Damned If You Do, And Damned if You Don't: - Plight of Kashmiris

SRINAGAR: Tears and wails rent the air after shopkeeper Ghulam Ahmad Mir was shot dead by by militants outside his shop at Parimpora in Srinagar. His crime: keeping the shop open. A reminder of the days of violence in the early 1990’s when the security forces went on a rampage and the terrorists from across the border at the time sought to buy loyalties with guns. The common Kashmiris, locked up in their homes, are living in sheer terror and fear with the paramilitary and Army cordoning off select areas in the early hours of the morning, storming into homes, and taking away able bodied youths without explanation. “Night time is the worse,” said a young man in Srinagar, “ some of us are having panic attacks as we can barely sleep expecting them to enter our homes.”

BASIT ZARGAR visits Mir’s home after his death to find his family completely distraught and terrified. Terror that has spread across the market, making all hesitant now to open their shops: