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Kashmir rises against
India, troops shooting it down
15 killed in firing on blockaded Kashmiris who marched towards PoK
Sach Kanwal
Singh
 SRINAGAR: The Muslim Street is rising against India, courting death
to get out of it.
India
is responding, by shooting to kill. Blocked from even passing
through the only lifeline of a highway through Jammu by rampaging
mobs of Hindus demanding that the government give forest land for a
Hindu shrine, the Kashmir Valley has erupted and mobs chanting 'Azadi'
marched towards Muzaffarabad, capital of what India calls
Pak-Occupied Kashmir.
Indian security troops fired on Tuesday, right into the crowd,
killing 15 unarmed people. They had fired on Monday too, as on
Sunday, as on Saturday. So far some 50 have died in the days leading
up to this scenario where a Hindu Jammu has risen against all
fabricated notions of secularism propagated by the official Indian
establishment.
India's right wing Hindu nationalist parties like the BJP, the VHP,
the Shiv Sena continue to fan further trouble.
All of
Kashmir
is now under curfew, the all-party meetings ended in fiasco, and
Indian Government looked completely helpless. The curfew in entire
Valley has come after 13 years.
The Amarnath shrine land issue is left behind, it is anger against
India on the streets.
Reports of direct clashes between Hindu and Muslim groups have
started pouring in, the last being in
Jammu’s Kishtwar region, where three people were killed and 20
injured when mobs clashed.
Kashmir's fruit growers, whose produce was rotting because
government hardly moved to get highways cleared and faced with a
virtual economic blockade, started marching towards PoK on the call
given by Kashmiri politicians. Some 50,000 joined them.
On
Monday, six people including a Hurriyat leader, Sheikh Abdul Aziz,
had died in the police firing at Sheeri at Baramulla. Worse, when
his funeral was being carried out outside the Jamia Masjid, security
forces fired on protesters killing four more.
Thousands of Kashmiris are out on the streets demanding their right
to sell their fruit and other produce in PoK. It is now clear is
that state elections, scheduled for October, won’t be held until
early next year.
Slogans of azadi are back, as are pro-Pakistan posters, some with
Jinnah pictures. Army Troops are patrolling the streets. Relations
between Hindus and Muslims deteriorated after the state government
transferred 40 hectares of land to the Hindu Amarnathji Shrine
Board. This was cancelled later, prompting Hindus to protest.
Kashmir is now without medicines, milk and other commodities. Fruit
produce is rotting, poor Kashmiris are getting the message that
because of Hindu India, they are suffering. And not many can survive
on the only gift that Indian establishment is throwing at the
protesters: tear gas shells in plenty.
Official Indian response is that there is no blockade on the highway
linking
Srinagar with Jammu and rest of india.
Both the hardline and moderate factions of the Hurriyat Conference
have called on protesters to continue their march to Muzaffarabad.
Separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq were
both under house arrest but large crowds surrounded the policemen
deployed outside the houses and the leaders, at the urging of the
crowd, walked out free and led processions to the killed Aziz's
grave.
India watched helplessly. The Street Is Rising, and
New Delhi
doesn’t have a clue.
13 August, 2008
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