fIn yet another gory act of state terrorism, Indian security personnel last week killed nine Kashmiris in a single day in southern Kulgam district of Indian-held Kashmir. The mutilated bodies of the innocent Kashmiris clearly depicted the use of chemicals by Indian forces in ammunitions they employed to deal with freedom-seekers engaged in a legitimate struggle for self-determination. Islamabad has repeatedly asked New Delhi to stop their shameful butchery in the occupied valley aimed at crushing the freedom movement, besides urging the United Nations to conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the use of chemical weapons by Indian forces in the region. These terror scenes have been a routine feature of the lives of people in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) since October 27, 1947 – the day the state of Jammu & Kashmir was turned into a prison by the Indian occupation forces. Since the very day, unarmed Kashmiris, including men, women, school-going boys and girls, and aged people are being subjected to humiliation and disgrace by the Indian military personnel merely for being Muslim Kashmiris. In such a situation, retaliation from the crushed and incessantly mortified local Kashmiris was inevitable, but there was no comparison between the men in armour wielding automatic firearms and those with stones and slogans as their only weapon. The freedom struggle, however, experienced a paradigm shift in July 2016 when young Burhan Wani was shot dead by the Indian forces. Wani was loved and adored by everyone, and his martyrdom infused a new life into the freedom movement which saw more than 100 innocent Kashmiris laying their lives for the cause in the subsequent weeks of protests. The ongoing intifada in IHK is in fact a natural and indigenous reprisal from the suppressed Kashmiris who are now fully prepared to sacrifice everything to liberate themselves from the tyrannical suppression of Indian usurpers. The list of atrocities on the hapless Kashmiris is very long. Since beginning of the recent uprising, Kashmiris have feverishly been demanding an end to India’s illegitimate rule spanned over 70 long and bloody years. A few news items or video clips appearing now and then on social media are hardly able to divulge the intensity of atrocities being inflicted by the Indian forces on Kashmiris. To prevent horrific accounts of their carnage from becoming public, India has restricted entry of independent journalists, human rights organisations as well as tourists into the valley since long. Although the latest reports by OHCHR and UNHRC (United Nation’s human rights observers) on Indian cruelties in IHK have attempted to create a ripple of empathy within the comity of nations yet not a slightest change is expected in India’s highhandedness against the unarmed Kashmiri protesters in the days ahead. An impartial investigation over the extra-judicial killings and use of chemical weapons in IHK would also transpire that the ‘game of death’ is being played through vicious free-hand and immunity afforded to the Indian military personnel under Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Since October 1947, the amount of torture, killings and rapes perpetrated on Kashmiri people by the Indian military personnel has already set a new record of violence – leaving the Nazis far behind. Daily episodes on gashing of eyes, chopping-off vital body parts, and use of ever-new methods of persecution during unending curfews would have surely embarrassed Hitler’s death squads and gas chambers for being too soft in contrast to India’s state-sponsored butchery in the IHK. Every new day in the occupied valley witnesses the Indian army’s devilish acts of gang rapes, burning of the agitators alive, torching of villages and crops, destruction of businesses and economic life. In fact, a complete genocide of the Kashmiri people is in progress in utter defiance of the international human rights laws. Despite being painfully quiet, the world at large knows that people in Kashmir have undeservedly been pushed to the wall. However, the highly alienated western media is pleased to look the other way – in exactly the same fashion they conduct themselves with respect to human sufferings in Palestine at the hands of Israel. By observing 27 October every year as Black Day, the Kashmiris all over the world remind themselves of the day when their freedom was treacherously seized by the Indian occupation forces in 1947. Since the start of ongoing uprising in Kashmir, thousands of young freedom-seekers have been brutally tortured and extra-judicially killed during forced disappearances or illegal custody by the Indian military enjoying total impunity under AFSPA. Having been subjected to worst inhuman experiences over the years, the people of Kashmir have developed a firm belief that ‘now there is no looking back’. The annual observance of October 27 as Black Day expresses a strong and unflinching resolve by the Kashmiris that their crave for freedom from Indian subjugation would never diminish, rather it will increase with every passing day and with each new act of the Indian cruelty in the valley. Published in Daily Times, October 26th 2018.