‘The Dirty Secret’

Bilal Handoo

Emergence of 20,000 graves within four years after masses mobilised must have haunted Kashmir. It still does, even when dementia has taken over. But who can forget those scribes hunting for scoops in Delhi’s security offensive over valley, asserting (long back in 1993): “Kashmir is India’s dirty ugly secret”.

And the same “dirty secret” went on to devour several Burhans. The death trend hasn’t waned – though Delhi managed to filter a message through its ‘media monitoring methods’ that not all “dirty secret” in Kashmir is her brainchild. One of her oft-quoted arguments is: Kashmir’s gory theatre is packed with actors – “so stop looking at Delhi every damn time!”

People tend to doubt the argument when secret becomes mystery and ends up bleeding Kashmir’s ‘rebel town’. Deconstructing this radical shift seems a simple-complex riddle – the oxymoron of Kashmir’s bloody amphitheatre where a tender soul like Burhan is an unfortunate sob story.

But isn’t Sallahudin speaking the language of The Meadow authors, who already cleared smokescreen around many “mysterious” bloodlettings in valley? One doesn’t need sleuth account from Dulat-Doval duo to reckon Hizb chief’s “intelligence” remarks regarding resurgent ‘mystery’ killings. Let’s not bring Parrikar into the debate, although his self-imposed six month ‘media silence’ has left nothing unsaid.

What is unimaginable in valley’s security laboratory though is the vicious ‘resolve’ to train guns at buds?! Military mindsets might call it what they have been always calling it: collateral damage. But the bottom-line remains: those who pulled the trigger at Sopore only slaughtered innocence. And once innocence departs, savagery sets forth, consequently blurring the distinction between an auto driver and a militant.

When reporting the same savagery over valley in 1993, the scribes would say, “The white coffins of the martyrs of Kashmir are black spots on the face of world peace.” But while the world appears to have made a perfect peace with the unequal war, Kashmir is endlessly losing Burhans to the “dirty secret”!

from Kashmir Life http://ift.tt/1WsAmAh
via IFTTThttp://ift.tt/1iGhVXj