Waqas ur Rehman
The Indian troops in their fresh act of state-terrorism martyred the PhD scholar of Aligarh Muslim University, Dr Manan Bashir Wani, on 11 October 2018 in Handwara area of the Kupwara district of the Indian-Occupied Kashmir (IOK). Apart from Dr Manan, the Indian forces martyred another 10 young Kashmiris from 10-12 October 2018 in continuity of their mass killing campaign against the Kashmiri youth. This mass killing reveals that India is only interested in the valley of Kashmir, not the Kashmiri people. Such brutalities and ill-treatment show that the Kashmiris have never been considered as the genuine indigenous citizens of the valley by India. The Kashmiris have been demanding their legal right of self-determination, and thus challenging the illegal Indian rule in the IOK for which they are constantly being punished, humiliated, raped and killed. The Indian forces have killed over 100,000 innocent Kashmiris so far since 1990 in order to maintain their illegal occupation.
The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) of the IOK staged several protests in various parts of the State including Srinagar, Kalantra, Baramulla, Hyderpora and Maisuma on 19 October 2018. Since the frontline Kashmiri leadership has already been arrested and detained by the Indian occupation forces, therefore the second-tier leadership and huge number of the Kashmiri masses took part in the demonstrations. All the protestors denounced the killing spree and other atrocities by the Indian troops. While addressing the gathering, chairman of the ‘Young Men’s League’, Imtiyaz Ahmad Reshi stated that the so-called largest democracy of the world, has crossed all the limits of human rights’ violations in the IOK, and it is high time that such atrocities are to be stopped immediately. The Kashmiri leaders reminded the United Nations (UN) and the international community about their responsibilities in light of the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions about Kashmir. Fearing backlash, the Indian authorities kept the historical Jamia Masjid of Srinagar closed for the Friday prayers consecutively.
The process of killing the Kashmiri youth is not something new for the valley people as the rate of youth’s killing remained at the top ever since the start of this prolonged struggle. However, the current wave of Indian state-terrorism is totally targeting the educated youth. This phase has been started after the July 2016, when a 22-years old social media activist, Burhan Wani was killed by the Indian forces. Resultantly, the Kashmiri youth have started massive resistance movement against the Indian occupation and its brutalities. In the recent years, the educated young minds of the valley have started approaching their fellows in other educational institutions of India and in some cases across the world through social media platforms, revealing and narrating the Indian brutalities, as a result of which the Indian authorities have started killing and persecuting the educated youth like Dr Manan.
The victimization of the Kashmiri youth, particularly the educated lot is not restricted to the IOK universities, but the Kashmiri students studying in various Indian universities and educational institutions are equally being harassed and tortured. Various sedition cases against the Kashmir students have been filed by the Indian authorities, particularly those who protested against the killing of Dr Manan at the hands of the Indian forces. It is important to note that in May 2018, Dr Mohammad Rafi Bhat, an assistant professor at the Kashmir University was killed along with five young protestors in a fake encounter by the Indian army in Badigam village of the Shopian district in the IOK. He was not a militant; rather a protestor and a campaigner against the Indian rule in the IOK. According to the media reports, most of the Kashmiri students have started returning to their homes, fearing arrest and even murder at the hands of the Indian spying network. In order to segregate them from the Indian nationals, the Kashmiri students have been given forms, entitled “Other students database”. Kashmiri students will have to fill these discriminatory forms and report to the local police station before leaving their institutions, so that they can be chased by the Indian spying network. Such a discriminatory behavior and maltreatment is aimed solely to humiliate the Kashmiri students in front of their fellow students, ultimately compelling them to abandon their educational activities. Unfortunately, there is nobody to take care of the innocent Kashmiri students.
The educated Kashmiri students are forced to leave their incomplete education through various strategies of harassment, profiling and intimidation. All this is being done through a well-planned Indian strategy. The educated students have been sharing the true insight of the Indian brutalities in the IOK with their colleagues and scholars, resulting in the resentment behavior among the Hindu students too against the Indian forces. The Indian government is afraid of the fact that these Kashmiri students will reveal the truth about human rights’ violations in the IOK at the hands of the Indian forces to the global educated community.
