Although thousands of Kashmiri students and professionals living in various parts of the country constantly allege police “harassment” and a lingering suspicion towards them in the public mind, the mystery death of 23-year-old Irshad Ahmad Lone in Delhi has settled the debate for many, particularly with separatist outfits appealing for their mass return to the Valley. Additional pressure is being put by families back home, scared their sons and daughters might meet a fate similar to Lone’s.
The issue of police harassment of Kashmiri youths working and studying across the country has been personally raised by even Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. He had written to various chief ministers expressing his concern at every Kashmiri being viewed with suspicion.
“Being a Kashmiri is in itself a badnuma daag (blot),’’ Mir says from Karnal, where he works at Paramedical Health Society. “Whenever there is a problem, a violent incident or anything, we (Kashmiris) are the first to be picked up by the police. It has become normal for us. We always are the prime suspects... If you are a Kashmiri, you are not innocent till proven guilty. You are always guilty till proven innocent in the eyes of the police as well as public.”
Normally, Mir says, he wouldn’t let his family know about these everyday hiccups. “But after Lone’s killing, my mother is adamant. She is insisting that I return as soon as possible...I have put in my papers with a heavy heart. I don’t know what I will do in Kashmir. I feel I have wasted my seven years,” says Mir.
He adds that harassment is not new. “It happens with everyone of us. I had to hide that I am a Kashmiri and a Muslim from my landlord in Karnal. Otherwise they would have never rented me a room,’’ he says. However, he doesn’t blame the landlord. “They too are scared of police harassment.”
Mir claims to have faced similar harassment while studying at the Institute of Public Health and Hygiene in Delhi. “Once there was a fight between junior students and the college administration and three of us (Kashmiris) were among those who tried to intervene. Soon the police came looking for three Kashmiri ‘terrorists’. We were arrested and kept in lock-up for an entire day. We were lucky that the college administration came to our rescue. There is still an FIR lying against us in that police station,’’ Mir recollects.
It is not just place to stay that is difficult to find, he adds. They are unable to even make friends. “The moment people around us get to know we are Kashmiris, they avoid us. They do it to keep away from trouble,” he believes.
Mir says his friend Mohammad Abbas, who works as an opthalmologic technician in Delhi, too is planning to leave his job and return home, while acquaintance Inayat, who works in Delhi for a Kashmir-based handicrafts company, is packing his bags.
Mir gives the example of another Kashmiri living in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar colony. “His name is Suhail and he is financially well off. Police have been arresting him whenever there is any trouble anywhere in Delhi. They have beaten him up several times in lock-up.”
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