#IndiaCantSee: Facebook campaign about violence in Kashmir goes viral

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Facebook is asking its user whether they want to see a social media campaign raising awareness about the violence in Kashmir on their newsfeed or not.

The campaign, hash-tagged #IndiaCantSee #LetKashmirDecide, was launched by Pakistani lawyer Mohammad Jibran Nasir and his team.

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It includes morphed images of celebrities, showing what they would look like had their faces been injured by pellet guns. The pictures are combined with text, sharing stories of actual Kashmiris experiencing violence at the hands of Indian Armed forces and police.

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In one of his latest posts on July 26, Nasir criticised Facebook for placing a survey under the album posted on the Facebook page of Never Forget Pakistan, a welfare society the lawyer Co-Founded.

He said, “Those against the Kashmir cause are likely to answer in the negative. Is this Facebook’s new way of filtering content?”

According to the lawyer, the idea behind the initiative is to show the dark reality of the use of pellet guns by Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.

Personalities featured are mostly Indian, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Alia Bhat, Saif Ali Khan, Kajol, Aishwarya Rai, Hrithik Roshan, Sonia Gandhi and Virat Kohli. The only non-Indian person featured is Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

“We are just amplifiers; the voice we are amplifying is the Kashmiri People. We are glad that Kashmiris have responded positively and we are able to add even an iota to their strength we would consider our work done,” BuzzFeed quoted Nasir saying.

Facebook campaign about violence in Kashmir

The unrest in Kashmir, this time, has killed more than 40 people in the region and injured close to 1,800, according to BBC. Though officers using pellet guns have been instructed to follow Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), which calls for targeting legs in extremely volatile conditions, more than 90 per cent of those injured have received injuries above the waist.

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A team of three eye specialists has also been sent to Srinagar from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), a leading hospital in Delhi.

Dr Sudarshan K Kumar, who led the team, said that the nature of the injuries was so severe that it was almost as if Kashmiri doctors were dealing with a ‘war-like situation’.

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One of the reasons behind launching the campaign was to highlight the atrocities and abuses carried out by the Indian Armed forces and police who enjoy complete immunity under the Armed Forced Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

Inspired by the campaign, a Kashmiri called attention to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who used to be against the use of pellet guns in the region.

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However, Mufti on Sunday said the process of revoking the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act can be started on an ‘experimental basis.’

She further clarified this did not mean they want AFSPA to be ‘revoked immediately and in entirety’, Asian News International reported. “After revoking AFSPA in a few areas, we can assess the situation there. If successful, we can revoke it in entirety,” Mufti added.

 

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