If pain, grief, atrocity, helplessness, anguish and cruelty had to be montaged in a graphic, the recent viral picture of a three-year-old toddler sitting on the blood suffused dead body of his gun shot grandfather would quite sum up in a single picture. That’s not just a picture with a thousand words. That’s a picture of seven decades. No amount of words and no lengths of condemnation can fathom the amount of misery and heart aching. The horrific photo hitting the internet went viral and in no time spread like wildfire resulting in shock, pain and anger around the world. The three-year-old toddler wailing and trying to wake his dead grandfather is not just another news story but a question to the world that how much more this brutality will continue in Indian Occupied Kashmir? The viral photo has drawn hatred and condemnation from around the world against the ruthless Indian forces and the fascist Indian government.
Bashir Ahmed Khan, a 65 years old man with by his three years old grandson en-route to their personal domestic errand of drawing cash from the bank in Sopore, was encountered by the brute forces. As per the eye witnesses, Bashir was dragged out of his car and shot dead in front of the 3-year-old, traumatized and stunned at the sudden catastrophe that hit his life. Unable to fully fathom the enormity of his grandfather’s dead body lying lifeless submerged in his blood, the child who was made witness to the traumatic murder, wailed helplessly and tried in vain to wake him up. Making the child sit on the corpse of his grandfather and photographing the misery, the troopers exhibited their dejected ethics by making the mockery out of desolation.
The incident in Sopore sparked an outrage in the already beset reality of the Indian Occupied Kashmir. On 1st July, 2020 thousands of Kashmiris gathered to stage a protest against the killing of the innocent senior man. Despite the lockdown imposed for over 11 months and tightened in wake of Covid-19 restrictions, thousands of Kashmiris assembled at the funeral of Bashir Ahmed to offer his final rituals. As his body was laid to rest, the Valley was once again resonated with the chants of “We want freedom” – a slogan that has never died down for the past seven decades. The slogan for freedom never seized to reverberate in the occupied Valley since 1948 and the fire of freedom still kindles in the hearts of Kashmiris.
The Hindutva-led Indian government and fascist leadership of Modi has unleashed the intrepid victimization of Kashmiris
As per the daughter of Bashir Ahmed, her father had gone to the bank to draw a cheque. On his way he was dragged out of his car and then shot in cold blood. She said her father was killed ruthlessly in front of a 3-year-old child escorting him, without caring for the little soul. She asked in despair, “Who shoots a person in front of a 3-year kid?”. The victim’s wife stated that her grandson was deliberately made to sit on the corpse of her husband after he was shot dead. Nazir Ahmad, the brother of elderly victim, while talking to a correspondent, said, “My brother was not a militant. He did not carry a gun. Why was he killed?”
Indian media and Indian government are trying to brush the accusation off their shoulder by claiming him to be collateral damage killed during crossfire. Bashir Ahmed’s son, Sohail told Al-Jazeera, “When we reached Sopore, we were told he was killed in crossfire. If it was crossfire, his body should’ve been inside the car, but it was found on the road.” The car of Bashir remains unharmed and scratches-less repudiating the unsubstantiated pretext for the death of the civilian at the hands of the Indian security forces claiming it to be an ill-fated casualty during a shootout. The family members of Bashir Ahmed outwardly blamed the security forces of placing the child on the lifeless blood bathed body of his grandfather, amid the child’s crying and wailing, “for taking pictures”.
Pakistan Prime Minister’s office issued a statement on twitter following the Sopore incident, saying: “The brutal murder of a Kashmiri grandfather in front of his 3-year-old grandchild shook the world today. For the world, this might be the first time to witness such barbarism of Indian army but this is everyday victimization that Kashmiris suffer”. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that the image of the three-year-old sitting on his grandfather’s “lifeless, bullet-ridden body” exposed the real face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “fascist India” Leader of opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif also condemned the killing. In a tweet, he said: “Widespread human rights abuses by fascist Modi government constitute an acid test for the international community.”
Indian violence is not new to Kashmiris. IOK has suffered the intense venom of ethnic cleansing and racism for decades. Striving for their right of self-determination and a dream of attaining freedom from the illegal occupation of India and the atrocity of Indian army, the Kashmiris have suffered to extremes at the hands of Indian occupation forces. Hundreds of children and youth suffered from palette gun injuries with permanent damage to their eyes. The Indian brutes can blind the eye of the men, women and children of Kashmir but they cannot snatch the dream of freedom from Kashmiris. Be it Asrar Ahmed, an 11th grader dying or a 19-month-old Hiba losing her right eye to the evil of palette gun, the list of the precious lives agonized and traumatized at the hands of Indian forces is in thousands. Hundreds of women have been raped.
Since the revoke of the special status of Indian Occupied Kashmir in August 2019, the whole valley of Kashmir has been a massive prison with the longest of curfew and lockdown imposed on the Kashmiris with complete communication blackout and suppressing freedom of speech. During the time, hundreds of Kashmiri youth were arrested and tortured with electric shocks and cruelty unimaginable. Gradually the lockdown is being relaxed but the suffering of Kashmiris continues.
Pakistan stays behind the Kashmiris and fights on diplomatic fronts to highlight the issue on international forums. India has time and again violated the Human Rights in Kashmir and literally thrown out the UN Charter, giving Kashmiris the right to self-determination. The Hindutva-led Indian government and fascist leadership of Modi has unleashed the intrepid victimization of Kashmiris. By annulling the special status and deliberately concocting conducts and dispensing domiciles to non-Kashmiris to regress the status of Muslims in Kashmir as the majority.
It is about time that the world wakes up to the call of the suffering of Kashmiris. As the mantra of world goes these days, “Kashmiri lives matter”. The anguish and pain of a 3-year-old boy put through a horrific incident and yet mocked to be photographed in such a horrific manner is not only a staggering shocker to the world but it also exhibits the true face of India today. This may be new to the world, but the Kashmiris in IOK are living through a troubled barbarism and state terrorism every day. It is their normal to be terrorised and violated at the hands of Indians. However, the picture with the illimitable words poses a question that how much more brutality and vandalism the Kashmiris will have to endure till their voices are heard?
The writer is freelance columnist