Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 16 April 2018 | Page 40
M I LITANCY
OPI NI ON
BHARAT
BHUSHAN
WAITING FOR
MODERATORS
Kashmiri youth are no longer amenable to sagacious advice
T
HREE instances point to a crisis in
Kashmir—the death of two militants Zubair
Ahmed Turay and Rouf Khanday in Shopian
and Aanantnag, respectively on 1 April; and
Junaid, the son of Ashraf Sehrai the new
chief of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat (TeH) taking up
arms days after the father replaced Syed Ali Shah
Geelani. Each one demonstrates that moderating
influences on Kashmiri youth are lacking today.
I first heard of Zubair in December 2016. Some
local residents of Shopian had gathered at the Dak
Bungalow for a discussion with members of the
Yashwant Sinha-led Concerned Citizens’s Group.
Towards the end of the meeting, a bearded old
man with an emotionless face and blank eyes
began speaking haltingly.
“My son Zubair Ahmed Turay has 19 FIRs
against him and has been arrested eight times
under the Public Safety Act (PSA). The first FIR
against him was when he was 11 years old. He has
been in and out of jail since then. He is 23 now.
Each time a court quashes a case against him, he
is re-arrested under another PSA charge. Tell me
what I should do?” Bashir Ahmed Turay asked. On
May 1, 2017, Zubair escaped from illegal police
custody after yet another case against him had
been quashed by the High Court. He joined the
Hizbul Mujahideen. Eleven months on, he was
shot dead with six other militants.
Zubair, an inveterate stone-pelter, had been a
victim of revolving-door-detentions. Using PSA
allows detention up to a year without trial.
However, victims are released for a few minutes
before the year ends and rearrested under the
same law. Zubair had cut his teeth in the 2009
Shopian agitation against the twin rape-and-mur-
der case. He was a good organiser and more aggres-
sive than others. He did not listen to anyone and
the local elders refused to “guarantee his good
behaviour” to get him released from custody.
The second case involves 21-year-old Rouf, shot
dead in Anantnag. He was holed up in a house with
another militant whom the police convinced to
surrender. Rouf’s parents were brought to the site
to persuade him to surrender. When persuasion by
both parents failed, the mother made a second bid,
40 OUTLOOK 16 April 2018
After his
son, an
MBA, joined
the Hizbul,
Sehrai said,
“Both the
gun and
our political
struggle are
important.”
going in alone. Rouf did not budge and she came
out crying. He was killed within hours.
The third case is of Junaid. Exactly a week after
Sehrai took over as TeH head, Junaid, an MBA,
joined Hizbul Mujahideen—the first progeny of
any Hurriyat leader taking up arms. Sehrai
expressed no remorse. He accepted political vio-
lence, saying, “Both the gun and our political
struggle are important.”
There was a time when Syed Ali Shah Geelani
would claim that the Kashmir movement was
peaceful. Today, no Hurriyat leader condemns vio-
lence unequivocally. However, those Kashmiris
who have seen militancy in the late 1980s and in
the 1990s are worried about the worsening crisis.
Several factors have contributed to the present
situation. They range from a persistent absence of
dialogue; lack of democratic space for peaceful
public protests, stone-pelting by youngsters, police
retaliation with pellet guns that blind people;
revolving-door-arrests under the PSA and the use
of military force to curb militancy.
The net result of all this is that youngsters in
Kashmir have got accustomed to daily violence.
Bereft of any experience of normalcy, they are
emotionally inclined towards militancy. Their
glorification of armed militants with their inev-
itably short lives is not inspired from across the
border, but by local militant icons.
They are no longer amenable to advice from their
parents, family, community elders, teachers or even
religious leaders. No one is able to talk freely in an
atmosphere charged with suspicion of what the
other person thinks. In the absence of public debate,
there is no way of predicting how youngsters think
or how they will act. The only relationship the State
has with them is through the security forces. And
the State’s dilemma perhaps is that if it loosens its
grip, then there is no knowing how many will pick up
the gun. The situation is particularly acute in
Shopian and Anantnag in South Kashmir.
Earlier, there was hope from Indian civil society
and mainstream Indian intellectuals. However,
even they have failed the Kashmiris under the
current political dispensation in Delhi. O
(The writer is a journalist based in Delhi)