Kashmir: The Valley's Terror.

Often termed as the crown of the nation. Kashmir has undoubtedly stood out as an epitome of natural bounty and has served many tourists an eye catching experience till date.

But unfortunately the tales of this beautiful valley remains only in the books. The Kashmir of my dreams has become a reality of nightmares.

The infamous kashmiri insurgency that began as a catalyst in 1989 for a much wider form of internal terrorism, still has it's impact in red and white. The basic understanding of the insurgency highlights the strong conflict between Government of India and various Kashmiri separatist groups, like Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizbul Mujahideen, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front etc.

All these different insurgents, rather militants have separate ideologies, while Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front(JKLF) had a popular slogan “Kashmir banega khudmukhtar”, Hizbul Mujahideen(HM) insisted on “Kashmir banega Pakistan”. Although the ideas on a tertiary level seem different, the grass root idea of both of them was to protest against the Indian government.

To establish themselves in the valley, various strikes, protests and attacks were held. The attacks turned more and more violent with bombings and mass killings of Kashmiri pandits.

Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan was responsible for the large supply of arms and training of these militants. The separatists drove people to themselves with a strong idea of religion which ignited mostly the youth and children.

To counter this explosive outburst, the Indian Government applied Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). The AFSPA resulted in a mass casualty of not just the terrorists but also a large number of civilians.

As a result a suppression from India and support from Pakistan, made the situation more and more chaotic. Things turned to take a worse stand with the fidayeen phase which aimed on bombing Indian security establishments and killings of government officials.

Although the power and impact of HM and other such groups are slowly fading away and the insurgents have taken a low profile, peace in Kashmir has not yet been restored.

In 2008, the valley witnessed a new wave of protest, instead of Kalashnikovs and Grenades, these protesters use stone. The stone pelters started out their procession against the Indian Army back in 2008 and have still had their ways going on up to this day. These teenage and adult boys have just one loud shout out “AAZADI”.

All the process have left almost 1000 civilians killed while other 1000 were severely injured.

To look at matter on a more psychological way, we realize how sandwiched the locals have become between the selfish desires of two countries. Nobody has talked about democratic development of the people. The youth has started experimenting their own aggressive ways to possibly “mend” their political scenario. There have been so many incidences of Human Rights Violations, that the youth instead of leading us to unprecedented development is highly dissatisfied, demotivated and frustrated, they're driven by emotions. The situation gets worse with the availability of arms. There is absolutely zero employment opportunities in the valley for the young people. The fact is that when we talk about disciplining these young men and women, we forget how much repression we have caused once upon a time.

The crown of a Nation is not just an embellishment of flowers and rivers. But it also deserves care and sensitivity. A crown is precious, and it deserves to be protected.