Indian troops kill two more Kashmiris in Pulwama

ISLAMABAD/HELD SRINAGAR: The bloodshed in held Kashmir continued unabated on Tuesday as Indian occupation forces killed two more Kashmiri youths in a cordon and search operation in Pulwama.

The youths were killed by troops during a brutal operation in the Bandzoo area of the district, according to the Kashmir Media Service. Earlier, an Indian Central Reserve Police Force personnel was killed in an attack during an operation in the same area.

Occupation authorities blocked all entry and exit points of the area and also suspended mobile internet services. The operation was ongoing as the last reports came in. Meanwhile, as the world marked United Nations International Day of Widows on Tuesday, thousands of Kashmiri widows mourned the brutal killing of their husbands.

An independent summary of brutalities in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir reveals a data of over 95,000 killings of Kashmiris, 20,000 plus each widows and orphans, 6,000 mass graves and over 8,000 enforced disappearances.

The conflict has affected women and children more than any group or class, especially widows and orphans, writes sociologist Prof Bashir Ahmad Dabla in his book, the Social Impact of Militancy in Kashmir.

These survivors, Dabla argues, are the most hard-hit sufferers of the conflict living under grim conditions of economic destruction, educational backwardness, mass psychological depression, mental and physical health deterioration and dehumanisation of families. The United Nations Security Council has stressed the need to survey and compensate women in Jammu and Kashmir whose husbands have been killed or maimed. It also emphasises making the targeting of women a war crime.

Under India’s Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the military and police forces have unlimited and unquestionable powers to carry out operations. The army is authorised to raid homes and arrest Kashmiris without warrant, destroy homes and villages, and shoot and kill unarmed civilians.

Apart of widows in Kashmir, the decades of conflict have also produced many “half-widows” — whose husbands have been made to “disappear” but have not been declared deceased, hence the term half-widows.

Unaware of their husbands’ whereabouts, these women not only endure the grief that comes from being separated from their spouses, but are also constantly struggling to survive. Left on their own, these Kashmiri women have to make ends meet besides suffering from trauma and constant fear of being mistreated by the occupying forces that may hunt, torture, and rape women.