Wani haunts India from his grave

Kashmiri youth refuse to bow down

With the militants taking a lead role in IoK, reports suggest that Indian intelligence has penetrated the militant ranks and divisions are being encouraged

Though historically referred to as Paradise on Earth, Kashmir in reality has become more like hell on earth, especially since the cold-blooded murder of Burhan Muzaffar Wani – the poster boy of Kashmir’s freedom struggle, whose death anniversary falls on 8 July.

One year since his martyrdom, Wani, the most decorated and revered freedom fighter, has become an icon for almost every Kashmiri youngster. Perhaps, a dead Wani is proving deadlier than a living combatant for the occupation forces in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK).

The joint resistance leadership of IoK has issued a protest schedule on Burhan’s anniversary, calling strike from 8 to13 July. Ahead of 8 July, the security forces have started harassing the Hurriyat leadership and a curfew is on the cards.

However, the Indian regime is making an all out effort to suppress the freedom wave under the new uprising, also called Intifada, in Occupied Kashmir. Local police also summoned Burhan’s father, Muzaffar Ahmed Wani, to a police station and warned him of “preventive detentions” across Kashmir to avoid any “breach of peace”.

Officials in IoK said the government had decided to ban mobile Internet services from Thursday midnight in wake of the Joint Resistance Leadership’s protest calendar. The internet ban is being seen as an attempt to thwart a Hurriyat Conference move of launching an online campaign about the Kashmir issue to “wake up” the world community about the human rights violations in Kashmir.

Traffic movement would also be blocked especially in South Kashmir and Srinagar to quell protests.

Since Wani’s martyrdom, Indian security forces have launched a killing spree in IoK and a license to kill has been given to Indian forces and they’re killing humans at will. According to Indian media reports, India army chief has ordered a massive crackdown on Kashmiri freedom fighters and under the plan all 282 freedom loving souls are to be killed come what may.

Since the extra-judicial killing of Wani on 8 July 2016, according to eye-witness accounts, the Indian occupying forces have martyred over 130 Kashmiris besides seriously injuring around 20,000 innocent people, mostly children or young students. Out of the injured, around 8,000 have been victims of palette gun shots despite the fact their use against humans is banned around the globe. Thousands have been arrested with their whereabouts and welfare unknown.

In blatant violation of UN conventions, Indian oppressive forces have been using chemical weapons against the defenseless protestors. Moreover, heavy guns and palette guns are being used against stone pelting youth which are the worst human rights violations.

The most alarming matter is that around 193 youth have been partially blinded while 67 have been fully blinded by the palette guns. On the other hand, the army chief has ordered complete cleansing of the militant youth from IoK who have raised arms as no other option has been left.

Arbitrary arrests, unabated police torture, molestation and rape used as a weapon to harass and other, worse human rights violations have only served to embolden the Kashmiri youth’s resolve and anger to rid of Indian unlawful occupation. Kashmiri youth has apparently decided to either die struggling unarmed on the roads during protests or lay hands on the arms. They have chosen both of them.

According to the Indian data accessed by The Kashmir Monitor, 75 boys went missing only within three months of Wani’s killing last year – from July to September 2016, out of which only six returned to their homes.

According to the reports, most of the missing youth have joined Hizbul Mujahideen – the local outfit of freedom fighters. I am reminded of William Darlymple’s account of missing persons in which he said: “Those who went missing, their tortured bodies are found in rivers, streams, gorges with their limbs missing or bodies strewn with marks of cigarette burns”.

Disappointed by the unabated killings of unarmed civilians, detentions and police torture as well as the failure of the Hurriyat Conference leadership in winning freedom through peaceful struggle, the youth have chosen a death path to counter the oppressive forces.

The militant fighters have full backing from Kashmiri people too. Now instead of running away from gun battles, young men and boys are thronging to encounter sites to take on the heavily armed forces with taunts and stones.

This trend first started around 2015. Since then, there have been dozens of such instances. Local crowds gather around the encounter sites to create a buffer between occupant army and Mujahideen and to provide enough distraction to help the militants escape. This has worked numerous times. But it has also led to civilians getting killed.

In February, Indian army chief, Bipin Rawat, warned Kashmiris that civilian protestors obstructing encounters would be treated as “over-ground workers of militants” and would be dealt with “harshly”, adding that the army could go “helter skelter”.

But the army chief’s warning fell on deaf ears. On 9 March, an encounter at Padgampora village in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district witnessed massive clashes between civilians and government forces. Thousands of people marched towards the encounter site in an attempt to break the security cordon. Two protesters, Amir Nazir, a 15-year-old-student, and 22-year-old Jalal-u-din of Tahab village, were martyred by security forces in a bid to quell the protests.

Faizan Ahmed Bhat, a brilliant 15-year-old soft spoken student who aspired to become a doctor, was martyred in the last week of May this year by occupying forces.

In the neighbourhood where he lived, there was none from Faizan’s age group to match his academic excellence, claims his uncle. On 27 May, Faizan Ahmad Bhat, who quit his studies in March this year to join Kashmir’s new-age militancy, became the youngest militant to get consumed by the long-drawn conflict in the state.

Faizan had joined the ranks of the militants on 4 March 2017, the day two militants including a local Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Aqib Moulvi, got trapped in an encounter with the security forces in Hyun, a village in Tral in Pulwama district. Both the militants were killed the next day.

“A large group of protestors was rushing towards the encounter site to try and help the militants escape when they were confronted by a contingent of the Central Reserve Police Force. Faizan was part of the protestors. An argument broke out between the CRPF men and the protestors followed by clashes in which a CRPF man lost control of his rifle. Faizan picked up the gun and ran away,” a local youth said.

That was the last time people saw Faizan, who was a class 10 student, as he didn’t return home in the evening. After joining the militants, though, Faizan remained active for only two months and 23 days, during which he became close to the Hizb commander, Sabzar Ahmad Bhat.

On Saturday, both Sabzar, who was in his 30s, and the teenaged Faizan were killed by the security forces in an encounter in Saimoh village of Tral, one of the strongholds of militancy. The encounter lasted 12 hours.

Early on 28 May, after the morning prayers, Faizan’s friends, five of them, sat in a circle around his grave. Struggling to control their emotions at losing a friend, some of them cried aloud.

None of them have gone home since Faizan’s death.

With the militants taking a lead role in IoK, reports suggest that Indian intelligence has penetrated the militant ranks and divisions are being encouraged. India’s national security advisor, Ajit Doval, who is expert in such penetrations among militants, has reportedly succeeded in recruiting moles within Hizbul Mujahideen.

Through this infiltration, Indian intelligence has been successful in creating a divide between the Hizbul Mujahideen ranks. Resultantly, Zakir Musa, a comrade of Wani, disassociated himself from Hizb leadership, claiming to realign the Kashmiri militancy for imposition of Islamic Shariah – on the pattern of al Qaeda, Taliban and Islamic State (ISIS).

Doval’s agents had also made a failed attempt previously to launch ISIS in Kashmir. Soon afterwards, the Indian agents have been plotting support for Zakir Musa and there are strong rumours that there were some inside agents who were reporting to the Indian army on locations of Kashmiri militants, enabling successive killings of militants.

There are reports of a recent staged sloganeering in favour of Zakir Musa in the mosque administered by Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Maulvi Umar Farooq – perhaps to send a warning to the cleric. Since then, Mirwaiz is silent on freedom struggle. Moreover, India’s feared outfit, National Investigation Agency (NIA) has summoned relatives of Mirwaiz and his security also been downgraded to send him a stern warning in a bid to control the July 8 protests.

In a video message released on 6 July, Zakir Musa sought support from Wani lovers for his Islamist agenda, claiming that following the path of Shaheed Burhan, he needs their blessings for imposition of Shariah in Kashmir to teach a an exemplary lesson to the infidels and the hypocrites.

“The banner of Islam Shaheed Burhan bhai had raised for the establishment of caliphate, we will always keep it high In Sha Allah. But the hypocrites and infidels are gloomed by it,” he said, hinting at implementing the agenda of ISIS in the IoK.

The experts on Kashmir believe that Musa’s assertion of revival of caliphate in IoK is being made to justify the ongoing killings of Kashmiris at hands of the oppressive forces, taking advantage of the international support against the terrorist outfit ISIS.