A tense summer is in the offing

The government must not allow militant Zakir Musa to fan the flames in the Valley

The signals from Kashmir are disturbing and ominous. The winter months usually provide a period of calm but this time the Valley has defied the norm. It was witness to the defiling of soldiers’ bodies at the LoC, several encounters between militants and security forces and the killing of civilians including children. The uprising that followed the death of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in 2016 changed the rules of the game. The summer was marked by an intense phase of stone pelting in which scores were injured and blinded. The winter too saw its share of pellet injuries. There were many firsts this winter. Armed terrorists barged into the home of a police officer and threatened his family. We will kill him if he doesn’t quit the force, they said. The local police has been under pressure not to act against local militants and now Wani’s successor, Zakir Musa, has not just termed the police and Army personnel as ‘kafirs’ (traitors), he has asked the youth to pelt stones.

In a fresh video, Musa can be heard exhorting the youth to pelt stones, “not in the name of nationalism, but in the name of Islam”. In the Valley, where radicalisation has been on the rise, Musa’s call in the name of religion complicates the ground reality. Kashmir is in for another dreadful summer, which may not be different from the one in 2016 when the Army was forced to call off counter-insurgency operations for fear of collateral damage. Already ‘stray bullets’ have claimed the life of an 11year-old girl and the questions locals are asking is: Was she a militant? Why was she killed? Each death adds to the narrative of alienation and it is imperative that the governments in Srinagar and Delhi realise that they don’t have a strategy in place. Neither Kashmir nor the country can afford another uprising. The central paramilitary forces say they have tweaked the pellet guns to avoid blinding civilians. The new weapons will aim for the legs, they say, but do we now want maiming to be the new leitmotif for the summer of 2017?

There is no getting away from the fact that Kashmir is begging for a political resolution. Flush with victories in UP and other states, the Centre must focus on how to engage the youth in Kashmir. The increase in the number of encounters and the civilians rushing to such spots show that the army chief’s warning of treating them as over-ground supporters of militants has not had the desired impact. The politics of engagement is the only way forward.