Separatist fight joins Kashmir teens in life, death скачать в хорошем качестве

Separatist fight joins Kashmir teens in life, death

(16 Jan 2019) On a sunny day in August, members of the Shalimar Football Club watched their 16-year-old captain, Saqib Bilal Sheikh, and 14-year-old goalkeeper, Mudassir Rashid Parray, walk off the soccer field towards a man on a motorcycle. The two boys were not seen again until months later, when they were returned to their Kashmiri hometown in body bags. On the evening of December 9, Indian troops surrounded a neighbourhood in the outskirts of Srinagar, Kashmir's main city, and cornered Mudassir, Saqib and a militant commander, leading to a fierce gunfight. As the battle raged, residents tried to march to the site, hurling stones at the troops to try to help the rebels escape the security cordon. Troops destroyed at least seven homes in the fighting, blasting them with explosives and shells. By the end of the night-long clash, the boys and the commander were dead. Saqib, who was famous among his friends for appearing as an extra in the Bollywood film "Haider", an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" set in Kashmir, grew up in a wealthy farming family, excelled at school and aspired to become an engineer. His mother Mehmooda said Saqib used to be a "typical teenager", playing games and dabbling in fashion. Saqib's notebooks, mathematics exercises, physics notes and poetry lie stacked in a corner of the two-story family home as a relative shows his photograph on a mobile phone. "My son had aspired to become an engineer, but his conscience didn't allow him and he left everything behind - his parents, his studies and his home", she said. "These boys don't tolerate oppression", she added. Anti-India unrest has been on the rise in the Himalayan border region since a popular and charismatic rebel leader was killed in a gunbattle with Indian troops in southern Kashmir in 2016. Police say since then, hundreds of young Kashmiris have joined rebel groups, leading to a surge in armed attacks on government troops and pro-India Kashmiri politicians in the region, which is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety. Indian authorities have responded by stepping up anti-rebel operations and cracking down on civilian protests, often responding to stone-pelting with live bullets. The conflict has intensified since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 amid rising attacks by Hindu hard-liners against minorities in the country, further deepening frustration with New Delhi's rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir. Conflict observers say that last year's death toll in the insurgency was the highest since 2009, including at least 260 militants, 160 civilians and 150 government forces. "Young people feel frustrated and they feel pushed to the wall", said Khurram Parvez, a programme coordinator for the Jammu-Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society. "They feel that the only way by which the government of India is going to listen to them is by coming out and joining militancy", he said. During armed confrontations, Indian soldiers are often engaged on two fronts. Increasingly, when soldiers approach suspected rebel hideouts, civilians barrage troops with stones while shouting anti-India slogans and sheltering the militants, even at the expense of their own lives. In the last two years alone, more than 120 civilians were killed and hundreds wounded during such confrontations. "It's not a moment for us to rejoice. We live in an environment of violence and violence begets violence", said Dilbagh Singh, the Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police. "Such losses should not be seen through the prism of success", he said. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...