Sopore town is simmering with tension and anger, over the killings of four unarmed youth. The curfew is often defied and ding dong battles between troopers and youth continue throughout the day. A Kashmir Life report.
Once more an escalation at Sopore has engulfed the whole Kashmir valley. The latest clashes between security forces and local youth have left four unarmed young civilians dead and at least six others with bullet wounds in the town and four more deaths in Baramulla and Islamabad, including a nine year old.
The widely prevalent anti-India sentiment and pent up anger among its people very often leads to violent clashes with the paramilitaries, making it one of the most volatile towns in Kashmir. The latest violence broke out after two holed up militants were engaged in a firearms exchange and the local youth engaged police and paramilitary CRPF in pitched stone-pelting battles just outside the cordoned off encounter site.
By dusk, the troopers – a mix of police, SOG and central paramilitaries – had killed two militants on June 25 after a day-long gunbattle, by blasting and setting fire to three houses. A lot of people, moving towards the encounter site entered into an argument with the retreating troopers.
A local youth, Reza, who gave only one name says, “It all started with an argument between the people and the troopers, whose vehicle was stuck in a potholed road.
“People were teasing them of getting militants only after setting fire to houses and other properties. The situation degenerated very fast and CRPF opened fire killing one on the spot and injuring many.”
Tempers on both the sides ran high, says an eyewitness who did not give his name. The language got nasty, so did the actions, he added.
People removed the injured to the hospital, where from two of the seriously injured were rushed to Srinagar hospitals after being administered emergency first aid.
Reza says, the people carrying the dead boy were tear-gassed and fired upon at main chowk – one kilometer from the site where CRPF bullets had hit the victims. One more man received bullet injuries there.
By the time the body reached his parents it was almost dark. All the old town localities were on the streets during the night. Troopers in the town usually don’t come out of their fortified camps after dusk. For the whole night people were roaming the streets and mosque loudspeakers were blurting pro-azaadi and pro-militant songs.
Next morning heavy troop deployment enforced a ‘declared’ curfew, which was defied at many places. Many protest demonstrations were held throughout the day. The day had almost passed off without any major incident when the CRPF troopers opened fire killing another person.
Family members of the deceased youth say that there was no stone pelting going on at the time their son was killed. “A few youth were booing the CRPF men deployed there,” they said.
Rumours flew in the town, and majority of the town was on the streets up to well past midnight. Next day people attempted to bury the slain youth in the main martyr’s graveyard (there are five in Sopore) but security forces did not allow them and used tear gas and fired in the air to force the crowd back into the locality. He was buried at another Martyr’s graveyard.
“To avoid another bloody confrontation, people took the body to another graveyard,” say 60-year-old businessman Abdul Rahim of Muslimpeer who participated in the funeral prayers of the boy.
Meanwhile, a heavy security blanket inside the town and at all the entries to the town was put in place to thwart the separatist’s Sopore Chalo call. Police disrupted many Sopore-bound processions far away from the town except one that entered the town by breaching the security cordon. The youth forced their way into the town by chasing away the around 150 police and CRPF personnel who had put up barricades on the town outskirts. The fleeing personnel took shelter in the CRPF camp inside the Kapra theatre. However, when the stone pelting youth reached near the camp, pelting stones at the security bunkers, the troopers opened fire in which another youth was killed.
“Anger rises with every unarmed civilian’s killing and injury. Everybody loses calm. I am 60, even I get angry what can you say to a young man,” says Abdul Rahim, a businessman.
A young, tall and lean bystander, who had refused to talk to this reporter a few minutes earlier, joined in. He said, “It is not just the killings and other state suppression that makes us angry. It is the way the state government and New Delhi (government of India) give a clean chit to their trigger happy troopers.”
After opening up a bit more he said he was a lecturer, but refused to give his name. “Frankly speaking I don’t like stone pelting but am disgusted at Indian home minister calling the Sopore youth as linked to Laskher (Lashkar-e-Taiba) or the media branding them as rented mob. They don’t understand us a bit. TV (news media channels) says there was rioting and aagzani (arson), what do you call rioting? Was any property destroyed by the people, was any government building set on fire. No. It is just the propaganda, false news and baseless accusations that make us more angry.”
The businesses have had a tough time in Sopore in the last two decades. This year in January and February the town was shut for 40 days with another 12 days of shutdowns in March. Though April and May saw a reasonable number of workdays, since June it has again been hard for this predominantly business town, which locals say has very little representation in the government services.
The town has a palpable hatred for the establishment. The voting percentage in various elections has been the lowest here since 1996 when separatists asked to boycott polls in the state.
The town does not take kindly to any order of the establishment or the appeals of its executive. People defied curfew many times again on Wednesday. And many mosque loudspeakers in the interior localities would play pro-azaadi songs. The youth engaged police and CRPF deployed to enforce day curfew (during night troopers and police remain in their camps), sporadically at many places. The security forces respond with tear gas shelling, return stone pelting and aerial firing. Throughout the day it is sometimes police chasing the protestors or protestors chasing the police.
“There are lines drawn. Main Chowk, College Road, Iqbal Market is theirs (troopers’) rest is ours,” says a 20-something, dressed in Levis jeans and a funky Tee-shirt.
Another boy wearing sports shoes and gelled hair moved his head in the affirmative.
The close up daredevil stone pelting stops intermittently. “We mostly break for lunch and tea or to catch the repeat telecast of (football) world cup matches,” says the boy with gelled hair.
Apart from slogans of Allahu Akbar and Jai Bhavani, the stone pelting encounters are also accompanied by exchange of curses and abuses in the most foul language. Here however, the troopers have the upper hand as they are more proficient in Hindi and Punjabi abuses and don’t understand most of the Kashmiri curses.
Most of the time on Tuesday it was the youth who were chasing the troopers but in the evening as they were retreating to their camps, security forces rained stones on residential houses near the roads breaking glass planes and at places woodwork. The areas that were most hit were Batapora, Muslimpeer, New colony and Sidiq colony.
“Today they just broke glass panes of the windows, sometimes they break the window frames and doors also,” says Abdul Rashid of Arampora.
Relating the story of his uncle whose house is near the main road, Rashid said, “After troopers repeatedly broke the glass panes of my uncle’s house, they covered these with polythene sheets. However, in January when guests from their daughter’s in-laws were invited for a lunch they again fitted glass panes in the windows but the day the guests had to come there was stone pelting and forces broke most of them. When the guests arrived later that day there was not even the polythene on the windows”.
On Wednesday and Thursday the civil authorities send a day’s curfew passes to prominent citizens of the town along with invites to discuss ways to control the situation. The authorities, reportedly, offered to pay for the damage to the houses and business establishments allegedly wrought by the police and paramilitaries. The prominent citizens declined the offer saying, “Can you return the young lives your bullets took away?”
