Brutality, persecution, abuse, injustice, pain and anguish have become synonymous with Kashmir. We have lost more than 70 precious lives, thousands have sustained severe injuries and scores have lost their eyesight. No phones, no internet, no essential supplies and no medicines. It seems that mere curfews, restrictions, censorship and other oppressive tactics were not enough in the eyes of the government as they have now decided to block essential supplies to rein in the unruly crowds of Kashmir. What is surprising is that all this is happening in the world’s so called largest democracy.
It is evident that forces have been given a free hand to kill, torture, maim and arrest people in Kashmir. They can damage ambulances, beat people to death, abuse our elderly, even damage private vehicles and property with impunity. One fails to understand as to why the successive regimes in Kashmir only believe in oppression. Our authorities seem to be completely unaware about the six basic fundamental rights provided to every citizen by the constitution of India. While every citizen of India enjoys these rights, the same doesn’t hold true in Kashmir. One of our MLAs was quoted to have said that animals have more rights in Kashmir as compared to human beings. “If we want to kill a rabid dog in Kashmir, we need to seek permission but to kill innocent human beings, no permission or order is required”, he had said.
There is no doubt that government forces are not following any crowd control strategies or SOPs in our valley. Whenever curfew is clamped, forces behave as cruel Gods of ancient Greece and don’t even allow patients and injured civilians to travel to the hospitals. Sometime back policemen thrashed attendants in the SMHS hospital and even forced volunteers to vacate the premises. Two days back, an ambulance driver was shot by the CRPF while he was on the way to a hospital with a critical patient. Yesterday, an elderly person lost his life as he couldn’t travel to the hospital due to the ongoing curfew. A photograph showing local policemen forcing a chemist to close his pharmacy store in Lal Chowk was carried out by an Urdu daily a few days back. Journalists and newspapers are facing many hurdles as they are being threatened by the forces and are not freely allowed to cover the incidents. Babies are starving for milk and their parents are helpless. Children are watching their parents and grandparents suffer in agony for want of medicines. This is what life in the paradise on earth has become.
Even the strictest dictatorial regimes have limits but oppression in Kashmir has none. It has crossed all barriers of humanity. Our CM and PM can talk about everything under the sky except Kashmir. For either of them, our lives don’t matter. Mr PM can talk about everything even Baluchistan but not Kashmir and the unabated killing spree the forces have resorted to. Ms CM is more concerned about education and development but she hasn’t even uttered a single word over the atrocities her people are being subjected to. As per her, it is the parents who are responsible for the killings because obviously they are the ones who make the forces shower their kids with bullets. They happily speak on jingoistic prime time shows and try to remain in news by hollow sloganeering.
Instead of scoring political mileage and indulging in blame games, authorities need to retrospect. They should step into a common man’s shoes and try to help the people who elected them. Our politicians and leaders need to shun this strategy of oppression and tyranny because oppression has always consumed humanity and resulted in a catastrophic chaos that is impossible to control. If they really want peace, it is time they actually worked towards achieving it. It is time they proved they really do want to work for the benefit of the people and for their society. It is time they ended this oppression and proved to be worthy of our votes.
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