Now that the Valley has regained a semblance of normalcy after the death of a youth in the police action, there is a need for a serious introspection over the way the protests are being handled in the state.  For one, it is the second time in the past six months that a teenager has lost his life after being hit by a smoke shell. Another teenager from Nishat was directly targeted from a passing security vehicle early this year. This eminently avoidable loss of life has been a  deep source of resentment in Valley, triggering days of unrest.  And this all is happening when the government should have been extra cautious about maintaining a degree of normalcy when the Valley is in the thick of its prime business season. But one more death of a teenager shows that the policing in the Valley is yet to come to terms with the phenomenon of stone throwing. That too despite the phenomenon being more than three years old. In 2008 alone around 60 lives were lost in the police and paramilitary action against the protesters. This was followed by more killings of this nature during the large scale ferment over the death of two women in Shopian in 2009.  What is inexplicable is why police has failed to chalk out a counter-stone pelting strategy that avoids the unnecessary loss of life. For example, in case of the teenager Tufail Mattoo, stone throwing was not of the intensity that warranted an extreme response. And talking about growing incidence of stone pelting in the city and some major towns of the Valley, particularly Varmu  we all know what propels it. One may be tempted at times to doubt its bonafides but fundamentally it is a tool of  protest that is less about specific incidents of security excesses and more about  the troubled political context of Kashmir. This is what explains its continuation day after day regardless of the situation in Valley. More redeemingly this is a phenomenon that has largely taken the place of gun and as such deserves not only a change in the way it is tackled by the security agencies but also an understanding at an intellectual level. Stone throwing despite its ferocity cannot by any stretch of imagination be held as mortally threatening as a Kalashankov. With right gear and the right strategy the police personnel can substantially reduce the harm to themselves and the protesters. But the frequency with which the deaths are taking place shows that either that the procedures are not being followed or that  some sense of impunity has rubbed off on the police personnel in the Valley too. There is a sense in Valley that the police in Jammu province has done a better job of handling public protest. During the trouble over Amarnath land transfer in 2008, almost similar kind of protests over by and large same period in the two regions found a disproportionate difference in the toll in lives. While in Jammu only three lives were lost, more than 60 people fell to the police and CRPF action in Valley. This has bred a deep sense of grievance in Kashmir with people feeling there is an unstated official sanction to the killings in the province. And the gulf this feeling creates between the government  and the people is vast and unbridgeable. Besides, this accumulated narrative of persecution in turn plays to the Kashmir street. Needless to say that the killings like the recent fake encounter in Machil only further reinforce this anger and perpetuates the cycle of protests. No doubt Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has really acted promptly in each case of the security excess in the state but the outcomes have been less than satisfactory. What killings of innocent boys show is that even after three years of wrestling with the protests, Government is yet to fine-tune a security strategy that helps keep the peace without the loss of life.

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