While efforts are underway to bring India and Pakistan back on the negotiating table and restart the stalled dialogue process between the two countries, it is quite depressing to see that no effort whatsoever is being made to improve situation in Indian held territory of Jammu and Kashmir where macabre game of bloodshed and killing of innocent civilians at the hands of occupation forces is going on unabated with no end in sight. But alas! Nobody seems to care about the bloodshed of poor Kashmiris being spilled by the so-called security forces of India.
The horrifying incident in which a 21-year old young Kashmiri boy was deliberately crushed by a military vehicle in down town area of Srinagar speaks volumes about the Indian army’s coldblooded brutality and its colonial mindset to deal situation in Kashmir. The gruesome images of young boy, Qaiser Amin Bhat, lying crushed under the vehicle had gone viral, sparking anger across Kashmir, downtown Srinagar particularly where he lived with his two sisters. “Qaiser was declared dead on Friday by a team of doctors at SKIMS, Soura. The incident is the second in less than a month involving an armored vehicle killing protester during weekly demonstrations. On May 5, in a similar incident, an 18-year-old youth was run over by an armored vehicle during protest demonstration in Srinagar. Officials termed the killing as an accident, but a widely shared video clip of the incident showed a police vehicle directly hitting the protester from behind and crushing him under the tires.
In occupied Kashmir it has been a normal routing for Indian forces to use excessive force including bullets, pellet guns and live ammunition against protesters but crushing youth under armored vehicles has become a new norm in the restive region where bullet-proof, armored vehicles are used as an effective tool to chase and kill protesters.
The Chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Gilani has rightly said that after getting fed up with the bullets and pallets the Indian rulers have now invented new methods of genocide under which the occupation army is crushing Kashmiri youth under the tyres of their heavy vehicles.
The coldblooded murder of Kashmiri youth by Indian army amply reflects their anti-Kashmiri bias and total disregard to human life. With this kind of dangerous mindset no individual is safe in Kashmir. The heart-wrenching scenes of youth lying in pool of blood were sufficient enough to shake the world conscience. Given the volatile situation in the region the world human rights bodies should come forward in a big way and mount pressure on the government of India to bring to justice all those who are involved in this macabre game of death and destruction in the region. It is test case for world human rights defenders; efforts should be redoubled at international level to hold Indian army accountable for such crimes lest it becomes a new handy tool for Indian army to crush the voice of dissent in Kashmir.
