The killing of the militant commander Bashir Lashkari and another of his colleague in an encounter at Dialgam has set off a familiar trajectory of events. The encounters simultaneous and the consequent fallout is of a piece with the scores other preceding gunfights. Dialgam encounter, however, stood out for the determined rescue attempt by the villagers. No sooner were the militants cordoned off and the encounter broke out than the villagers started a protest to help the militants escape. They shouted slogans and lobbed stones at the security personnel and made an attempt to reach the encounter site. Soon, they were joined by the people from the adjacent villages. In response, the security forces fired at the crowd and also used the pellet guns. Two civilians Tahira Bano and Shadab Ahmed were killed as forces opened fire on villagers trying to break the cordon while one more woman Raja Bano reportedly died due to heart failure during the encounter.
The killings of the civilians has angered the Valley. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has expressed regret. Hurriyat issued condemnation and called for hartal and people have even observed it. Other aspects of the incident have also generated a predictable reaction. And in future we could also expect little change. The governments approach to the situation has been the most familiar of all. The effortless recourse to the use of bullets and the pellets has continued. Once again security establishment has shown itself singularly incapable of handling unarmed protests and have found killing people easier to the option of a patient mob control. One can’t but wonder why similar scale of protests elsewhere in India are dealt with professionally and largely without any loss of lives than in Valley. The fact is that the killings now are not new but part of a familiar pattern. A pattern that has changed nothing in Kashmir but only made people more defiant and fearless, perpetuating a tragic state of affairs.
There is little hope for the future. As the situation of the past three decades proves, even the harshest use of the force has done little to address the lingering turmoil in the state. Looking at the growing trend of the public mobilizations during encounters from a security-only perspective is to miss the wood for the trees. The point is how can you threaten with tough action a people who march to the encounter sites, conscious of the consequences they might face as a result. This is hardly going to deter them. For example, the killings of two more civilians at Dialgam or for that matter those of eighteen others before havent prevented public mobilizations during firefights. If anything is going to pre-empt them, it is an empathetic understanding of the anger and sentiment sweeping the Valley and a meaningful political engagement to address it.
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