Sunday, July 17, 2016

Kashmir: A familiar, bloody script...

After all, the young, social-media savvy Burhan Wani had become the mascot of a new generation of home-grown rebels fighting Indian rule in the region - there are close to 100 local militants in Kashmir today, four times as many as in 2011, Indian intelligence estimates. Wani's ability to "recruit [people] into militancy from the grave will far outstrip anything he could have done on social media," tweeted Kashmir's former chief minister and opposition leader Omar Abdullah after the killing.

Yet, when Kashmir predictably erupted in fury over the killing, a familiar, bloody script played out once again.

Five days of clashes between protesters and security forces following Wani's killing have left at least 36 people dead and some 1,500 people, mostly aged 16-26, wounded. The curfew entered its fifth day on Wednesday, making this the worst siege the valley has faced since two popular uprisings in 2008 and 2010 in which 200 people, mostly civilian protesters, died in clashes with the security forces.

Many believe last weekend again saw security forces using excessive force as they tried to control the protests. Security personnel say they are forced to open fire in the face of dire mob provocation. But allegations that the forces are trigger happy in Kashmir have never gone away. "The fact is that they used disproportionate force at the weekend, when the majority of deaths happened," says Shujaat Bukhari, editor of Rising Kashmir newspaper. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Kashmiris decry world's silence over killings...
  2. Anger erupts again in Kashmir...
  3. Kashmir is on the boil, once again...
  4. India’s secret executions: necropolitics and government by stealth...
  5. The rise of Kashmir's alternative media...
  6. Women in Kashmir...
  7. Arundhati Roy: the dead begin to speak...
  8. Don’t look away from Kashmir’s mass graves and people’s struggle...
  9. 2000 bodies discovered in Kashmir in unmarked graves... 
  10. Horrific brutality in Kashmir...

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