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Masked Kashmiri protesters shouting anti-India slogans during a protest against civilian deaths in Kashmir’s ongoing protests, in Srinagar on Sept. 7. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
BIJBEHARA, India—A mounting death toll in Kashmir, where street protests erupted after security forces killed a well-known separatist fighter this summer, is stoking long-smoldering public anger with Indian rule in the Himalayan region.
Efforts by New Delhi to calm tensions across the mostly Muslim section of Kashmir it controls—neighboring Pakistan administers another—have foundered as the violence stretches into a third month, fueling resentment and raising the prospect of a return to armed struggle.
“They don’t control us here by giving us flowers,” said Aala Fazili, a scholar and activist at the University of Kashmir, referring to the Indian authorities. “So our response cannot be just giving them flowers.”
An Indian Kashmiri youth with an eye injury sitting in a hospital after being hit by pellets allegedly fired by Indian security forces during a protest in Srinagar on Sept. 6. One protester died from pellet gun injuries in the clashes, a hospital official said. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
More than 70 people have been killed, almost all of them civilians, and thousands injured in near-daily clashes between law enforcement and stone-throwing demonstrators demanding more autonomy and fewer Indian troops. Security forces have fired birdshot into crowds, tearing flesh and lacerating eyeballs.
Related Coverage
Shafat Ahmad Mir, a 24-year-old from the same town as the slain militant, has been studying for years to become a software engineer. Now he says he isn’t sure what his future holds. “I’m absolutely ready to die for this cause,” he said.
India’s home minister, Rajnath Singh, has said the government is examining less-harmful means of crowd control. But Javaid Gillani, Kashmir’s inspector-general of police, said shotguns remain essential to the arsenal. “If you don’t have something like a pellet gun, all you have is live ammunition,” he said in a recent interview.
The United Nations’ top human-rights official demanded in August that India and Pakistan grant independent observers access to Kashmir “given grave concerns about recent allegations of serious human-rights violations.” Pakistan says it would welcome a visit. India has rebuffed the request.
The unrest has derailed reconciliation efforts between the nuclear-armed rivals, which have fought three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947.
Separatist leaders say the government isn’t taking their demands seriously. They refused to negotiate with Indian politicians who traveled last week to Srinagar, the state’s summer capital, saying the delegation wasn’t ready to discuss the core issue of Kashmiri self-determination.
Mr. Singh criticized the snub, saying, “We are ready to speak with everyone who wants peace and normalcy in Kashmir.”
Kashmiris have long chafed under Delhi’s rule. But the July killing of Burhan Wani, a 22-year-old militant, touched a nerve, particularly in rural areas, where he used social media and personal outreach to become a sort of folk hero. This summer’s protests have swept up not just urban centers but apple-growing hamlets and remote mountain villages too, indicating the breadth of Mr. Wani’s appeal.
The last extended spell of mass revolt, in 2010, resulted in more than 100 deaths but no movement toward self-rule or a military drawdown.
Although young Kashmiris are growing restless, there is little evidence they are running away from home en masse to take up arms against India, as many did during a full-blown insurgency in the 1990s that left thousands dead.
Mr. Gillani, the police inspector-general, said he knew of seven or eight confirmed cases in the last two months. Militant groups’ total ranks, he said, are around 200.
India’s military footprint in Kashmir—700,000-strong, according to an estimate by the Jammu-Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, or one officer for every 17 civilians—is felt most acutely in the countryside, where relations are at a perpetual, angry simmer.
Kashmiri villagers carrying the body of militant leader Burhan Wani during his funeral procession July 9 in Tral, about 25 miles south of Srinagar. Photo: Associated Press
What happened in the town of Bijbehara, about 30 miles southeast of Srinagar, shows how easily unrest can spiral into frenzy.
Aamir Nazir Latoo, a 22-year-old business student, was home for the summer break. He and an uncle, Syeed Hussain Latoo, 37, were watching the news a few days after Mr. Wani’s death when they heard protests and went outside.
Around a dozen people were taunting police on the other side of the Jhelum river. The younger Mr. Latoo was standing near the group when shots rang out—fired, according to his uncle, from a police rifle.
As the young man was rushed to the local hospital, a crowd of young men arrived to show support. State forces weren’t far behind.
Medical staff put Mr. Latoo in an ambulance, saying he needed to get to a better-equipped hospital in Srinagar. But just as the driver started the engine, security officers approached, according to family members and neighbors who were seated inside.
A dozen or so men battered the windows with batons, they said. Bellowing, the local police chief beat the driver through the window, the relatives said, then wrenched open the back door and pummeled those inside, ripping out the injured man’s IV line in the process.
The police chief, Station House Officer Arshad Khan, said he was pursuing some people in the hospital who threw rocks at his men then sought refuge in the ambulance. He denied pulling out the IV and says he backed off once he learned a patient was inside.
The hospital in Bijbehara where the ambulance carrying Aamir Nazir Latoo and his family was allegedly attacked by security forces in July. Photo: Raymond Zhong/The Wall Street Journal
Officers beat people and broke windows in the emergency room, said Naheed Anjum, the hospital superintendent at the time, who has since been transferred. One nurse said a paramilitary trooper hit her with the butt of his rifle.
Mr. Khan said he doesn’t remember if he hit anyone with his baton that afternoon. That would have been within his rights, though, he said. “We have to show them: If you run away, we will beat you.”
Mr. Latoo’s father, Nazir Ahmad Latoo, said the ambulance driver fled in panic after Mr. Khan struck him. They escaped, he said, after a neighbor took the wheel. But hours of emergency surgery in Srinagar couldn’t save his son.
Nazir Ahmad Latoo holding a photo of his son, Aamir Nazir Latoo, who was shot and killed in Bijbehara, India, in early July. Photo: Raymond Zhong/The Wall Street Journal
The funeral, in Bijbehara, drew thousands. The graveyard used to be a playground but was converted in 1993, after security forces shot and killed dozens at an anti-India march.
Mr. Khan, a burly 36-year-old Kashmiri with a crew cut, said he considers the day he joined the force in 2002 “the most unfortunate day” of his life. “I never knew that people were so hostile against police,” he said.
He said he takes injured officers to the hospital only late at night, when their presence is less likely to cause a stir. They would only risk fresh havoc, he said, if they tried to investigate civilian casualties like Mr. Latoo.
As the bloodshed continues, there is a feeling of “suffocation,” said Peerzada Khurshid Ahmad, a lawyer in the town. “How long will we keep sacrificing our kids?”
It may be Mr. Latoo’s singing that his family misses most. His brother Aqib, 19, keeps a smartphone video of him performing qawwali, the devotional music of Islam’s Sufi tradition.
Mr. Latoo never joined protests, relatives said. He was too focused on his studies; he wanted to be a civil servant. But the family regularly discussed Kashmir’s future.
“Aamir said he wished someday we would be free,” his father said.
Source
@Imran Khan @Areesh @war&peace @django @DESERT FIGHTER
BIJBEHARA, India—A mounting death toll in Kashmir, where street protests erupted after security forces killed a well-known separatist fighter this summer, is stoking long-smoldering public anger with Indian rule in the Himalayan region.
Efforts by New Delhi to calm tensions across the mostly Muslim section of Kashmir it controls—neighboring Pakistan administers another—have foundered as the violence stretches into a third month, fueling resentment and raising the prospect of a return to armed struggle.
“They don’t control us here by giving us flowers,” said Aala Fazili, a scholar and activist at the University of Kashmir, referring to the Indian authorities. “So our response cannot be just giving them flowers.”
An Indian Kashmiri youth with an eye injury sitting in a hospital after being hit by pellets allegedly fired by Indian security forces during a protest in Srinagar on Sept. 6. One protester died from pellet gun injuries in the clashes, a hospital official said. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
More than 70 people have been killed, almost all of them civilians, and thousands injured in near-daily clashes between law enforcement and stone-throwing demonstrators demanding more autonomy and fewer Indian troops. Security forces have fired birdshot into crowds, tearing flesh and lacerating eyeballs.
Related Coverage
Shafat Ahmad Mir, a 24-year-old from the same town as the slain militant, has been studying for years to become a software engineer. Now he says he isn’t sure what his future holds. “I’m absolutely ready to die for this cause,” he said.
India’s home minister, Rajnath Singh, has said the government is examining less-harmful means of crowd control. But Javaid Gillani, Kashmir’s inspector-general of police, said shotguns remain essential to the arsenal. “If you don’t have something like a pellet gun, all you have is live ammunition,” he said in a recent interview.
The United Nations’ top human-rights official demanded in August that India and Pakistan grant independent observers access to Kashmir “given grave concerns about recent allegations of serious human-rights violations.” Pakistan says it would welcome a visit. India has rebuffed the request.
The unrest has derailed reconciliation efforts between the nuclear-armed rivals, which have fought three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947.
Separatist leaders say the government isn’t taking their demands seriously. They refused to negotiate with Indian politicians who traveled last week to Srinagar, the state’s summer capital, saying the delegation wasn’t ready to discuss the core issue of Kashmiri self-determination.
Mr. Singh criticized the snub, saying, “We are ready to speak with everyone who wants peace and normalcy in Kashmir.”
Kashmiris have long chafed under Delhi’s rule. But the July killing of Burhan Wani, a 22-year-old militant, touched a nerve, particularly in rural areas, where he used social media and personal outreach to become a sort of folk hero. This summer’s protests have swept up not just urban centers but apple-growing hamlets and remote mountain villages too, indicating the breadth of Mr. Wani’s appeal.
The last extended spell of mass revolt, in 2010, resulted in more than 100 deaths but no movement toward self-rule or a military drawdown.
Although young Kashmiris are growing restless, there is little evidence they are running away from home en masse to take up arms against India, as many did during a full-blown insurgency in the 1990s that left thousands dead.
Mr. Gillani, the police inspector-general, said he knew of seven or eight confirmed cases in the last two months. Militant groups’ total ranks, he said, are around 200.
India’s military footprint in Kashmir—700,000-strong, according to an estimate by the Jammu-Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, or one officer for every 17 civilians—is felt most acutely in the countryside, where relations are at a perpetual, angry simmer.
Kashmiri villagers carrying the body of militant leader Burhan Wani during his funeral procession July 9 in Tral, about 25 miles south of Srinagar. Photo: Associated Press
What happened in the town of Bijbehara, about 30 miles southeast of Srinagar, shows how easily unrest can spiral into frenzy.
Aamir Nazir Latoo, a 22-year-old business student, was home for the summer break. He and an uncle, Syeed Hussain Latoo, 37, were watching the news a few days after Mr. Wani’s death when they heard protests and went outside.
Around a dozen people were taunting police on the other side of the Jhelum river. The younger Mr. Latoo was standing near the group when shots rang out—fired, according to his uncle, from a police rifle.
As the young man was rushed to the local hospital, a crowd of young men arrived to show support. State forces weren’t far behind.
Medical staff put Mr. Latoo in an ambulance, saying he needed to get to a better-equipped hospital in Srinagar. But just as the driver started the engine, security officers approached, according to family members and neighbors who were seated inside.
A dozen or so men battered the windows with batons, they said. Bellowing, the local police chief beat the driver through the window, the relatives said, then wrenched open the back door and pummeled those inside, ripping out the injured man’s IV line in the process.
The police chief, Station House Officer Arshad Khan, said he was pursuing some people in the hospital who threw rocks at his men then sought refuge in the ambulance. He denied pulling out the IV and says he backed off once he learned a patient was inside.
The hospital in Bijbehara where the ambulance carrying Aamir Nazir Latoo and his family was allegedly attacked by security forces in July. Photo: Raymond Zhong/The Wall Street Journal
Officers beat people and broke windows in the emergency room, said Naheed Anjum, the hospital superintendent at the time, who has since been transferred. One nurse said a paramilitary trooper hit her with the butt of his rifle.
Mr. Khan said he doesn’t remember if he hit anyone with his baton that afternoon. That would have been within his rights, though, he said. “We have to show them: If you run away, we will beat you.”
Mr. Latoo’s father, Nazir Ahmad Latoo, said the ambulance driver fled in panic after Mr. Khan struck him. They escaped, he said, after a neighbor took the wheel. But hours of emergency surgery in Srinagar couldn’t save his son.
Nazir Ahmad Latoo holding a photo of his son, Aamir Nazir Latoo, who was shot and killed in Bijbehara, India, in early July. Photo: Raymond Zhong/The Wall Street Journal
The funeral, in Bijbehara, drew thousands. The graveyard used to be a playground but was converted in 1993, after security forces shot and killed dozens at an anti-India march.
Mr. Khan, a burly 36-year-old Kashmiri with a crew cut, said he considers the day he joined the force in 2002 “the most unfortunate day” of his life. “I never knew that people were so hostile against police,” he said.
He said he takes injured officers to the hospital only late at night, when their presence is less likely to cause a stir. They would only risk fresh havoc, he said, if they tried to investigate civilian casualties like Mr. Latoo.
As the bloodshed continues, there is a feeling of “suffocation,” said Peerzada Khurshid Ahmad, a lawyer in the town. “How long will we keep sacrificing our kids?”
It may be Mr. Latoo’s singing that his family misses most. His brother Aqib, 19, keeps a smartphone video of him performing qawwali, the devotional music of Islam’s Sufi tradition.
Mr. Latoo never joined protests, relatives said. He was too focused on his studies; he wanted to be a civil servant. But the family regularly discussed Kashmir’s future.
“Aamir said he wished someday we would be free,” his father said.
Source
@Imran Khan @Areesh @war&peace @django @DESERT FIGHTER
