‘Kashmir saw 2,641 incidents of stone pelting in 20 months’
JAMMU: Kashmir has witnessed 2,641 incidents of stone pelting from January 2016 to August 2017 that left 1,289 CRPF personnel injured, 31 of them seriously, an official from the force said.
According to an estimate, stone throwers also disfigured nearly 2,000 CRPF personnel during street protests across Kashmir in 2009 and 2010.
The Valley saw 425 incidents of stone pelting that left 451 CRPF men injured, 11 of them seriously, in July 2016, when Hizbul militant Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter. In August that year, the incidents went up to 598, which injured 272 men.
The next month, there were 435 incidents that left 135 personnel injured, while in October, there were 210 incidents that left 42 CRPF men injured.
In April 2017, when parliamentary bypolls were held for Anantnag, there were 190 incidents of stone pelting, which injured 135 CRPF men, four of them with serious injuries.
Later, with the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) stringent action and the army’s “operation all out” in full throttle, the incidents of stone pelting nosedived.
In August this year, there were 83 incidents that injured seven CRPF men. “While stone pelting has virtually died down post NIA raids on separatists in terror funding cases, our jawans risk their lives on the streets of Kashmir, where they exhibit utmost restraint while dealing with frenzied mobs,” said a CRPF officer.
He recalled how men in uniform were booed, jeered, and even manhandled, during the Anantnag by-elections and yet, they kept their calm.
The CRPF, in tandem with Jammu and Kashmir police, regularly conducts training sessions for its men to tackle stone pelting. “We conduct training courses at Nagrota and Hiranagar where our jawans are taught how to tackle the situation. They are also taught some basics that can’t be violated at any cost,” he said.
The jawans are told about dialogue and announcements via speakers to disperse unlawful gatherings and the procedure ranges from use of water cannons to smoke shells, rubber bullets and bullets on lower limbs only under extreme circumstances.
CRPF DG RR Bhatnagar had recently said the investigation and raids being conducted by the NIA to probe terror funding had led to a decline in stone pelting.