Jammu:
Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said he is ready to release all the arrested stone pelters of the Valley if the elders and members of local mosque committees come forward and give an assurance that all the released men will not resort to stone pelting.
"I am ready to release all the arrested stone pelters but I can't go by their assurance. I want that the elders of their localities to meet the SHO of the local police stations and give them an assurance that they will stop their youth from resorting to stone pelting. They must say that they are taking responsibility and say that such things won't be repeated. I will ask the police to release the stone pelters. But only after an assurance, he said.
This month alone, more than 50 policemen and as many civilians have been injured in clashes with stone-pelters.
For the police and the military, this is a new challenge: how to deal with seemingly unarmed and unorganised young attackers, and their unconventional warfare?
The government alleges that the stone-pelters are being financed and guided by Pakistan. ''It's not as if all the stone pelting, that takes place, takes place on ideological grounds. We have sufficient evidence and more is being collected as we speak that there is a deep sort of pattern of the involvement of money, of developing and generating these sort of law and order situations,'' Omar Abdullah had said earlier.
In a mammoth crackdown, in the last month, more than 100 separatists and stone-pelters have been arrested under the Public Safety Act - an Act that provides for two years of imprisonment without trial.
It is in this atmosphere charged with hostility that 16-year-old Zahid Farooq and his friends were jeering at a Border Security Force convoy earlier this month. A jawan allegedly shot Zahid.
A week before that, 13-year-old Wamik Farooq was part of a mob, allegedly stoning the police, when he was killed by a tear gas shell. Now the police have booked the dead student for attempt to murder - a decision that has grossly backfired.
''Now the government will face it. It is forcing us to come on the streets," says Wamik's father, Farooq Ahmad.
Omar Abdullah has been grappling with the issue of human rights violations since he came to power in January 2009.
A fresh cycle of stone-pelting and violence in the Valley couldn't come at a worse time. The Opposition is already gunning for him.
''There has been a policy of bullet for bullet, but for the first time the state has adopted a policy of bullet for stone, which is unheard of, and it is alienating and angering the Kashmiri youth even more,'' says Mehbooba Mufi, People's Democratic Party Chief.
On the streets where they operate, the stone-pelters have a questionable reputation.
Other critics say that they posture as unarmed helpless people trying to oppose subjugation, but their violence is calculated.
But pro-separatists call stone-pelting a new face of resistance against New Delhi.
Ironically, the most visible support has come from the High Court Bar Association. ''They are resistance forces. Don't give them any other name. We at the Bar Association convened a meeting of all separatist parties wherein a resolution was passed that the word stone pelters has been coined by the government," says Ghulam Nabi Shaheen, the General Secretary, High Court Bar Association.
"I am ready to release all the arrested stone pelters but I can't go by their assurance. I want that the elders of their localities to meet the SHO of the local police stations and give them an assurance that they will stop their youth from resorting to stone pelting. They must say that they are taking responsibility and say that such things won't be repeated. I will ask the police to release the stone pelters. But only after an assurance, he said.
This month alone, more than 50 policemen and as many civilians have been injured in clashes with stone-pelters.
For the police and the military, this is a new challenge: how to deal with seemingly unarmed and unorganised young attackers, and their unconventional warfare?
The government alleges that the stone-pelters are being financed and guided by Pakistan. ''It's not as if all the stone pelting, that takes place, takes place on ideological grounds. We have sufficient evidence and more is being collected as we speak that there is a deep sort of pattern of the involvement of money, of developing and generating these sort of law and order situations,'' Omar Abdullah had said earlier.
In a mammoth crackdown, in the last month, more than 100 separatists and stone-pelters have been arrested under the Public Safety Act - an Act that provides for two years of imprisonment without trial.
It is in this atmosphere charged with hostility that 16-year-old Zahid Farooq and his friends were jeering at a Border Security Force convoy earlier this month. A jawan allegedly shot Zahid.
A week before that, 13-year-old Wamik Farooq was part of a mob, allegedly stoning the police, when he was killed by a tear gas shell. Now the police have booked the dead student for attempt to murder - a decision that has grossly backfired.
''Now the government will face it. It is forcing us to come on the streets," says Wamik's father, Farooq Ahmad.
Omar Abdullah has been grappling with the issue of human rights violations since he came to power in January 2009.
A fresh cycle of stone-pelting and violence in the Valley couldn't come at a worse time. The Opposition is already gunning for him.
''There has been a policy of bullet for bullet, but for the first time the state has adopted a policy of bullet for stone, which is unheard of, and it is alienating and angering the Kashmiri youth even more,'' says Mehbooba Mufi, People's Democratic Party Chief.
On the streets where they operate, the stone-pelters have a questionable reputation.
Other critics say that they posture as unarmed helpless people trying to oppose subjugation, but their violence is calculated.
But pro-separatists call stone-pelting a new face of resistance against New Delhi.
Ironically, the most visible support has come from the High Court Bar Association. ''They are resistance forces. Don't give them any other name. We at the Bar Association convened a meeting of all separatist parties wherein a resolution was passed that the word stone pelters has been coined by the government," says Ghulam Nabi Shaheen, the General Secretary, High Court Bar Association.
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