Abused by soldiers and militants, Kashmiris face dangers in daily life
SOPORE, Kashmir — Four men carrying pistols and wearing black masks knocked a week ago on the Hamidullah family’s gate. Furious that the wealthy apple traders had violated their ban on doing business, the militants announced that there was a price to pay.
They took three men into a sitting room in this Kashmiri town and shot them in the leg, right below their knees.
When 5-year-old Asma Jaan heard her father scream, she ran into the room to see what was wrong. The militants shot her, too. Now, confused and in pain, she lies bandaged up in a hospital bed and may not be able to walk for months.
“This has never happened before, that they hit out at a 5-year-old so mercilessly,” said her distraught aunt Nighat.
As the crisis in the Kashmir region drags into its sixth week, a visit by a New York Times journalist showed that the violence is morphing. The tensions, set off by India’s swift and unilateral decision last month to wipe out Kashmir’s autonomy, are no longer as simple as protesters pelting security officers with rocks and officers firing shotguns back.
Kashmiri separatists are conducting their own reign of terror, threatening or even attacking civilians in a campaign to destroy any semblance of normality that may be creeping back after more than a month of heavy military crackdowns.
Beleaguered Kashmiris are now getting hit from two sides, caught between militants and security forces who, residents said, continue to abuse and torture them.
Even as the Indian government begins to lift some of the restrictions that it imposed in Kashmir last month, militants are enforcing their own restrictions, ordering people not to go to work or even leave their homes. Their intent is to paralyze life in Kashmir and make it ungovernable, raising tensions inside the region and with neighboring Pakistan, which also claims part of Kashmir.
There is no doubt that most Kashmiris are bitter about the recent developments.
On Aug. 5, the Indian government unilaterally wiped out the degree of autonomy that Jammu and Kashmir State, which includes the restive Kashmir Valley, had held since India’s independence.