As a paranoid Pakistan fuels separatism in Kashmir like never before, a video war broke out between India and the pro-Pakistani deep state. The video of an armed CRPF Jawan maintaining his poise as he was abused physically and verbally by Pakistani mercenaries in the valley, caused widespread furor across India. Almost immediately, the video of a Pakistani mercenary tied to an Indian army jeep emerged, with the allegation that he was being used as a human shield. We should have known better right from the beginning. After observing how a particular class of Indians function, we should have expected such a counter, and we should have known that it would be outright fraudulent.
The video, or rather a select portion of it, was tweeted by former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah. Almost immediately, the entire liberal cartel of India, often referred to as the Award Wapsi Gang or the Aazaadi League, sprang into action. This coterie of politicians, news-traders and self-proclaimed intellectuals had either been conspicuously silent about the Jawan who was assaulted, or had avoided the issue altogether with a token tweet or two. But now they began their anti-army rants, they started quoting sections of the Geneva Convention, and they even peddled stories about how the human shield was a peaceful shopkeeper. This was reminiscent of the infamous ‘headmaster’s son’ comment. The absurdity of finding a peaceful shopkeeper in the middle of a violent conflict involving several hundred people, was lost on them. Or so they pretended.
Kashmir has a history of standing up against Pakistan’s agents. Election after election, the people of the valley come out to vote in large numbers, in defiance of the separatists’ calls to boycott the Indian electoral process. However this time around, as the by-election for the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency was on, Pakistan’s agents decided to take matters into their own hands and make a failure of these elections. Prominent politicians were threatened to keep out of the electoral process (this was caught on tape), stone-pelters and terrorists were unleashed on the streets forcing people to remain indoors. The elections had to be postponed, seven lives were lost in the process, and the final turnout was less than six and a half percent. Interestingly, Omar Abdullah’s father Farook Abdullah was elected as Srinagar’s new member of parliament.
During the elections, one of the polling booths at Budgam was attacked by Pakistani mercenaries. Nine security personnel, belonging to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Jammu and Kashmir Police were guarding this booth. The attackers were eight-hundred strong. They had stones in their hands, and they surrounded the booth. They threatened to lynch the nine security personnel to death. Realizing there was no way out, one of the ITBP jawans sent an SOS message to the army. A quick-response team was rushed off to the polling booth in two vehicles. Upon reaching, the commander realized that the mob was too big even for his team to handle. Not wanting to fire at the stone-pelters, they managed to get hold of one of them and tied him up to their jeep. They proceeded towards the polling booth as the helpless stone-pelters watched, and rescued the nine personnel successfully.
The hypocrisy of those invoking the Geneva Convention is disgusting.
Not only did the commander’s presence of mind save the nine security personnel whom the mob would have murdered, Pakistan’s agents were saved as well because there was no need for the army to open fire. The stone-pelters did not dare to throw stones at the convoy fearing that they would injure one of their own, thereby ensuring the forces’ safety, and consequently their own safety. It is clear now that those invoking the Geneva Convention do not care about protecting people, which is the basis of this document, but seek to further their own narrative. Or rather, Pakistan’s narrative.
The video Omar Abdullah tweeted seemed to be a carefully selected portion. Without providing any context, the video simply projected the Indian army in a bad light.
Moreover, the video seemed to be captured or edited in a way that completely disregarded the mob of paid stone-pelters. Considering this happened at a polling station and Omar’s father was the winning candidate of the election, he should have been better informed. One can only hope that this was a case of being ill-informed, and that there was no foul play.
The state police has begun an inquiry into how and why the Pakistani mercenary was used as a human shield. India must put aside technicalities which have cropped up due to certain ulterior motives, and acknowledge that the commander in question took the right call, saving several lives in the process.