Monkeys See, Monkeys Do. This adage brings close to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, those Homo sapiens who debate if the latest victim of alleged police action, teenager Tufail Ahmed Mattoo of Saida Kadal was killed by a bullet or a teargas shell.
There’s another feared entrant to the list of victims: 24-year-old Safa Kadal youth Muhammad Rafiq Bangroo who is on a death bed at SKIMS. He was reportedly ruthlessly beaten by paramilitary CRPF till he went into comma making doctors diagnose his recovery bleak. No teargas shell or bullet but only the gun butts, Lathis and gumboots were used.
Looking at the attack on humans in the backdrop of prominent columnist Nayeem Akhter’s observations that we live in Dog’s Own Country, the Kashmiris in future could be killed with teeth only to shift the blame on the one lakh and growing dogs.
Does medium or weaponry make any difference in killings? Or the government wants to convey that the style does matter? Well results are all the way the same. Shoot a person in the forehead or strike him with force to make his brain burst out to pool of blood. The output is always killing whether they use a bullet, a teargas shell or even teeth in future.
But then in a City like Srinagar, the government insists that the style does matter in killings. The same it pleads in the killing of Tufail, whose brain had come out of the cranium at the Gani Memorial stadium past week. The government says that the Postmortem Report of the victim has confirmed that he died of teargas shell.
The teargas shell has turned such a killer weapon in Kashmir that it could be ultimate against Kashmiris. In nutshell it’s the future shell because the teargas doesn’t come under the ambit of Armed Forces Special Powers Act. So a bullet may go if AFSPA goes. But the killings can go on with the shelling. All what is required is that the security forces, particularly police, upholds the expertise of hitting the bulls-eye.
Besides, when killings have to be there, all what is required to die down for peace to be kept breathing, are protests: The peoples protests against the innocent killings. Almost every time the people take to streets they prove the government theories on killings wrong. It were people protests last year, which proved that Shopian double rape and murder wasn’t any drowning theory. Earlier this year, it were peoples protests in Nishat, which revealed that BSF allegedly killed Wamiq. And in the latest it were the peoples protests in Srinagar which proved that Tufail wasn’t murdered by some car borne youth who dropped him at hospital, the First Instance Reaction (FIR) propounded by the state police.
The peoples protests against innocent killings could be genuine for all humanly reasons. But then they disturb the peace, which the government aspires for. But what triggers the protests? Well the first reaction on this front is the shock that the victim shouldn’t have met the fate so suddenly. If Tufail’s parents were waiting for his return from tuition classes, why did his shroud come in-between?
This reaction and subsequent protests could be prematurely aborted if a calendar of killings is announced in advance. Helpless Kashmiris will remain prepared for the fate. And no killing would come as a shock. Besides if teargas shells are preferred over guns, nobody would debate if the innocent died of a bullet or a shell. The police wouldn’t need to take shelter of alternative pleas for killing. All would come as expected.
Besides, the politicians could well prepare their condemnation speeches and attendance in the funeral prayers. Every killing could be “well planned” bringing an end to ambiguous statements on who rushed the victim to hospital and why. And the best thing is that the timetable is mobile phone complaint particularly for the chic sets like the Blackberry which many in the government use to make the show go on and on… but peoples protest come in-between like sudden and frequent killings.

(Feedback at m4mee@indiatimes.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