The Kashmiri uprising

Kashmiri people's frustration and anger against the Indian rule continues to boil over following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani. For the fifth consecutive day on Wednesday a shutter-down strike was observed as leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) remained under house arrest and protesters, most of them teenagers, clashed with Indian police and security forces. So far, the death toll has reached 34 while more than 350 protesters have been wounded. Press reports say hospitals are struggling to treat so many patients; they lie two to a bed, many suffering from serious eye injuries from pellet guns. According to a doctor, "most of them have lost their eyesight in one eye. They are going to walk out of the hospital as one-eyed boys." This is a new generation of Kashmiris confronting the Indian security personnel with as little as stones at the cost of immense suffering.
The latest uprising was waiting to erupt any moment. It is worthwhile to note what a former Indian Nation Security adviser, M K Narayanan, had to say about the prevailing mood in the Occupied Kashmir in a newspaper article that appeared last May 30. He wrote: "in several places across the State, eyeball-to eyeball confrontation between militant youth and security forces is today in evidence. Perhaps for the first time after the 1990s, local citizens are openly confronting and preventing the security forces from carrying out anti-terror operations. The Special Operations Group of the Jammu and Kashmir Police has been thwarted on more than one occasion when trying to arrest or deal with a suspected militant." Clearly, despite nearly 27 years of facing grave human rights violations that have included custodial killings, home demolitions and use of rape as an instrument of war the Kashmiri peoples' spirit of resistance against Indian rule remains unbeaten.
Pakistan as a party to the Kashmir dispute is naturally concerned over the developments. The Prime Minister issued a statement calling for the Kashmiri people's right to self-determination and also convening a special cabinet meeting to discuss the "rapidly deteriorating situation in the Indian Occupied Kashmir" while the Foreign Secretary urged the international community, particularly the permanent members of the UN Security Council, to take notice of the gravity of the situation, prevent human rights violations, and help implement UNSC's resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir. That is not something without a precedent. Not long ago, major powers, especially the US, helped East Timor separate from Indonesia and South Sudan from the Republic of the Sudan. The Kashmiri people's case surely does not interest them, but it may still cause unease as several Western leaders, including former US president Bill Clinton, have at one point or another described Kashmir as a nuclear flashpoint. US State Department spokesman John Kirby told journalists the other day that having seen reports of clashes between protesters and Indian security forces, "obviously, we're concerned about the violence" adding that "we encourage all sides to make efforts towards finding a peaceful resolution." Pakistan as well as the Kashmiri leadership is ready for a peaceful settlement, let India's influential friends persuade it to come to the negotiation table and make a sincere effort to resolve this deeply troubling issue peacefully.