A 24-year old youth, Tariq Ahmed Bhat, beaten by a group of youth in old city for not following their diktats on December 3, succumbed to his injuries earlier this week. His death came as a shock for all Kashmiris and everyone, including separatists, condemned the act committed by a small group of youth who were out on that fateful day to establish their writ.
A sane person fails to understand why these youth resorted to such an act. Tariq’s death evoked a strong resentment in old city with people taking to streets and old city observing a shutdown to mourn Tariq’s death.
Kashmiri youth need to understand that if they lose patience to drive home their point it can devastate the Kashmir cause and give a chance to propagandists to brand Kashmiri youth as miscreants. Pro-freedom leaders, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Muhammad Yasin Malik, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and others have always urged upon youth to stage peaceful protests as any kind of violence gives an excuse to forces to resort to baton charge, teargas shelling and even firing bullets.
Tariq’s death has given a reason to various New Delhi based channels to unleash propaganda against pro-freedom leaders and the youth who are making every possible attempt to ensure that voice of Kashmiris is heard and some one pays attention towards Kashmir issue. Tariq’s death has made a few New Delhi based channels hyperactive. Recently one of the news channels aired a debate on the issue. The anchor was damn angry with Kashmiri pro-freedom leaders for “maintaining silence” over Tariq’s killing. He made all the attempts to corner a lone Kashmiri woman panelist by posing tricky questions, but the bold answers given by the lady left him high and dry. She condemned Tariq’s killing and drove home a point that no one in Kashmir had remained silent and everyone expressed shock over his (Tariq’s) death, but anchor insisted that protesters are being funded by Pakistan based Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) and they are “terrorists.” He wanted to prove that “stone pelters” are real culprits and Kashmiris are no more interested in Kashmir movement or the cause. One of the leading news channels holding a debate over a youth’s killing came as a surprise for many Kashmirs. These channels never showed any interest in Kashmir in 2010 when nearly 120 youth fell to the bullets of government forces during unrest. 
People of Kashmir are presently walking on a tight rope and it’s the duty of the Kashmiri leadership to ensure that emotionally charged youth are guided in a proper way. Leaders should give up their laid back approach and need to wake up. They have to lead the people rather than getting led by the people. There is no doubt about the fact that people want to lead a normal life but that doesn’t mean that they have given up. This year passing off peacefully is no guarantee for next year being peaceful as the fact remains that no headway was made this year towards moving ahead to look for a Kashmir solution.
Whenever Kashmir has erupted in past four years, Kashmir experts sitting in New Delhi have tried their best to prove that people are fed up with the governance at local level. For them Kashmir has and will always be a law and order problem. No one in Delhi wants to admit that Kashmiris have aspirations and they are not a herd of dumb driven cattle. They want to keep everyone in dark by claiming that people take to streets to protest against governance. They don’t want to admit that Kashmiris stage protests hoping that international community would take a note of it and these protests have nothing to do with governance. 
Coming back to Tariq’s unfortunate death, a day before - December 2 -  youth staged protests in old city but forces used Pepper Guns to disperse the protesters. Locals alleged that force personnel also barged into many houses and ransacked these. On the very next day i.e. on December 3 youth formed small groups to enforce a shutdown in old city, Tariq’s refusal infuriated one of the groups which led to fatality. No one on earth can justify what the youth did. It was a dastardly act. If one dwells a bit deep into incident one thing becomes clear that till Kashmir remains unsolved many more youth will die. It is really painful to see our youth dying and blood getting spilled on the roads of this strife torn Valley.
No one can predict what destiny has in store for Kashmiris but a common Kashmiri has realized one thing that he cannot keep on losing Tariqs, Tufails, Zahids and others forever. Our youth are our future and it’s the duty of everyone among us to make them understand that they are very precious for us and we cannot afford to lose them. Let’s hope that death stops dancing in streets of Kashmir and our future generation remains secure.
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Lastupdate on : Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:00:00 IST