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Students armed with stones — bringing New Delhi to its knees in -held Kashmir
09-Jun-17 by AFP
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QUIMOH: Another student death in clashes in Indian-held Kashmir has heightened tensions in the disputed territory and worsened India’s worries about a foe that it cannot control – youths who do not carry guns.
The teenager was fatally shot in the chest during an exchange of fire between troops and suspected rebels in Shopian, south of Srinagar, late Tuesday, sparking further violent protests.
Students have taken the lead in protests, hurling stones at soldiers tracking rebels who want independence of Kashmir.
More than 100 young men and women have been killed over the past year in the demonstrations. The deaths have increased anti-Indian sentiment in the part of the Muslim-majority Himalayan region it has occupied since 1947.
India is also worried about how to handle the anger. It considers the battle with armed rebels to be a fair one but its leaders are unnerved about students whose only weapons are stones. Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat said he wished “instead of throwing stones at us, (they) were firing weapons”.
“Then I would have been happy. Then I could do what I want,” he told Press Trust of India. Bedridden in a dimly lit room of his village home, Mohammad Younis, 18, is eager to join the protests.
Indian soldiers shot the 18-year-old in the thigh in February. He had been walking through paddy fields to attend the funeral of a rebel killed by troops.
“If I wasn’t stuck in this bed I would also go out to protest,” Younis told AFP at his home in Quimoh.
His father, Mohammad Akbar, said the students were “not afraid of bullets and soldiers”. “We were timid,” he added. “But this generation has to fight.” The rebel, a former student known to Younis, was killed just ten days after joining the separatists.
About 100 young Kashmiris are believed to have joined the armed militants since rebel commander Burhan Wani was killed by security forces last July.
Wani, a media savvy leader, took up the cause at the age of 15, galvanising Kashmiri youth by providing a new face for the movement.
Student unrest intensified again in April when occupation forces raided a college in the southern town of Pulwama to arrest suspected protest leaders.
The army’s use of a Kashmiri man as a ‘human shield’ tied to the front of a military jeep as it drove away from stone-throwing protesters set off even greater controversy.
http://dailytimes.com.pk/world/09-J...m_campaign=postfity&utm_content=postfityfe9c6
