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A Dirge for Kashmir
Kashmir’s summer of 2016—and since—has been marked by events that will not be easily forgotten: the killing of Burhan Wani; the intensified people’s resistance that it triggered; the killing of over a hundred people by state forces; the indiscriminate use of the Public Safety Act; and, above all, what is being called “the world’s first mass blinding.” This is the gist of a recently-released report by a fact-finding team.
Over two months after the Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed in July 2016, a 11-year-old boy went missing and did not return from his prayers in New Theed village in Kashmir. There had been stone-throwing outside a mosque and shelling by security forces. The young boy, running away from the commotion, was chased by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), according to eyewitnesses. Later that evening he was found dead near a waterhole for animals.
He was beaten all over; his right arm was broken and his head was injured. He was fired upon with pellets. There were footprints on his body, as though he had been trampled upon. Blood had trickled down from his nose and out of his mouth.1
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