Jamil Chughtai
In yet another gory act of state terrorism Indian security personnel killed nine Kashmiris in a single day in southern Kulgam district of Indian Occupied Kashmir on 21 October 2018. More horrible are the details on these killings as the mutilated bodies of innocent Kashmiris have clearly depicted the use of chemicals by Indian forces in ammunitions they employed to deal with freedom-seekers engaged in a legitimate struggle for self-determination. The extent of Indian state terrorism has been so horrific and shocking that Pakistan foreign office had to ask Delhi unequivocally to stop their shameful butchery in IOK for crushing the freedom movement besides urging United Nations to make a thorough and independent investigation into use of chemical weapons by Indian forces in held Kashmir.
These terror scenes have been a routine feature of the lives of people in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) since 27 October 1947– the day the state of Jammu & Kashmir was turned into a prison by the Indian occupation forces. Since the very day, unarmed Kashmiris including men, women, school-going boys and girls, and aged people continued to be subjected to humiliation and disgrace by Indian military personnel merely for being Muslim Kashmiris. In these circumstances, the proverbial retaliation from the over-crushed and incessantly mortified local Kashmiris was inevitable, but there was no comparison between the men in armour wielding automatic firearms and those with stones and slogans as their only weapon. However, the freedom struggle has experienced a paradigm shift in July 2016 when young Burhan Wani was shot dead by Indian forces. Wani was loved and adored by everyone, and his martyrdom infused a new life into freedom movement which saw more than 100 innocent Kashmiris laying their lives for the cause in the subsequent weeks of protests. The ongoing Intifada in Occupied Kashmir is in fact a natural and indigenous reprisal from suppressed Kashmiris who are now fully prepared to sacrifice everything to liberate themselves from tyrannical suppression of Indian usurpers.
The list of atrocities on hapless Kashmiris is very long and cruel. Time, by itself, has only been the most authentic testimony of horrors that unfold everyday in Indian Occupied Kashmir and the atrocities perpetrated on the people who want to end forced military take-over of their homeland. Since beginning of the recent uprising, Kashmiris have feverishly been demanding an end to India’s illegitimate rule spanned over 70 long and bloody years. The few news items or video-clips appearing now and then on social media are hardly able to divulge the intensity of atrocities being inflicted by Indian forces on Kashmiris. To prevent horrific accounts of their carnage from becoming public, India has restricted entry of independent journalists, human rights organisations as well as tourists into the valley since long. Although the latest reports by OHCHR and UNHRC (United Nation’s human rights observers) on Indian appalling cruelties in IOK have attempted to create a ripple of empathy within the comity of nations yet not a slightest change is expected in India’s highhandedness against unarmed Kashmiri protesters in the days ahead. An impartial investigation over the extra-judicial killings and use of chemical weapons in IOK would also transpire that the ‘game-of-death’ is being played through vicious free-hand and immunity afforded to the Indian military personnel under Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to make the valley unliveable for Kashmiris.
Since October 1947, the amount of torture, killings and rapes perpetrated on Kashmiri people by Indian military personnel has already set a new record of violence – leaving the Nazis far behind. Daily episodes on gashing of eyes, chopping-off vital body parts, and use of ever-new methods of persecution during unending curfews would have surely embarrassed Hitler’s death squads and gas-chambers for being too soft in contrast to India’s state-sponsored butchery in IOK for the last seven decades. Every new day in occupied Kashmir witnesses the Indian army’s devilish acts of gang-rapes, burning of the agitators alive, torching of villages and crops, destruction of their business and economic life; in fact, a complete genocide of the Kashmiri people is in progress in utter defiance of international human rights laws. Despite being painfully quiet, the world at large knows that people in Indian Occupied Kashmir have undeservedly been pushed to the wall. However, the highly alienated western media is pleased to look-the-other-way; in exactly the same fashion they conduct themselves with respect to human sufferings in Palestine at the hands of Israel.
By observing 27 October every year as the Kashmir Black Day, the Kashmiris all over the world remind themselves of the day when their freedom was treacherously seized by Indian occupation forces in 1947. Since the start of ongoing uprising in Kashmir, thousands of young freedom-seekers have been brutally tortured and extra-judicially killed during forced disappearances or illegal custody by Indian military enjoying total impunity under AFSPA. Having been subjected to worst inhuman experiences over the years, the people of Kashmir have developed a firm belief that ‘now there is no way back’. The annual observance of 27th day of October as Kashmir Black Day expresses a strong and unflinching resolve by Kashmiris that their crave for freedom from Indian subjugation would never diminish; rather it will increase with every passing day and with each new act of Indian cruelty in the valley.
