Videos of army brutality deepen anger
The video that drew the most outrage was of Dar tied to the bonnet of an army vehicle
One video showed a young Kashmiri man strapped to a patrolling Indian army vehicle as a human shield against stone-throwing protesters. Others showed soldiers beating local men with sticks as other troops stood by with guns drawn.
As Shabir Ahmad watched the crude clips, captured on cellphone cameras and uploaded it to Facebook, he felt terrified. They reminded him of his own 2001 detention by soldiers who suspected him of being a rebel sympathiser. He said they subjected him to beatings, waterboarding and drinking water mixed with chili powder.
“For two nights I couldn’t sleep. I was not shocked, but exhausted” after watching the recent videos, the 38-year-old Ahmad said. “I have suffered a great deal in torture by soldiers. Suddenly, I felt as if demons reopened my old wounds and started haunting me.”
Rights groups have long accused Indian forces of using systematic abuse and unjustified arrests in Jammu & Kashmir. The government has acknowledged the problem exists, but denies it is part of a wide strategy to intimidate residents.
Kashmiris have been uploading videos and photos of alleged abuse for some years, but several recently posted clips, captured in the days surrounding a violenceplagued local election April 9, have proven to be especially powerful and have helped to intensify anti-India protests.
“Welcome to the world of social media,” said Siddiq Wahid, historian and former vice chancellor of a Kashmir university. “You don’t need verification and you don’t need proof. The optics are so clear.”
One video shows a stonethrowing teenage boy being shot by a soldier from a few metres away.
Yet another clip shows three soldiers holding a teenage boy down with their boots and beating him on his back.
The video that drew the most outrage was of young shawl weaver Farooq Ahmad Dar tied to the bonnet of an army vehicle as it patrolled villages on voting day. A soldier can be heard saying in Hindi over a loudspeaker, “Stone throwers will meet a similar fate,” as residents look on aghast. “When they were driving me around, they were saying, ‘We will shoot [you],’ and were throwing stones at my head,” Dar told The Associated Press. “I was told not to talk. In one of the villages, an elderly man begged for my release but they didn’t listen to him.”
Police have since registered a criminal case against unnamed Indian soldiers in that case, for the first time citing a video as evidence.
But India’s topmost law officer, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, lauded soldiers for managing to defuse a “nasty situation” by containing the protests and saving the polls.
“Why so much noise?” he asked about the complaints. “Military operations cannot be subject of such discussions on social media,” Rohtagi told the Hindustan Times newspaper.