Our job here is very difficult, say jawans

Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday said the abuse and assault their colleagues faced in central Budgam district at the hands of local men was the “unfortunate reality” in the volatile state.

A video that showed a mob in Kralpora area of the Chadoora assembly segment jeering and kicking CRPF personnel —who were returning from a polling station of the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency that went to the bypoll amid widespread protests and violence on April 9 —has gone viral.

Jammu and Kashmir police registered an FIR on Thursday on a complaint filed by the CRPF and the government has launched a probe. It’s a Friday afternoon and the troopers posted in the vicinity of the mosque are on high alert – at any point of time a large crowd of stone-pelters can come out of the labyrinth of narrow alleys and charge at them “Our job is very mobs charge at us, we try to restrain as much as possible and as a last resort we use pellets or bullets,” said a CRPF soldier, a native of Madhya Pradesh and posted in the old part of Srinagar, on the condition of anonymity. “When we retaliate, say use pellets, we are criticised . But people do not understand how we are targeted by stone-pelters,” he added.

“The personnel in the video showed extreme patience and restraint in the face of insults and abuses. Goli chala dete toh kya hota aap samajh sakte hain (You can very well understand what would have happened if the jawans had opened fire in that situation),” said a CRPF soldier from UP, standing guard near old Srinagar’s grand Jamia Masjid.

Another soldier from Bihar, on duty in a Srinagar street, said if he goes alone in his uniform into a sensitive locality in the old city area, he too can be attacked. “What the jawans in the video face is the unfortunate reality. In the complex geopolitics, we paramilitary personnel are stuck in