#Kashmir; Military operations and Reporting of Indian nationalist Media

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Mary Scully, Activist

Indian nationalist media has a canned formula for reporting the almost daily hunt to kill military operations in Kashmir. They all have inflammatory headlines about the number of ‘terrorists’ killed but the articles include few other details. As they report it, they amass a joint force of J&K police & army special forces of the 44 RR and CRPF after a tipoff that there are militants in the area. The gunfight only begins when a couple terrorists open fire on the troops.

This is a photo from the military operation today in Pinjura village in the Shopian district. One has to be careful not to confuse it with the military operation yesterday in Shopian. We don’t know if there were militants in the area or not since the operations are so frequent that it would suggest Kashmir is riddled with guerrilla forces when it is not. In fact, these operations include aggressive house to house searches rousing Kashmiri families from their sleep in the middle of the night to harass them.

That harassment is what these operations are about, not hunting down ‘terrorists’. They include razing homes & making civilians homeless (in the middle of a deadly pandemic, no less), killing livestock, killing civilians like little 13-year-old Basim Aijaz who burned to death a few weeks ago in the operation in Nawakadal, Srinagar.

Stand with Kashmiris and demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir. Go home, India, go home!
Photos Courtesy_ Kamran Yousuf