took was to arrest the remaining youth with stones in hands and their leaders. During 2008, when famous religious site of Hindus Amar Nath shrine land was allocated to Hindus, natives of Kashmir got aggressive. A great movement took place and Masarat Alam played a vital role in creating that. He used to get along with the youth of Indian-occupied Kashmir and throw stones on Indian army which were all equipped with latest weapons.
17 years in prison but still he is determined, many attempts were made to kill him on different occasions which was revealed in a latest interview of ex top cop saying that Umer Abdullah wanted Masarat Alam to be dead.
Masrat Alam got released this year on 7th March 2015 but again arrested under seditious charges for raising a third country flag in disputed territory. Human rights activists worldwide are facing a new legal question in Kashmir: If Kashmiris raise the national flag of another country, say Pakistan, during peaceful protests, can India’s occupation administration try them under Indian national laws on sedition?
When the world calls Kashmir a disputed territory how can the Indian laws be applicable there?
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About YFK
Our goal: To help refugee families from Indian-occupied Kashmir, to organize domestic and international support for the right of Kashmiris to choose their destiny, to implement United Nations Security Council Resolutions on Kashmir. To ensure that the governments of Pakistan and India, and the international community, keep Kashmir at the top of their policy agendas.
Our organization: Youth Forum For Kashmir (YFK) is Pakistan’s first pro-Kashmir, registered and nonpartisan International lobbying group led by young Kashmiris and Pakistanis. The group is a platform that unites the youth in Indian-occupied Kashmir with their counterparts in Pakistan, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, and the world at large. The YFK is working to ensure justice to Kashmiris living under Indian-military occupation.
Impunity Continues In Kashmir
Introduction
The first six months of the year 2015 prove to be disastrous for the civil rights of nearly thirteen million Kashmiris living under Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. The territory remains at the center of an international dispute for the 67th year, with close to two dozen United Nations resolutions waiting implementation, and more than half-million Indian soldiers deployed in one of the most militarized zones in the world.
While awareness and civil rights improve worldwide thanks to education and technology, Kashmir is seeing backward march as India tries to dampen Kashmiri demands for freedom and end to military occupation. New Delhi’s choice methods to do are to restrict education options for young Kashmiris, and to impose censorship on electronic and social media.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hailed as a business-friendly leader, though his country remains to stall opening up in trade negotiations with Europe, United States and China. He was elected in a one of the largest electoral exercises in the world, in terms of the overall number of voters in densely populated India. But this has not translated into more civil rights for Kashmiris who live under Indian control.
If anything, Kashmiris are seeing a regression in civil rights under Indian military rule. Prime Minister Modi’s several political rallies in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, brought along heavy censorship and a clampdown on social media in the name of security.
Kashmir remains off-limits for human rights activists and United Nations rights assessment teams. International news organizations face censorship if they refuse to toe India’s official version on Kashmir and adhere instead to the UN version that says Kashmir is an international dispute awaiting resolution.
Kashmiri students who can and want to pursue education outside Kashmir are often denied travel documents. India uses the right to higher education as a tool to subjugate young Kashmiris. Kashmiri students studying in Indian colleges have seen a spike in incidents of harassment and physical assault, mostly for being Kashmiris, as intolerance grows in Indian society toward Muslims and toward Kashmiris who publicly associate with Pakistan, for example during sporting events.
Extrajudicial killings is a frequently used term in the Indian occupied Kashmir. In 2015, India continues to use arbitrary killings in Kashmir, and has given wide powers to Indian army under a law known by its acronym AFSPA, which stands for Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Kashmiri and Indian rights activists say AFSPA grants Indian soldiers wide powers to jail, kill and sexual molest Kashmiris. Perhaps every street of the Kashmir valley has a tale to tell of extrajudicial killings, where a son or a father has become victim to them.
Thousands of unmarked graves in Kashmir are validation of this fact. Over the past two decades many such incidents have taken place where innocent civilians have fallen victim of the fake encounter conducted by the Indian military in the valley, which is recognized as the most heavily militarized areas of the world. Whenever, these cases have been opened for trial, sadly they have mostly ended in acquittal of the accused Indian soldiers.
Although there have been many cases of extrajudicial killings but some of them have garnered enough media and public attention. One of them is the famous case of Pathribal killings that took place on March 25, 2000. Five innocent Kashmiri civilians were killed by the Indian occupation army.
India claimed they were terrorists who infiltrated from Pakistan. But relatives of the dead proved they were Kashmiri peasants. The Indian army killed the Kashmiri civilians and claimed they were the killers of 36 Kashmiri Sikhs who were killed earlier in mysterious circumstances on the eve of the US President Bill Clinton’s visit to India.
Apparently, the Indian army first killed the Sikhs, a persecuted minority in India, and blamed it on Kashmiris to gain the sympathy of visiting President Clinton, and then killed innocent Kashmiri peasants and showed their dead bodies to the media as terrorists who infiltrated from Pakistan, and pinned them for the Sikh killings.
But the plan apparently backfired were enough witnesses stepped forward to destroy the case that the Indian army tried to build.
The Pathribal killing case could be one of the worst and the most cynical cases in the world of extrajudicial killings by an occupation army.
India Plans Israel-Style Segregated Settlements To Stoke Religious Conflict In Kashmir
The rightwing government of Indian Prime Minister Modi announced in early 2015 a plan to establish separate ‘townships’ for Kashmiri Hindus, who are also known as Pandits. The Pandits are basically a sub-caste of the Hindu social hierarchy. They are estimated to be 200,000 to 300,000 in numbers have been living in exile in India for the last quarter-century.
The ruling BJP of PM Modi is currently in power in the occupied state of Jammu & Kashmir along with a regional partner PDP.
The Indian Interior Minister Rajnath Singh agreed to the plan with India’s current ruler in Kashmir, ‘chief minister’ Mufti Saeed. The chief minister is elected in elections organized by the Indian military and not recognized anywhere in the world. Saeed promised to make available Kashmiri land for the Hindu settlements. Later, Kashmiri residents of the lands where the settlements were to be built protested and delayed the Indian plan.
People in Kashmir have serious reservations regarding this step by the Indian occupation regime. Kashmir has historically been a place where religious minorities have lived peacefully with Muslim-majority Kashmiris, and continue to do so. The religious harmony has always been a source of pride for Kashmiri people. The major concern being raised is that these Hindu-specific ‘townships’ will lead to isolation and segregation of Hindus and Muslims. The initial plan rolled out by the BJP government in India envisages the Hindus living in separate ‘satellite townships’ guarded by Indian military personnel.
This step is akin to the separate Jewish settlements initiated by Israel in Palestinian territories. The Modi government in India wants to implement Israeli ideas in the Kashmiri occupied territories.
Kashmir, which has been a Muslim majority area, now fears that the Indian plan aims at gradually converting the Muslim majority into a minority.
The paradise valley of Kashmir has always been a symbol of harmony. Hindus and Muslims have lived together side by side for centuries and shared each other’s gloom and joy. A case in point is the recent devastating floods in which Hindus and Muslims worked side by side rescuing and aiding one another.
At a time when the Indian-installed administration in Kashmir appeared nonexistent, the Muslims and Hindus of Kashmir set new examples of mutual cooperation. There were instances where Kashmiri Muslims saved many Hindu temples. Many Hindu and Sikh families took refuge in local mosques where they were looked after and properly fed.
Unlike India, whose history is replete with religious pogroms and genocides, Kashmir is proud it never witnessed any religious riots or hate crimes.
But this could change if the extremists in the rightwing government of Modi succeed in constructing Israel-style Hindu-only settlements in Kashmir.
Modi wants to gel Kashmiri Hindus into a voter bloc to counter majority Kashmiri Muslims on religious lines. This will help him and help India’s religious extremist parties in elections.
But this short term interest spells disaster for Kashmir. In this new environment of Hindu-only residential settlements, even a minor misunderstanding between a Kashmiri Muslim and a Hindu would ignite deadly riots, and destroy centuries of religious peace in Kashmir. This might suit Modi’s religious extremist allies in New Delhi, but it would create future humanitarian tragedies in Kashmir, and could further worsen relations between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India.
Killing Kashmiri Youth During Peaceful Protests
Unarmed Kashmiris who choose the option of peaceful protest to demand political rights face extra-judicial killings, illegal detentions and house arrests, gang rapes, student expulsions and beatings at Indian colleges, targeted killings of young men, and enforced disappearances by Indian occupation forces.
On 21st May 2015, 16-year-old Hamid Nazir Bhat casually took part in a peaceful protest against Indian military presence in Raipora Palhalan, District Baramula. The activity included sloganeering and carrying placards.
What was the Indian occupation police response?
Here is the report of The Hindu, one of India’s largest daily newspapers, posted on 25th May 2015, and titled, ‘Police Pellets Blind a Kashmir Teen’:
“Hamid Nazir Bhat, 16, has lost vision in his right eye pierced by pellets, and nearly a hundred of these tiny iron balls have pierced his skull, jaws, lips, nose, and brain. The police fired them during a protest in his village, Palhalan, in north Kashmir on Thursday.”
One doctor treating the teenager said more than a 100 pellets pierced his skull.
The high-velocity pellets caused a vitreous hemorrhage in the right eye, and now his left eye holds out the only hope, Waseem Rashid, an ophthalmologist at Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Bemina, told The Hindu. “He had a corneal-limbal tear in the right eye, and we operated on it on Saturday. But he has no vision in it, and it seems he will not able to see with that eye again,” the doctor said.
Hamid Bhat is not alone. India’s occupation police force in Kashmir routinely uses iron ball pellets for crowd control. Young Kashmiris are victims. This has resulted in large number of families, mostly poor, being forced to travel to India, the only country they can access, for treatment, often selling their valuables. Many Indian doctors and investors have set up profitable businesses in Indian regions near Kashmir, where severe cases of injuries from iron pellets used by Indian paramilitary are treated.
India is trying to crush the nonviolent indigenous freedom movement of Kashmiris. Indian commanders have apparently concluded that the best way to do this is by targeting young Kashmiri men, who fuel Kashmiri resistance through political organization and action. Sadly, New Delhi is ignoring a shift among Kashmiris from armed resistance to peaceful and unarmed political protest. The reaction of Indian occupation troops in Kashmir to any form of Kashmiri peaceful protest is as violent as it would be if Kashmiris were armed.
Take the example of 19-year-old Khalid Wani, a medical laboratory technician. Medical evidence and eyewitness accounts suggest this Kashmiri teenager was killed by the Indian army to punish his brother Burhan Wani, a known armed resistance fighter in Tral. Khalid’s murder was also a punishment for his father, Muzaffar Ahmed Wani, a school principal. The senior Wani is a proud man who did not condone violence but held strong views against the Indian occupation of Kashmir.
The Indian army said the teenager was killed in an ‘armed battle’ in the Kamala forests of Tral on April 13.
But when Khalid’s body arrived at his father’s house, there were no bullet marks, or anything that would indicate Khalid died in a gun battle.
“His skull was broken, his nose was broken and there were rope marks on his wrists,” Wani said. He said Khalid, who worked at a diagnostic centre, was working at the laboratory till 12 noon after which his whereabouts were not known, “until they received the news of his killing”.
The Tribune India’s website, which carried a story datelined April 15, where the above quote was published, said the extrajudicial killing of the teenager led to massive peaceful protests the following day.
Another major Indian newspaper, The Hindu, ran a moving account of Khalid Wani’s murder by Indian soldiers.
“Why did they kill Khalid? He was not a militant,” Mr. Wani said. “They should have fought my militant son who was armed. They should have killed him if they could. Why Khalid when he had no guns on him?” – Muzaffar Ahmed Wani, father of Khalid, quoted in The Hindu, India, April 15, 2015.
In one incident during the 2008 and 2010 uprisings (a series of peaceful protests by Kashmiri youth demanding India implement UNSC resolution for plebiscite and the complete demilitarization of Jammu & Kashmir), Indian occupation army killed six Kashmiris in Srinagar (2008) and 112 Kashmiri people including many teenagers and an 11-year-old boy in Baramulla in 2010.
On 11th June 2010, as Tufail Ahmad Mattoo, 17, a Kashmiri student, headed home from a tutoring center where he was studying for medical entrance exam. A tear gas canister fired from close range bashed a hole in his skull. He died instantly. That morning Tufail had been simply a student with a rucksack full of books. By day’s end, he was being called a martyr across Kashmir.
There are many examples of how India treats peaceful protests in Kashmir.
On 21st January 1990, under the curfew, Indian forces killed 55 peaceful protestors in the localities of Gawkadal and Basantbagh in Srinagar, Kashmir.
On 1st March 1990, Indian army killed 33 peaceful protesters who were calling for the implementation of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution regarding a plebiscite in Kashmir, at Zakoora Crossing and Tengpora Bypass Road in Srinagar. 47 people were injured. It led Amnesty International to issue an appeal for urgent action on Kashmir.
On 22nd October 1993, Indian-occupied army arbitrarily opened fire on a crowd and killed 51 unarmed Kashmiri protestors in Bijbehara after protests erupted over the siege of the mosque by Indian troops in Hazratbal, Kashmir.
These are some examples of how India brutally treats Kashmiris engaged in peaceful political activism.
Punishing Kashmiris For Hoisting Third-Country Flag
Human rights activists worldwide are facing a new legal question in Kashmir: If Kashmiris raise the national flag of another country, say Pakistan, during peaceful protests, can India’s occupation administration try them under Indian national laws on sedition?
Recently we saw few incidents in Indian Occupied Kashmir where hoisting of National flag of Pakistan caused trouble to the administration & Government of India. Firstly Indian police registered an FIR against Jammu and Kashmir leader Asiya Andrabi for unfurling Pakistan flag on its national day in Srinagar and now Masrat Alam has been arrested in the case registered in police, connection with the provocative actions during the rally where Alam hoisted the National Flag of Pakistan.
If we look into the recent history of Indian Occupied Kashmir, hoisting of Pakistani flags is not new, whenever Kashmiris get a chance and whenever they have to show their love towards Pakistan and express their hatred against India, Kashmir turns Green. Hoisting of Pakistani flag has not just been seen during the political rallies in Kashmir, but Pakistani flags get hoisted on 14th of August (Independence Day of Pakistan), 23rd March (National Day of Pakistan) and during every Match Pakistan play or wins against India. Those wearing green shirts during the Cricket world cup were not any political workers, they are common Kashmiri youth. Those Kashmiri students expelled from their university and threatened with sedition charges because they cheered for the Pakistani cricket team during a televised match against India, are the new generation representing the sentiments of Kashmiri youth.
India knows the sentiments of Kashmir, if one says India is unaware that would be a lie, India knows how Kashmiri thinks, what they want, that’s the reason India has always used delaying tactics when it comes to giving the Right of self-determination to the people of Kashmir.
Many of my Indian Friends in reaction to hoisting of Pakistani Flag in Disputed territory of Indian Occupied Kashmir commented that “We wonder how Pakistan and Pakistanis would react if a Baluchi unfurled the Indian flag”. I don’t understand why my very intelligent Indian friends become so ignorant when it comes to the issue of Kashmir. The Kashmir dispute is the oldest unresolved international conflict in the world today. The United Nations does not consider Indian claim of Kashmir being integral part, as legally valid: it recognizes Kashmir as a disputed territory. With the exception of India, the entire world community recognizes Kashmir as a disputed territory.
Those who are creating this hype after hoisting of Pakistani flag in disputed territory of Indian occupied Kashmir are mum when Indian Flag is hoisted by the Indian army on 26th Jan, Why so blare over Pakistani flags? If Kashmir could not become India despite Indian flag being hoisted here for the past 68 years how would hoisting of Pakistani flag for an hour or so make it Pakistan.
The most concerning thing should be RSS plan of proving Kashmir the integral part and the refusal of BJP ministers to hoist State flag by saying that we have always believed in one flag for Bharat and no other flags beside it. Why all voices become silent when the recognized disputed land is subjected as ones territory, why so silence when the identity of Kashmir is in danger, why so quiet when those wearing Indian army uniforms kills the future of Kashmir so brutally, and at that time no voices in favor of these so called people of integral part. Why selective affiliation with Kashmir, you kill us, rape us, torture us, disappear us and when we show response you own us? Why don’t you own us when we are being killed? At that time we are some separatist and when we act as separatist, seditious charges are applied as you believe we are part of the country and can’t go against the law!
So those booking Kashmiris under seditious charges, if they are really worried about the respect of their country and flag and don’t want to see the disrespect against it, should have never allowed its army to illegally occupy the land & lives of people of Kashmir, they should have raised their voice even after the killing of 94000 innocent lives, or most recently they should have helped this drowned nation in the centuries worst flood instead of taunting them to go and seek help from Pakistan. Let the people of this disputed area decide what they want and let them live with respect the way you are expecting it for yourself!!
Detention For Public Speech: The Case Of Peaceful Political Activist Masarat Alam
Strong courage of Kashmiri youth, armed with stones in their hands, in a group of no more than a few hundred at a time, facing Carefully welded network deployed at least 7,00,000 occupational soldiers in uniform, and another 1,00,000 civilian intelligence and surveillance operatives. The strongest is always the militarization, however prepared you are with “Stones in your hands” in the presence of uniform and guns, facing them, living with them is much harder than one can just imagine.
Why this youth of Kashmir is on roads, why are they holding stones in their hands, why are they raising the slogans of freedom, an example of this stone-palter is an alumnus of Kashmir’s posh missionary school, Masarat Alam, born in an old city of Srinagar in July 1971. His family had a business of garments and it was at peak till Masarat Alam started raising his voice for injustice being done around him by Indian-occupational army and as a result Indian-occupational forces crushed his family business. He was first arrested in 1990 but was released more than a year later, in November 1991. He was detained for a second time in 1993 and kept in custody for more than four years. His custody was prolonged through repeated extensions of detention orders, Alam was released only in February 1997. Alam, according to the petition, was detained for a fourth time in January 2001, and released in August 2003. Two months later, he was detained for the fifth time on October 7, 2003 and held until July 2005. In all, from 1990 to 2005, Alam was served with as many as nine detention orders and was imprisoned in various jails across the state. Sixteen detention orders under the Public Safety Act were issued against him during that period.
Reason of all these detentions is Just a stone in their hand against the illegal occupation of their Homeland. One of the reason he was arrested, is the distribution of CD’s the transcript of Masarat Alam Bhat’s CD titled “Quit Jammu & Kashmir” addressed to the occupational army reads: “We appeal you to lend solidarity with the people of Jammu & Kashmir for the states’s rightful self-determination, and the right to the people of Jammu and Kashmir to be free. We call on your conscience to end the long chapter of deception, tyranny, and death. Your actions have killed 100,000, disappeared 10,000 and orphaned 60,000. Alam mentioned in this CD that they are against terror & in solidarity with all who oppose violence and repression, we seek truth, justice and freedom.”
Indian-occupational forces martyred 122 youth of in the summer of 2008 and 2010 and what measures they took was to arrest the remaining youth with stones in hands and their leaders. During 2008, when famous religious site of Hindus Amar Nath shrine land was allocated to Hindus, natives of Kashmir got aggressive. A great movement took place and Masarat Alam played a vital role in creating that. He used to get along with the youth of Indian-occupied Kashmir and throw stones on Indian army which were all equipped with latest weapons.
17 years in prison but still he is determined, many attempts were made to kill him on different occasions which was revealed in a latest interview of ex top cop saying that Umer Abdullah wanted Masarat Alam to be dead.
Masrat Alam got released this year on 7th March 2015 but again arrested under seditious charges for raising a third country flag in disputed territory. Human rights activists worldwide are facing a new legal question in Kashmir: If Kashmiris raise the national flag of another country, say Pakistan, during peaceful protests, can India’s occupation administration try them under Indian national laws on sedition?
When the world calls Kashmir a disputed territory how can the Indian laws be applicable there?
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About YFK
Our goal: To help refugee families from Indian-occupied Kashmir, to organize domestic and international support for the right of Kashmiris to choose their destiny, to implement United Nations Security Council Resolutions on Kashmir. To ensure that the governments of Pakistan and India, and the international community, keep Kashmir at the top of their policy agendas.
Our organization: Youth Forum For Kashmir (YFK) is Pakistan’s first pro-Kashmir, registered and nonpartisan International lobbying group led by young Kashmiris and Pakistanis. The group is a platform that unites the youth in Indian-occupied Kashmir with their counterparts in Pakistan, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, and the world at large. The YFK is working to ensure justice to Kashmiris living under Indian-military occupation.
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