{"id":9934,"date":"2017-06-30T20:11:31","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T14:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=9934"},"modified":"2017-06-30T20:11:31","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T14:41:31","slug":"ode-kashmiri-policemen-softest-targets-insurgency-barkha-dutt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=9934","title":{"rendered":"Ode to Kashmiri policemen, softest targets of the insurgency: Barkha Dutt"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the sharply polarised Kashmir valley, where jingoists and separatists have hijacked the discourse, squeezing out every inch of nuance, I cannot think of a single group that is more endangered by all sides than the Jammu and Kashmir police.<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n

As the Kashmir Valley erupted into turmoil after the elimination of Burhan Wani, local militant of the Hizbul Mujahideen, I met two local policemen in Srinagar\u2019s Army Base Hospital. Both had been injured because of stones thrown at them during clashes with agitators on the street. It took me a while before I could persuade them to share their stories; the condition was that they were to be filmed against the light in a silhouette, so their identity would be hidden in the shadows. And that I was to not use their real names. In some ways, this expression of acute vulnerability was the precursor to the horrific, shameful mob lynching of Ayub Pandith, on the holy night of Shab-e-Qadr outside the city\u2019s Jama Masjid.<\/em><\/p>\n

For the past year, of all the security personnel operational in the state, it is the Valley\u2019s police officers who have been most imperilled by the relentless conflict. That the men I met wanted to mask their identities must never be seen an absence of courage; on the contrary these men are the hardiest, bravest, most hands-on officers, anywhere in the world. When ten terrorists were able to lay a siege to Mumbai on 26\/11 for three days, despite the presence of the elite National Security Guard, I remember a police officer from Kashmir calling me to say they should have summoned a team from the Valley \u2014 so experienced are they at smoking out militants and rescuing civilians from encounters.<\/em><\/p>\n

But at the same time, Kashmiri policemen are the softest targets in this 27-year-old insurgency, trapped between the service to their uniform and the rage of the street. Because they are drawn from the same community that is often locked in bitter battle with them during agitations and protests, they are attacked, violently, by both militants and civilians. In the sharply polarised Kashmir Valley, where jingoists and separatists have hijacked the discourse, squeezing out every inch of nuance, I cannot think of a single group that is more endangered by all sides than the Jammu and Kashmir police.<\/em><\/p>\n

Inside the hospital one policeman told me that when he travelled to the city from his village which was two hours away he made it a point to wear civilian clothes that did not out him as a cop. Else, he would be in the line of fire on the highway where protesters had blocked entry and exit points. He only wore his uniform when he was at duty in Srinagar. \u201cThey hate us,\u201d he told me, \u201cthey talk to us about Azaadi; we talk to them about law and order.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Because communities are close knit in Kashmir, multiple ironies make the situation even more complicated \u2014 like homes where one brother is a police officer and another relative a militant. The mob that lynched Ayub Pandith shouted slogans in support of Zakir Musa, the terrorist who replaced Burhan Wani briefly as the head of the Hizbul Mujahideen and who called for a caliphate in Kashmir. But, Zakir\u2019s father is a civil engineer employed with the government, and one of Zakir\u2019s co-travellers, militant, Ishaq Parray\/aka \u2018Newton\u2019 is from a family where his brother-in-law is a serving police officer. Yet, videos released by Zakir Musa openly threatened Kashmiri men with death if they chose to sign up for the police force. The police officers I met told me they would never flinch from their \u201cduty\u2019 but they worried for their families. \u201cIn some cases people have torched the homes of policemen. Our worry is for them\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

The biggest casualty of the Kashmir conflict has become the contestation of grief; lost lives are mourned and commemorated depending on which side of the ideological trenches your war is and how much whataboutery you are willing to indulge in. Mercifully, everyone rose in unison to unequivocally condemn what happened to Ayub, recoiling from its chilling ugliness. But there is merit in calling out the strange doublespeak of a Kashmir policy where policemen who are reviled by the secessionists are then expected to protect them.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2016, pro-Pakistan Hurriyat representative Syed Ali Shah Geelani specifically named an individual police officer in South Kashmir whom he held responsible for eye injuries caused by the use of pellet-spray guns during clashes with protesters. A terrified family, worried about repercussions to them, then went and sought \u2018forgiveness\u2019 from Geelani \u2014 who snubbed them and gave no guarantees of safety.<\/em><\/p>\n

Police officers spoke to me of protesters who are no longer scared of tear gas shells and situations where backed by a crowd of a few hundred people, even women have surrounded the post of an individual officer and snatched his weapon. \u201cThey look at us with suspicion, they abuse us, and they loathe us. What can we do? We tolerate it,\u201d said a 34-year-old police officer to me, \u201cYa pathar, ya gaali \u2014Either a stone or an expletive \u2014 that is my life; I am used to it now.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and authorThe views expressed are personal<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the sharply polarised Kashmir valley, where jingoists and separatists have hijacked the discourse, squeezing out every inch of nuance, I cannot think of a single group that is more endangered by all sides than the Jammu and Kashmir police. As the Kashmir Valley erupted into turmoil after the elimination of Burhan Wani, local militant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}