ISLAMABAD — A teenaged boy walks out of his house to answer the nature’s call in Shangus village. Masked men appear outside the toilet and almost take him away. In the adjoining Nowgam village, an ailing woman dies of a cardiac arrest when a rain of stones hit their house and unidentified men furiously knock the door. Masked men almost snatch the baby of a woman in Wuzur village but she raises an alarm and the wary abductors escape into the nearby forest. These are common stories of horror and helplessness narrated by the people in Kokernag, Dooru, Shangus and Qazigund areas in south Kashmir these days. Reminiscent of the mid-nineties when armed conflict was at its peak in Indian administered Kashmir and ordinary people became victims of violence almost on a daily basis, unknown persons who were popularly compared with mystical ghosts used to harass people at night by knocking doors and peeping through window openings. No one knows who the ‘ghosts’ were but they had managed to terrorize the entire population of Kashmir Valley. Police was of little help. Administration was missing. And the helpless people sought refuge in religion, so much so that sheep became votive offerings to ward off evil spirits. On Sunday, as a complete shutdown was observed in Kokernag village on second consecutive day against the abduction and rape attempt of a woman by unknown persons wearing combat uniforms, the stories of masked men appearing in the night to terrorize people became a talking point for many people. “We have been complaining to police about the harassment but they are not taking it seriously,” Ghulam Rasool Wani, Sarpanch of Zalangam, the native village of the victim woman, told Authint Mail. “In one of our neighbouring villages, a kid barely managed to save himself from the clutches of unknown persons when they tried to abduct him,” said Muhamad Ishaq Malik, a resident of Zalangam said. “I don’t know what our crime is and why we are being terrorised. The government should expose the invisible hands who are harassing the villagers,” he said. Many households in south Kashmir don’t have toilets built inside their houses. If people have to relieve themselves, they are forced to venture out of their houses which is when many cases of harassment by ‘ghosts’ have been reported. “These masked men have scared us so much that the people don’t go out during night. They have to wait till dawn breaks,” Abdul Rahim, a resident of Kokernag, said While the officials in Kashmir live in denial, the fears of the villagers turned into a nightmare in Nowgam village when an old woman died of a cardiac arrest. Unknown persons had pelted stones.... #Mir
Posted on: Mon, 07 Oct 2013 02:19:57 +0000
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