After school-children, stone-pelters are now targeting innocent tourists in Kashmir.

In a very tragic incident, a young tourist, Thirumani from Chennai, was killed by stone-pelters in Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti met family members of the departed soul. The vehicle in which he was travelling had come under heavy stone pelting at Narbal Bridge on Srinagar-Gulmarg road. Another tourist, Ritu Devi, also sustained head injuries in the attack. In another attack at the same spot in Narbal, a 19-year-old Kashmiri girl Sabreena from Handwara was injured when the group of stone pelters targeted passing vehicles.

The attack on the tourists has come just six days after a tourist bus was attacked by the stone-pelters in Anantnag district of South Kashmir. The irresponsible politicians, media and liberals sympathetic to these stone-pelters bear equal responsibility for the increasingly violent attacks. The usual outcry about ‘human rights’ is chanted by the media whenever the security forces adopt a tougher stance against the growing menace of stone pelting in Kashmir. Today, media’s fight for ‘human rights’ of inhumane stone-pelters has led to the death of a civilian completely uninvolved in the ongoing situation. A journalist has alleged that J&K CM, Mehbooba Mufti, harassed her colleague Saleem Pundit for reporting about stone-pelting attacks on tourists and filed an FIR against him. 

Mehbooba Mufti’s soft glove approach to the stone-pelters have come under heavy criticism after the attacks on civilians.She had withdrawn cases of stone-pelting against 9,730 people.  The Pakistan-separatist nexus has clearly upped the ante after the Modi government decided to go after the terrorism in the valley with a determined approach. The paid stone-pelters are not above targeting civilians as has been witnessed in recent events. They are targeting helpless and innocent civilians, tourists, school children, those who cannot retaliate unlike the security forces.

The attacks on civilians demonstrates the fallacy of supposed ideals of the stone-pelters. They are targeting innocent tourists who are source of bread and butter for thousands of Kashmiris.  To prevent these kinds of horrifying events happening again, the entire eco-system of stone-pelters including the sympathetic media, Pakistani proxies working in the valley and separatists inciting the mob of stone-pelters, need to be dealt with harshest possible means.  Arrests of separatists, clear regulation of pro-separatist media and treason charges on those financing the mob of stone-pelters, are some of the immediate actions required for curbing the menace of stone-pelting in Kashmir. In the long run, Article 370 needs to be repealed so that people from other states can settle in Kashmir.

Article 370 has done a huge damage to Kashmir in terms of limiting economic and industrial growth. Because of Article 370 there is no CAG, Lokpal, to  investigate corruption cases in Kashmir. Furthermore, people of Jammu and Kashmir are deprived of vigilance laws like RTI. Repealing of Article 370 would not only be economically beneficial for Kashmir but also help in the assimilation process with the rest of the country.

Pakistan cannot be allowed to dictate what goes on in a sovereign Indian territory. These stone-pelters are the supporter of terrorists and supporter of Pakistan and perpetuate the cycle of terrorism in the valley and they should be dealt accordingly.