Khursheed Wani
Ever since the security forces killed Hizbul Mujahideen’s top-ranking commander Burhan Wani in a surgical operation in Kokernag pocket of south Kashmir on 8th July, the semblance of normalcy in the region has evaporated in thin air. It was the fourth day following the festival of Eid al-Fitr and festivities were still on. Children were playing with toy-guns and firecrackers, and elders delayed hitting their workplaces till Monday (11th July) to absorb the ecstasy to the hilt.
But that was not to be. No sooner did the news of Wani’s killing break, photos of Wani and his two associates’ bodies flashed through the Internet and tens and thousands of people came out to the streets. This was not anticipated by the authorities, though large public attendance in a militants’ funerals is not a new phenomenon.
A year ago, around 50,000 people gathered at the funeral of a Pakistani militant, Abu Qasim, at Kulgam. This embarrassed the State authorities and compelled them to set a precedent to send bodies of slain foreign militants to north Kashmir for a silent burial, preferably late in the night. However, Wani was a local, a resident of Shariefabad in Tral area of south Kashmir. His body was to be handed over to his kin for the last rites.
On July 9, his body reached Tral along with tens of thousands of mourners. This was unprecedented. The situation was uncontrollable in Tral area as the sea of people dominated every nook and corner. Security camps, which are located in peripheries in the area, were asked to remain indoors to avoid confrontation with the people. Even after 12 days, security forces were not visible anywhere in Tral. During midnight, I saw a water tanker being guarded by a convoy of vehicles on way to an Army camp. During the day time, the Army, the police and the paramilitary were advised not to venture out.
What happened in Tral on that fateful day (Saturday), happened in other areas also. People in hordes attempted to march towards Tral in order to attend Wani’s funeral. At some places they were intercepted, at others, they hurled stones, slogans and abuses on the security forces and attempted to attack their camps. The confrontation stoked violence. The police and the paramilitary fired automatic weapons and non-lethal pellet guns. This wreaked havoc.
By the time Wani was buried at the Eidgah graveyard in Srinagar, the entire valley was witnessing a kind of rebellion and an instant campaign to douse it. By evening, 12 persons were shot dead, mostly with bullets hit above the waist. Four districts of south Kashmir, paradoxically known as the pocket borough of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, were the epicenter of this newest eruption and suppression.
Many, who were wounded on the first day, succumbed to injuries, but protests and campaigns to quell them continued to keep the toll ticking. Not a single day has passed when there was lull in killing. On July 18 evening, two women and a teenager died when soldiers opened fire at Chowgam village, mounting the death toll to 42 in 12 days.
On an average, 50 incidents of violence took place in the valley every day. More than 2,100 people have been injured, scores of them with bullet injuries. Pellet guns have wreaked havoc. More than a hundred people have received pellet injuries in eyes. Many of them have either lost their eyesight or they are on the verge of losing it forever.
Fourteen year-old Insha was taking supper in a Shopian village when pellet grenade landed in their roadside house. She lost both her eyes. Her father does not comprehend as to why the grenade aimed at protesters would land in front of his daughter who was taking her meal. Twelve year-old Umar Nazir has pellets in both the eyes. A team of ophthalmic specialists from Delhi suggested two surgeries before Umar could be able to see the world again, albeit with little clarity.
Twenty two year-old Parvez Ahmad of Kupwara is optimistic when the thick bandage will be unwrapped from his left eye and he would be able to see again normally. He remembers how a tear gas shell hit his head and he fell on the ground. His attendants console him. They don’t know what would happen when Ahmad would come to know that his eye-socket has emptied after the ruptured eye has been gouged out.
Security personnels too have been at the receiving end. One policeman drowned in river Jhelum when he reversed his vehicle to escape stone-throwers. Another survived an attack at the police station. Around 1,500 police and paramilitary personnel have been wounded in stone-pelting. Wherever they show up, stones are hurled at them. Bare-chested youngsters challenge them to open fire in response to their stones, sticks and slogans.
It is almost two weeks after Wani’s killing that normal life is crippled in Kashmir. The Peoples Democratic Party-BJP Government is struggling to find a foothold. Things worsened after a crowd allegedly attacked Pulwama legislator Khalil Bandh, while he was on his way to Srinagar.
