Security Forces Injure Citizens in Srinagar Attacks

Courtesy of Yawar Kabli Men injured during the Wednesday attack on a police camp in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, being treated at a government hospital.

SRINAGAR, Kashmirâ€" Four Kashmiri youths said they were brutally attacked by government security forces on Wednesday after militants started firing at a Central Reserve Police Force base.

Lying in adjacent beds at a government hospital, the young men, who asked their full names not be disclosed because they feared retaliation by the authorities, said soldiers with the Central Reserve Police Force began shooting wildly after militants attacked the camp.

“I had gone to buy groceries and heard a bang, but did not know what it was,” Suhail, 21, said between wheezing gasps for air, as he was recovering from a pierced lung. “I laid on the ground to protect myself. Then a C.R.P.F. soldier nearby shot me while I was face down on the street,” he said, referring to the government paramilitary group.

The doctor translating for Mr. Suhail said the wounds on his chest, back, hips and arms were from a gun shot at close range.

Eyewitnesses said the militants hid their weapons in sports bags and mingled with young people entering the cricket field inside the paramilitary base, making it difficult for the soldiers to identify the attackers.

“Our intention was to deal with the law-and-order situation,” said a soldier from the C.R.P.F., who asked his name not be used because he’s not authorized to speak to the media.

The inspector general of the C.R.P.F. for Kashmir said militants shot the civilia! ns, not the security forces.

“We lost five of our men because we showed restraint due to the civilians in the area,” said V.S. Yadav. “If we fired indiscriminately, there would have been many more civilian casualties.”

European Pressphoto Agency Indian paramilitary personnel carrying a soldier wounded during an attack on a police camp in Srinagar on Wednesday.

But for many Kashmiris, schooled in over 20 years of conflict between India and Pakistan over who lays claim to Kashmir, the crackdown by the authorities is another reminder of the security forces’ heavy-handed reign in the region.

Mudasir, a 3-year-old businessman, was playing cricket on Wednesday when he was hit in the ankle by a shotgun pellet, which sent him to the hospital. He said the C.R.P.F. should have used more caution in their response to the militants’ attack.

“I was carrying a cricket bat, not a gun. Were the C.R.P.F. not transferring their anger about the militants on to local civilians” he said.

In the future, he said, he’s worried the security forces will “do an ethnic cleansing and shoot us one by one.”

After the attack on the base, Altaf Ahmed Wani, the breadwinner of his family and the father of three young girls, was shot and killed in another part of Srinagar. Mr. Yadav said Mr. Wani was shot after a mob began throwing rocks at the ambulance carrying one of the wounded C.R.P.F. soldiers to the hospital.

“We were encircled and had to resort to the use of firearms,” said Mr. Yadav. “My men were concerned about their safety and the survival of our injured soldier.”

Local newspapers and other media reports said that Mr. Wani was not throwing stones and that a patroller in a passing paramilitary vehicle shot him.

A young doctor, who asked not to be identified because she was not authorized to speak to the media, said her hospital was ransacked by an angry mob of Kashmiris who gathered to pick up Mr. Wani’s body.

“If some innocent person is shot dead on the road, anyone will get disturbed and agitated,” she said.

Since the Feb. 9 hanging of Muhammad Afzal, a Kashmiri who had been sentenced to death for his role in an attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, tensions in the region are once again on the boil. In the last few weeks, several Kashmiris have been killed in clashes with security forces, with many injured on both sides.

That has led to an increased police and paramilitary force presence in some areas. After opening fire on unarmed protesters in 2010, the government tried to improve crowd control tactics by equipping police and security forces with less lethal weapons like bamboo poles and tear gas.

The road the paramilitary camp is on is a vital thoroughfare for security forces in Srinagar to connect with other areas of Kashmir. It’s also a hotspot for stone throwers, a popular form of protest in Kashmir.

Several hours after the attack on Wednesday, young men, who on a less tense day would be pelting stones, talked in small groups. Many said they were not sympathetic about the security forces’ deaths.

“So many days Kashmiris are suffering from the C.R.P.F.,” said Asif! , 21, who! did not want his full name used because he feared being picked up by security forces. He recounted how alarmed his family was when they heard the shots being fired and saw the swells of security forces gather in front of their house. “Many of my friends and neighbors have been killed or injured by their bullets. Why should I care that some of them died”

With nearly 600,000 security personnel, Kashmir remains one of the most militarized places on the planet â€" a situation that many in the region compare to living in a giant jail. Since the conflict began in 1989, over 50,000 people, mostly civilians have been killed. Though the situation has improved in the last decade, the summers of 2008, 2009, and 2010 saw thousands of unarmed protesters come out on the streets. Hundreds of Kashmiris, mostly young men, were killed in ensuing clashes with security forces.

A young emergency room doctor who has treated wounded Kashmiris brought into his medical facility said the patients who actually come t the hospital are just the tip of the iceberg.

“You are not seeing what lies beneath,” the doctor, who asked that he remain anonymous because he feared that he may be interrogated by the authorities. “Many injured people don’t go to the doctor out of fear of being picked up by police.”

The constant strikes and protests in Kashmir make life for doctors especially difficult. Just getting to the hospital to treat patients without being beaten by security forces or protesters is challenging, they said.

“Doctors in Kashmir are living in such a difficult situation between security forces and people fighting against them,” said Dr. Asim Shamim Zaz, the casualty medical officer at the government hospital where the four injured Kashmiris were treated on Wednesday.

Dr. Zaz said most of the medical treatment for Suhail, whose lung was pierced during the latest shooting, is free.

“This boy was just lying on the road, not bothering anyone, when he was shot. How can we! make his! family pay for his expensive medical treatment” he said.

Some Kashmiris warned that Wednesday’s attack is a precursor to what will be a turbulent summer, but Mudasir, the Kashmiri who was shot in the ankle, disagreed.

“So many innocent lives were lost and young people jailed during those summers,” he said. “No mother wants her son dead, so they try to keep them in. Also, if the state thinks anything will go wrong, they just shut down the entire area.”