The conflict turns messier, and everyday life
suffers, as the disputed territory
remains on lock down. Here are images from the front lines of the Kashmir
crisis.
By
Jeffrey Gettleman
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A
protest outside Srinagar turned violent after the police fired tear gas on Aug.
16.
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For nearly two months, the flash-point region
of Kashmir has been locked down. The Indian government has flooded it with
troops. The internet has been cut off. Mobile phones don’t work.
Soldiers have ordered people to stay inside
their homes or they will be shot. Anti-government militants have killed and
threatened civilians as well. People can’t get to the hospital, they can’t
communicate with loved ones, they can’t go to school or work. Everyday life has
been paralyzed.
This all began Aug. 5 when India announced
stunning news: It was stripping Jammu and Kashmir state, India’s only
Muslim-majority state, of the autonomy it had held since the 1940s. The
territory will soon be cut in half and each piece will become a federal
enclave.
The Indian government, which is controlled by
a popular Hindu nationalist political party, says these moves are necessary to
bring peace to Kashmir. For decades, the region has been racked by unrest,
rebellion, warfare and bloodshed. Pakistan, India’s rival, also claims parts of
Kashmir and is accused of stirring up an anti-India insurgency.
Indian officials knew that stripping
Kashmir’s statehood would be deeply unpopular. And the Kashmir Valley, the most
restive part of the state and home to as many as 8 million people, remains
under a punishing blockade.
The photographer Atul Loke spent four weeks
in Kashmir over two trips in August and September for The New York Times. Here
is what he saw.
Sporadic protests keep breaking out. Security
officers blast shotguns and tear gas into crowds. Dozens of demonstrators have
been seriously wounded. Many are scared to go to the hospital, fearing they
will be arrested. Instead, they stumble into nearby mosques, their faces
bloody, their bodies shaking, to be wiped down and bandaged by sympathetic
volunteers.
The Indian security forces have arrested
thousands of people. Most are being held without charges under what is called
preventive detention. Almost Kashmir’s entire leadership class — democratically
elected representatives, teachers, students, intellectuals, and prominent
merchants — is now behind bars.
The arrests and the blockade have left
Kashmiris feeling unsettled, demoralized and furious. Zahida Jan, a high school
student, collapsed in grief just talking about her older brother, Fayaz Ahmed
Mir, who was arrested in front of her in early August. The family says he is
innocent. His job was driving a tractor in apple orchards. They say the reason
authorities arrested him was that he had joined a protest nine years ago. They
have no idea where he is.
Children as young as 8 have poured into the
streets. With schools closed, they have little to do. Many hang around the
mosques. Among the slogans they bark out is: “There is only one solution. Gun
solution! Gun solution!”
Several young men have claimed that they were
tortured by security forces. The Indian government has denied it. The young
men, who were arrested on suspicion of aiding the militants, said government
soldiers hung them upside down, hit them with bamboo sticks, applied electric
shocks and forced them to drink large amounts of a noxious liquid. A month
after he said he was tortured, Abid Khan, a shopkeeper, showed deep black lines
on his buttocks. He said four soldiers stripped him naked, pinned him down and
beat him again and again with wooden poles.
But the tensions are no longer as simple as
protesters versus security officers. Kashmiri separatists are conducting their
own clampdown, threatening or even attacking civilians in a campaign to destroy
any semblance of normality that may be trying to creep back.
Anti-government militants recently shot the
family members of a wealthy apple trader. The militants are trying to stop the
apple business, a lifeline for many Kashmiris, as a form of protest against the
Indian government. The militants even shot a 5-year-old girl, officials said.
Indian officials have not indicated when they
will lift the security restrictions or release people who have been jailed.
Indian officials have not indicated when they
will lift the security restrictions or release people who have been jailed.
Ajit Doval, India’s national security chief,
blames Pakistan for Kashmir’s problems. If the internet were restored in
Kashmir, he says, Pakistan would flood it with misleading information and stir
up hatred. If the Indian soldiers relax, Pakistan would exploit the situation
and send in more militants. He said lifting the restrictions would depend on
“how Pakistan behaves.’’
Pakistan has denied those accusations. And
its prime minister, Imran Khan, just spoke before the United Nations to accuse
India of atrocities in Kashmir. He has asked for international intervention to
help the crisis from escalating into war between India and Pakistan, both
nuclear-armed.
