Crescent Magazine

Srinagar, Crescent-online
July 07, 2010 - 11:00 am EST  

The murderous rampage of Indian occupation forces--army, police and the unruly mob of paramilitary forces--continues unabated with curfew imposed in Srinagar, capital of the Indian-occupied part of Kashmir. The latest curfew was imposed after Indian police and paramilitary forces shot three civilians, two men and a woman, on July 6.

The civilians were killed during a protest against earlier killings that have now become so routine that few media outlets pay much attention to them.   
   
Thousands of police and paramilitary forces patrolled the streets of Srinagar to enforce the curfew on July 7. A day earlier, people had defied the curfew and poured into the streets to confront the occupation forces. It was during such protests that the three civilians were shot and killed.

The local Indian puppet administration sent request to the Indian army for help in quelling the escalating protest movement that has intensified since June 11 when a 17-year-old student was killed by a tear gas shell fired by the police.

There have been regular protests since then, each killing fuelling more protests. Led by the veteran freedom movement leader, 80-year-old Syed Ali Shah Gillani, the resistance movement has gained fresh movement in the last few weeks.

Gillani was arrested on June 24, accused of instigating protests. He has been a staunch critic of Indian occupation and military and police brutality. India maintains 500,000 troops in Kashmir in addition to the local police force. Of these, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), an unruly mob of Hindu zealots. have been responsible for most egregious crimes against the Kashmiris.

While the people of Kashmir have never accepted India's illegal and brutal occupation and there have been protests since 1947, it was in 1989 that the uprising took a decidedly militant turn. Massive demonstrations, at times attended by as many as a million people, have taken place in Srinagar and other places in Kashmir.

As a result of Indian army and paramilitary crackdown, more than 110,000 civilians have been killed since that time. There have also been gruesome acts of rape, even of girls as young as 10 years old. Estimates of the number of women and girls raped range from upward of 10,000.

India, that claims to be the largest democracy in the world, refuses to allow Amnesty International or other international human rights organizations to investigate charges of torture, abuse and rape. Despite this, Indian officials are welcomed in western capitals because of its rising economic importance.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was a participant at the G20 summit in Toronto from June 26-27 but there were also thousands of people that protested Indian brutality in Kashmir. They joined tens of thousands of other people protesting the G20 summit and its anti-people agenda.

The fact that supporters of the struggle of the Kashmiri people were part of the massive demonstrations shows that the plight of the Kashmiris has not been forgotten even if it is largely ignored by the Indian-doting western media.

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