From a small window in the attic of her three storey house in Qazi Mohalla in Anantnag district of South Kashmir, 40-year-old Yasmeena Khurshid (name changed on request) peeks out to look at a rally of young boys and men carrying black flags and banners on the otherwise deserted KP road.
It’s almost 7 PM in the evening and the security forces manning the road all day long have returned to their barracks. A dozen other women from the same neighbourhood have gathered in the attic too.
There is a deafening silence in the attic. The chants of Azaadi reverberating from the streets could be heard loud and clear. Her eyes are now transfixed on the crowd that is swiftly moving along on the road, nervously searching for her 13-year-old son Ahmed (name changed on request).
“My Son Wants to be Part of the Protest”
A part of me wants him to be safe inside the house, but I can’t hold him down. He won’t listen. He wants to be a part of the protest. A mother is always selfish about her child, but there are other children out there too.Yasmeena Khurshid
Yasmeena belongs to the generation of Kashmiri women who have witnessed first-hand the militant upsurge in the early nineties, and the devastation it caused. In her neighbourhood, Qazi Mohalla, she has seen a number of young men sign up in the last 26 years.
Since 8 July, after the news of Hizbul Mujahideen’s young Commander Burhan Wani’s death broke, Kashmir has slipped into another round of turmoil. So far, 50 civilians have been killed and over 3000 injured during clashes with security forces, most of them young boys.
Yasmeena feels helpless at the chaos around her, like most of the women in the locality whose young boys are at the vanguard of the fresh wave of protest. She says she gets anxious whenever Ahmed steps out of the house. This anger, she says, had been brewing for years now and the impunity with security forces operate in the valley is the main reason behind it.
When a Schoolboy Was Accused of Orchestrating Rallies
Yasmeena narrated an incident of 19 June when Ahmed, a class 9 student was picked up by the police for having orchestrated a rally on the death anniversary of Qazi Nisar, Mirwaiz of South Kashmir.
“They (Policemen) came to our house and asked his father to produce him before the Station House Officer, Sadar police station in Anantnag. He went along with him but they asked him to leave and said they would just advice Ahmed. But instead, they tied him down and beat him all night long. The bruises from the beating are still visible on his body. He hasn’t been the same since,” she said while incessantly wiping off the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“How can he organize a rally, he can’t even tie his own shoelaces?” she asks.
For Yasmeena, the calls for Azaadi outside are justified.
All these killings and others before in last 26 years can’t just be forgotten. So many children have been killed. Women have been widowed. All that can’t be forgotten This rule of tyranny has to end.Yasmeena Khurshid
Untold Atrocities Against Kashmiris Continue
30-year-old Imitiyaz Ahmed Mundoo of Anantnag district of South Kashmir was killed in firing by security forces on 9 July. Imtiyaz was shot in the abdomen barely 200 metres from his house in Nandpora village. He died because of excessive bleeding as the security forces didn’t let anyone pick him up, his mother said.
On the door of the mosque opposite his house, a poster in Urdu urges people to remain steadfast in their protests and follow the protest calendar issued by separatist leaders.
Imitiyaz was the eldest in the family of three brothers and two sisters and worked at an automobile repair shop to make ends meet. Only last year, on 7 June, he married 27-year-old Gowhar.
While the rest of the women were busy attending the people who had come to visit the grieving family, Gowhar sat silently in one corner of their kitchen. She is six months pregnant and had been at her father’s house in Qazigund, some 40 kilometres from Nandpora, when Imtiyaz was killed.
She couldn’t even be informed about his death as the entire valley had been put under a lockdown by the administration, with all communication lines halted. It was only after a relative of Imtiyaz travelled to Qazigund that Gohwar came to know about her husband’s death. She tried hard to reach Nandpora on the same day, but to no avail.
“I could not even see his face one last time before he was buried,” she said with almost no expressions on her face. “They (CRPF ) didn’t let us travel. The entire highway had troops everywhere. We barely managed to get out of the village, when we were stopped by a contingent of security forces. They asked us to return. I begged them to let us pass through, but they didn’t relent.”
“All I Have Left Now is Protest”
Gohwar doesn’t know where she will go from here. The joy of pregnancy has vanished as if it doesn’t matter anymore. She says her husband was a very kind man and can’t understand why anyone would want to kill him. Although he had limited means of income, she was happy with him; now there is nothing left.
She wants to take part in the protest. She says:
All I have left now is to protest. They killed my husband because they thought he was protesting for Azaadi. Now I will do it too until we have Azaadi.
She hasn’t seen the poster outside, but she says it the only path “left for us.”
Beside this anger against those who killed her husband, Gohwar is also worried about the child. She wonders who will take care of the child in her poor family, now that Imtiyaz is gone.
While there is curfew and restriction outside their house in Kalwal Mohalla, Rainawari in Srinagar, Alia (18) and Fozia (16) (name changed on request) have their captivating green eyes locked on their phone. They are waiting for a call from their cousin in Hyderabad to get an update on the condition of their 23-year-old brother, Danish Ahmed Jath.
“His Eyes Were Bandaged, He Was Writhing in Pain”
Danish was hit by a pellet gun on 17 July near his home. A whole pellet cartridge penetrated his left eye socket and then dispersed hundreds of pellets in different directions in the orbit of the eye. Danish has lost complete vision in his left eye and has now been taken to a Hospital in Hyderabad in an effort to save the right one.
When Danish got injured, both Fozia and Alia were alone at home. Their father, a daily labourer, and two other brothers who drive a local bus, had gone out to arrange essentials for home.
Someone from the neighbourhood came and told us that Danish had been injured and taken to SMHS hospital. Nobody was here so we had to wait until our father came back. Then we went to see him. His eyes were bandaged and he was writhing in pain but he recognised us and stopped.Alia
While Alia spent next two week at the SMHS hospital looking after Danish, Fozia was at home taking care of the house and preparing meals to be sent to the hospital. Their mother passed away a few years ago and both of them dropped out of school soon after. Most days, they are just at home by themselves and it would be Danish who would be around.
Both Alia and Fozia hope Danish will recover from his injuries soon. But for Alia, there is more:
Those men who did that, fired pellets at Danish, and hundreds of other people we saw at SMHS hospital, should be jailed, and that is the final solution for Kashmir this time.Alia
Danish would be around the house while my father and two other brothers went for work. He would keep us company and take us out to the Dal at times in the evening. We just want him to get well.Fozia
(Adnan Bhat is a Srinagar based journalist.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)