This Kashmiri human rights defender blames this political party for the unravelling security situation in his state.
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00:00Because of last five years of the BJP rule, we have seen escalation in violence, we have
00:17seen that the approach of the Indian government has become more militaristic.
00:47I was arrested in 2016 and I was detained for two and a half months under the Public
01:00Safety Act, a preventive detention law.
01:02Similarly, also in the past, I was targeted, a car was attacked by a bomb blast, my other
01:10colleagues were attacked, detained, maligned, accused and there are cases filed against
01:16us.
01:17India also accuses us of being pro-Pakistan or pro-militant, but these accusations we
01:28have lived with, there are also people who accuse us of being pro-India, when we make
01:36militants accountable for their crimes.
01:38Working in a conflict area like Jammu and Kashmir, which is the highest militarized
01:42zone of the world, where there are more than 650,000 Indian soldiers and different agencies,
01:48it is unnatural that the work which we as human rights organizations are doing will
01:53be criticized by those who are involved in any kind of aggression or are involved in
01:59perpetrating human rights violations against the people.
02:09I was 13 years old and there was a protest demonstration against the molestation of few
02:18women in Srinagar.
02:19There was firing by the armed forces on the protesters and around 50 people were killed,
02:26that included my grandfather, Ali Muhammad Mir.
02:29So, at the age of 13, when someone so close in your family and who was an inspiration
02:36for me, when someone like that gets killed, it is impossible to not be affected and think
02:42about it.
02:43So, that actually was the first provocation push for me to begin thinking about the political
02:49movement in Kashmir.
02:55So, there is not even a single case where any armed forces personnel has been prosecuted
02:59for any crime which they have perpetrated in Jammu and Kashmir in the last 30 years.
03:04The reason why the government of India is not allowing process of justice is because
03:08they feel that if they deliver justice, they will demoralize the soldiers.
03:13And therefore, they are at an institutional level making a false narrative in the international
03:21arena and claiming that there are no human rights violations taking place at the hands
03:25of the Indian armed forces.
03:28India claims that it is a local law and order problem, but the reality is that there is
03:37a war unleashed against the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
03:40Every day someone gets killed, every day people are arrested, abducted, disappearances, torture
03:46is a routine in Jammu and Kashmir.
03:48The situation to a certain extent was improving in between because there was some amount of
03:54dialogue going on between India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri leaders.
03:57But because of last five years of the BJP rule, we have seen escalation in violence,
04:03we have seen that the approach of the Indian government has become more militaristic.
04:07It had never been non-militaristic, it has never been political.
04:11The approach of government of India has always been militaristic, but the recent BJP rule
04:16has made it far worse.
04:18And what has happened is that the number of killings has increased, civilians have been
04:22targeted when they were involved in peaceful unarmed protests.
04:39So far, according to the statistics provided by the government, there have been around
04:44209 Kashmiri pundits who have been killed, there were many others who were injured, and
04:50also they had to migrate from Kashmir under very difficult circumstances.
04:55And in this migration, they have continued to suffer since then, wherever they are living.
05:00And we have been demanding that there should be fair, credible investigations to fix the
05:07responsibility of all those who were involved in persecuting Kashmiri pundits.
05:11But the unfortunate thing in Jammu and Kashmir is that the persecution or the pain of one
05:18community is used against the other community's pain.
05:21The reality is that everyone in Kashmir has suffered, including Kashmiri pundits, and
05:25there has to be fair, credible investigation of all kinds, whether they were perpetrated
05:30against Kashmiri pundits, whether they were perpetrated against Kashmiri Muslims.
05:34The government of India is in no mood to allow any political space in Jammu and Kashmir.
05:50Young boys pelt stones, and when they pelt stones, the government of India either uses
05:55live ammunition or the so-called non-lethal weapons.
05:59They have continued to use, since 2010, the pellet guns.
06:03They claim that these are non-lethal weapons, but we know for sure now, the government has
06:08also admitted that since 2016, around 18 people have lost their lives because of the use of
06:14the pellet shotguns.
06:15So, these pellet shotguns are a horrible weapon.
06:18We have seen that thousands of young people have been injured because of these pellet
06:23shotguns, and there are more than 100 people who have lost their eyesight because of the
06:29use of the pellet shotguns.
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