From Enslavement to Emancipation
By: Mudasir Ahmad / Younus Rashid
A Pall of gloom descended on Pulwama as well as the rest of the valley of Kashmir last Saturday when the tragic news of killings spread like wildfire. The loss of lives cannot be measured; it is indeed an irreparable loss for all of us and we must condemn every killing irrespective of the nature of it. After all human life is precious.
Many a dreams were buried and the respective families of the deceased will take ages to overcome the tragedies that have befallen them. The tragedy engulfed seven civilians who, nearly all of them, had specific roles to play for their families and would have grown to be fine gentlemen. One of the deceased- Abid- was an orphan and life had brought upto him many challenges at the early stage and he was left with the responsibility to look after his entire family. He was married to an Indonesian girl, what she would tell her family that her husband was killed when he had gone out only to get milk for his daughter!
Among the seven civilians, one of the deceased is believed to have been living in a tin shed, for god’s sake tell me what his parents will do now? The truth is that with these seven civilian seven families too have died right there, right then. How long will this continue, we are losing our youth to this mindless violence each passing day and there is no respite in sight.
It’s understood that in conflict zones there are guidelines that are to be followed whenever such insurgency take place. It seems firing indiscriminately on civilian has become the order of the day in Kashmir as similar incidents took place in Anantnag, Shopain and now in Pulwama.
While the government has turned stone cold to the miseries and tragedies of the masses here, people too seem to have submitted themselves to the clutches of death and destruction. If killings would have brought any changes anywhere in the world, the war torn Syria and Palestine would have been better places to live. The government will have to realize, better sooner than later, that keeping a nation muzzled and suppressed will never change the dimensions of the conflict and if anyone is seriously concerned about peace in the state of Jammu and Kashmir dialogue must be he/her first and last option. A nation is a nation by its people and not by the mere rhetoric’s and people of Kashmir have to realize that getting our young ones killed is ultimately going to haunt us in the long run.
