Cycle of abuses: 12-year-old’s killing sparks fresh clashes in IoK

Indian forces fire tear gas, pellets, live rounds to disperse mourners.

SRINAGAR: Srinagar came under curfew again after thousands clashed with Indian forces during the funeral of a 12-year-old boy killed in protests.

Police and paramilitary troops fired tear gas, pellets and live rounds into the air to disperse the funeral procession of the 12-year-old as his body was carried to Srinagar’s ‘Martyr’s Graveyard’, a police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Residents said the boy was sprayed with pellets in the lawn outside his home, but police say he was part of anti-India protests that took place Friday. “We are taking all possible measures so that the protests don’t spread to other areas,” the officer said, referring to the curfew.

The angry mourners were shouting “We want freedom” and “Go Indian, go back” during the procession.

More than 50 people were injured during Friday’s protests in the restive Himalayan region, which has been roiled by deadly violence for nearly four months. At least 90 people, most of them young protesters, have been killed and more than 12,000 injured in clashes with Indian security forces.

Thousands more have been arrested since the unrest began on July 8, when popular rebel leader Burhan Wani was killed in a gunfight with soldiers. Since then shops, schools and most banks have remained shut and authorities have suspended mobile phone internet services.

In a separate incident overnight, suspected rebels fired at a police post in the southern Shopian district killing an officer and injuring three others, a police statement said.

‘Over 1,500 people detained’

The Indian Express reported that as many as 1,500 people are being kept in detention in different police stations across Indian-Occupied Kashmir without any charges. These arrests are not reflected in the official records, the report said.

It quoted an official as saying that the protests are more intense in the southern part of Indian-Occupied Kashmir, where more than 1,821 civilians have been arrested and over 500 detained under preventive detention. In the central part of Indian-Occupied Kashmir, police have arrested around 1,700 and placed over 350 people under preventive detention in Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal districts. The number of arrests and preventive detentions in held Occupied Kashmir’s three northern districts are more than 1,300.

The report added that the highest number of arrests have been carried out in Srinagar, where over a thousand Kashmiris have been apprehended and 129 been put under preventive detention, followed by Pulwama district with over 700 civilians arrest and around 150 under preventive detention.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2016.