Desperate opposition rides the human rights bandwagon to stage comeback in Kashmir

 

Peoples’ clashes with the Police and security forces, marked by heavy stone pelting and violent demonstrators, which were a routine in Kashmir from 2015 to August 2019, have subsided after withdrawal of the erstwhile State’s special constitutional status. There has been no major news of what a section of the media and politicians used to call ‘agitational terrorism’.

The Union Territory’s summer capital of Srinagar has, however, witnessed around 18 encounters between the militants and security forces since January 2020. Besides, around 20 civilians and unarmed Policemen have been killed in Srinagar in different terror strikes. They include one CID Inspector, one probationary Sub Inspector and two constables who were all attacked from behind and shot dead. They also include popular chemist Makhan Lal Bindroo, two non-Muslim teachers and two golgappa vendors who killed selectively.

Some of these attacks were captured live on CCTV cameras; some by the assassins’ bodycams, which were subsequently made viral to spread maximum possible fear among the people perceived to be leaning towards India.

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Quite a number of the terror attacks on the soft targets as well as the encounters occurred in the summer Capital’s usually peaceful areas of Allochi Bagh, Rambagh, Hyderpora, Nowgam, Parimpora and Lawaypora on the south-western periphery.

On 7 October 2020, Police and security forces claimed to have killed two top wanted terrorists of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)—Saifullah and Irshad Ahmad Dar of Pulwama—in an encounter at Rambagh. On 23 August 2021, Police and security forces said that the most wanted The Resistance Front (TRF) chief Abbas Sheikh and his ‘second-in-command’ Saquib Manzoor, had been killed in a ‘lightning strike’ at Rambagh’s contiguous neighbourhood of Alloch Bagh.