Investor Presentaiton
Raising the Stakes in Jammu and Kashmir
Crisis Group Asia Report N°310, 5 August 2020
IV. Militancy and Counter-insurgency
A.
Targeting Kashmir's Youth
Page 13
Several Kashmiri academics, journalists and other members of civil society believe
that security agencies' indiscriminate use of force against Kashmiri young men and
teenagers, including peaceful protesters and even innocent bystanders, has led rising
numbers of youth to participate in violent demonstrations or join militant organisa-
tions.66 In June 2020, Syed Tajamul Imran, a resident of southern Kashmir's Shopian
district, provided a striking example of this phenomenon, narrating his younger broth-
er's illegal detention and torture in custody. "It took him almost two months to get up
and walk on his own, while we saw the marks of a hot iron on his legs slowly begin to
heal", he wrote, adding that nearly two and a half years after the incident the police
"haven't proved or substantiated any claims at all against my brother". 67 After his
release, his brother joined a militant group and was soon killed in a gunfight.
68
Kashmiris born in the last 30 years have known nothing but Indian military oc-
cupation. Crackdowns, raids and arbitrary arrests have fuelled anger among the new
generation.69 Security personnel frequently pick up and detain young Kashmiris,
including teenagers and minors, using the Public Safety Act. Detention varies from a
few hours to a couple of years. When the High Court overrules detention orders, the
state often files new charges under the Act even before releasing detainees from
prison, ensuring that they remain in custody - a process known as "revolving door"
arrests. Authorities also regularly detain those whom they release again under new
warrants. A fact-finding team of Indian activists noted that hundreds of schoolchil-
dren and teenagers were "arbitrarily picked up" by police or paramilitary officers from
their homes in night raids and held in "illegal detention" in the weeks after 5 August;
children as young as eleven were beaten.70
A senior counter-insurgency police officer confessed that police had picked up
young men "for no reason" in the past, further acknowledging that police methods in
dealing with those suspected of militant sympathies could lead to trauma.7¹ Over the
last few years, the authorities have transferred most detainees to jails located outside
the state, fuelling popular resentment, as their families had no access to them and
sometimes no knowledge of where they were.72
66
Crisis Group interviews, Srinagar, May-June 2018. See also David Devdas, "Why ending corrup-
tion in Kashmir is a national security priority", The Quint, 9 June 2020; Khalid Shah, "Ideological
Shift, Public Support and Social Media: The 'New' in Kashmir's 'New Militancy", Observer Research
Foundation, 10 January 2020.
67
Syed Tajamul Imran, “On the securitisation of truth and facts: how I lost my brother", Inverse
Journal, 27 June 2020.
68 Ibid.
69
The state has increasingly used the Public Safety Act since the 2010 civilian unrest. See "Tyranny
of 'a Lawless Law"", Amnesty International, 12 June 2019.
70 "Kashmir Caged", 13 August 2019. Published by human rights activists following a fact-finding
mission to Kashmir from 9-13 August 2019.
71 Fahad Shah, "India's militant pipeline", Foreign Policy, 18 December 2019.
72 Devjyot Ghoshal, Fayaz Bukhari and Alasdair Pal, “The transported: Kashmiri prisoners sent far
from home", Reuters, 8 October 2019; "As Kashmir's blackout continues, they wait for word of their
son", Christian Science Monitor, 30 October 2019.View entire presentation