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.
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.
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