India’s Killings in Kashmir
Source: Shaheed Tufail Ahmed Matoo Facebook Page/AP
‘The Killers’ are a popular American rock band to some, but for Kashmiris the term is reserved only for the occupying state of India. In the past month alone, India has unleashed a wave of terror against the people of Kashmir with Kashmiri civilians being targeted at will with heavy-handed policing and state oppression amounting to a death tally of 15 deaths.
It all began on 11 June with the martyrdom of Tufail Ahmed Matoo, a young boy who was shot dead by the police. Since that day, 15 innocent civilians have spilled their blood for the Kashmir cause. The significance of recent events can be gauged by a report on the situation available on the BBC Website which reports that ‘even the pro-India People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the government of declaring war on its own people’.
No friend of Pakistan, the Hindustan Times has understood the significance of recent events and has reported of Kashmir that the situation has led to Omar Abdullah’s government formally asking for support from the Centre to use the army as “deterrent” and to “assist in imposing curfew and maintaining basic law and order”. Crucially the Hindustan Times reports that ‘It was after more than 15 years that the army columns were patrolling both uptown and downtown Srinagar. Flag marches were also held in several other districts like Budgam and south Kashmir’s Anantnag districts’. The headline is thus that Indian forces are patrolling Srinagar again after a gap of nearly twenty years.
The fact that the Kashmiri leadership remain behind bars proves that the Kashmiri public remain steadfast in their struggle, indeed Mirwaiz Umar Farooq an important Kashmiri leader has said of the recent events that ’the baton of the freedom struggle has now been passed on to the next generation who by sacrificing their precious lives have reinforced the universally accepted fact that it might be possible to annihilate the body by killing it but no power on earth can subjugate the yearnings of a nation for freedom into submission’.
Meanwhile while Kashmir burns, Pakistan fiddles. It is criminal that Pakistan seems preoccupied with issues galore at the cost of the Kashmir cause. Moreover it is the great betrayal given that the Pakistani state has unilaterally chose to ‘switch off’ its focus on Kashmir except for empty sloganeering relating only to the pathetic and apathetic Pakistan-India composite dialogue.
It seems that the people of Kashmir and their struggle is no longer newsworthy in today’s troubled Pakistan. That the Pakistani love for Srinagar and Sopore has dissapeared it seems at least from the Pakistani state who seem unmoved on Kashmir’s recent events with not one word uttered from President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and even Nawaz Sharif.
Very few forceful statements have been issued from Pakistan, indeed it seems Kashmiris are on their own and that Pakistan has become both deaf and mute to the plight of ordinary Kashmiris . However a timely reminder to the Pakistani state and Pakistani citizens of the importance of the Kashmir cause is necessary and I seek to use this post as a rallying cry. The reminder comes in the form of a video of Sher-e-Kashmir Syed Ali Geelani, the video below says it all:
The message is clear that Kashmir is the life vein of Pakistan, it can never be ignored nor forgotten for Kashmir is Pakistan and vice versa.
Kashmir Banega Pakistan, Kashmir aur Pakistan Zindabad
