The Supreme Court of India, on Friday, ordered state governments to ensure protection to Kashmiris facing threats and violence after a terror attack killed 40 Indian policemen in Indian-held Kashmir last week.
State governments and police chiefs were also asked to take action against plans to attack, threaten or socially boycott Kashmiris living in India in the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack. The Indian court was hearing a petition filed by two activists seeking official action. The petitioners cried, “Immediately after the attack, mobs and vigilante groups engaged in vitriolic hate speech and began attacking, and threatening Muslims and Kashmiris throughout the country.” Kashmir Traders and Manufacturers Federation President, Mohammad Yasin Khan, also talked of threats of violence, which had led to 300 students in Uttarakhand alone moving back to Kashmir.
Incidents of assaults and harassments of Kashmiris are being reported from across the country. More than 700 Kashmiri students, workers and traders have returned to the Himalayan region over fears of retaliation from Hindu fundamentalists. Video footage of violence against Kashmiris is making rounds on social media. Further, right-wing Hindu groups and even some television personalities are waging calls for violence to avenge the terror attack.
Several Kashmiri students have been arrested and suspended from their universities over alleged anti-national comments on social media across India.
On Friday, Kashmiri traders’ associations demonstrated a shutdown of shops and stores in Indian-held Kashmir as a protest against the “continuing threats and intimidation” of Kashmiris in Indian cities.
The suicide attack on February 14 was claimed by a terrorist organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and has chilled the long frosty relations between Pakistan and India. The United Nations Security Council condemned the attack on Thursday in the strongest terms. New Delhi is using the incident to once again accuse its neighbour of supporting terrorist organisations on its soil as well as fuelling anti-Indian sentiments in the occupied Kashmir. Pakistan continues to deny these charges. The onset of general polls in India seems to have taken a toll on its prime minister Narendra Modi, who is forced to take a tough stand on the attack. He has vowed that the militants would pay a heavy price for the attack in Pulwama. Prime Minister Imran Khan has, in turn, said that his country would not think but retaliate if attacked. According to information released by Indian police, an army raid in Sopore, about 51 km west of Srinagar city in Indian-held Kashmir, killed one alleged militant on Friday.
Published in Daily Times, February 23rd 2019.
