Come summer and India's trigger-happy Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) lets loose a reign of terror in the occupied Kashmir. So this summer too, it is on a killing spree in the Kashmir valley, as over the three weeks it has murdered no less than two dozen civilians and injured over 70.
Meanwhile, all the important Hurriyat leaders have been placed under house arrest and strict curfew imposed in Srinagar and all over the valley. However, the deadliest day was last Tuesday when the security forces killed three protestors and called in regular troops to quell demonstrations in major population centres. But the rising tempo of brutality is being squarely matched by the Kashmiris' determination to defy the forces of repression.
As a regular phenomenon, in defiance of curfew the protestors surge onto the streets burning tyres and shouting "We want freedom" and "Blood for blood". Since the Indian armed forces enjoy impunity in occupied Kashmir they don't hesitate a bit in firing straight into the crowds. Their victims invariably include women and children.
What would be more ironic and a shame of our times that the international community is turning away from this enormous pogrom? The Indian-held Kashmir today is the world's biggest slaughter-house where the tally of killings since the wake of insurgency in 1989 exceeds 93,000 of which no less than 7,000 are custodial deaths - leave alone thousands of cases of women molestations and gang-rapes. Human rights violations are rampant, with incidents of extra-judicial killings, disappearances, arrests and desecration of women an everyday affair.
But now that media has been barred from reporting of violence and carnage throughout the Kashmir valley many a murder may go unreported - a travesty of truth and reality that the world human rights organisations must strongly reject. Likewise, the international forums of jurists must take up with the United Nations and other relevant organisations and force India to withdraw its draconian laws including Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Disturbed Areas Act. They should also ask India why these black laws are only Muslim-majority Kashmir-specific while insurgencies rage in its many other areas also.
But more than that, it is for Pakistan to bring the plight of Kashmiri under sharper international focus. Ideally, at the meeting of the foreign ministers in Islamabad next week Pakistan should insist on result-oriented discussion with India on Kashmir, irrespective of revival or otherwise of the Composite Dialogue. As a recognised party to the Kashmir problem it is its bounden duty to actively support the Kashmiris' struggle for self-determination.
Admitted, that during the Musharraf era, whether the Kashmir 'problem' is fit for a solution/resolution became an 'issue' for discussion only and was consigned to limbo in the name of some ineffectual CBMs. But the ground reality is fast changing; in occupied Kashmir, a new younger generation has come to fore to fight and die for independence. No wonder then the media coverage of Kashmiris' recent protest marches and demonstrations clearly suggests that their struggle has acquired the colour of a strong modern-day freedom movement fully backed and joined by the entire population including women and children. Wearing jeans and polo shirts they dare the heavily armed security forces, responding to bullets with brick-bats.