The last few nights have been quite difficult for me. Yes, I couldn’t sleep and yes, it was because of the teenager who was killed. Tufail, 17, a 12th standard student lived just a few houses away from mine. All these nights I could hear the wailing of women which reverberated the whole area. I kept  thinking the state of shock and grief the parents of this young kid would be after losing their only son. This is the fourth such incident in less than three months and second in my neighborhood. Locals had alleged that security personnel hit the victim on the head by rifle butts, which resulted in his death on the spot. Although earlier the police claimed that the cause of Tufail’s death is still not clear and it could be a murder and are on a look-out for two people who had dropped him at hospital and disappeared. Later the police came out with a different report admitting that the youth was killed by a shell fired by the police, this is after their continuous denial that not a single bullet or shell was fired yesterday.
 One thing is clear, that 20 years of tumult has turned our lives into hell and traumatized us all. It seems as if our spirits have been stretched too far and perhaps we have reached a breaking point. Every family has been affected by the happenings in Kashmir, some lost their sons and some their parents, some their husbands and many their loved ones for whom there is hardly anyone left to console them. How long do we have to see more bloodshed, more lives being wasted and more graves being dug out? Imagine the pain and anguish Tufail’s parents would be in after they are left alone to mourn for themselves. The feeling that he will never come back would wrench them to death. One can only visualize their trauma.
 I will not go in the genesis of the mess but universally, it is believed that militancy has a certain age- twenty is the maximum, but this should make New Delhi mandarins sit up and take notice that out of the people that we usually see on the roads “Pelting stones” more than 90% are from the 18-25 age group which means they must have been between 1-10 when the insurgency started and have been brought up seeing death, destruction, violence, physical abuse continuous oppression, scandals and political chicanery. There is both hate and anger about what they see around themselves and there is not a single public man in the State belonging to any political shade who does not understand this reality. Free will has a very curious nature. It is programmed in us. Once our interest is sparked by something, we usually can’t leave it alone until we get a satisfactory answer on it. Therefore if we shut someone down with a position that offers no explanation or reason, then this will create resistance and resentment. Telling people that nothing can be done because “its policy” or “its the law.” shuts them down without offering an explanation to them that satisfies their need. Their only recourse then is to take it out onto the person by making them the villain. These few reasons will find a lot of merit in the conflict of Jammu and Kashmir. In such a situation it becomes very difficult to explain my stated position when I talk about peace and dialogue. People ask me why this doesn’t end, I don’t have an answer, I really don’t. So many agencies are working overtime to scuttle any peace talk and when I talk about peace, I only become more hated and more vulnerable. You never know who kills whom and why?
 The recent events have left me in a very awkward position of defending my political views. The actions of the security personnel are unforgivable and in some instances even makes me wonder whether I should be going ahead and defending my decision to stay in politics. There is no excuse for killing a teenager, whosoever it is. The culprit should be brought to justice and given the harshest punishment on planet earth. If that doesn’t stop the innocent killing I wonder what will.

(Tanvir Sadiq can be found at www.kashmirleader.blogspot.com
or mailed at tanvirm123@yahoo.com )

Lastupdate on : Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:00:00 IST