At one o’clock, he is behind the dusty shelves of the small shop he runs with his father. A few telephone calls and an hour later, he is walking through the streets of Srinagar’s Nowhatta district, two friends in tow. Wearing fashionable but scuffed shoes, turned-up dirty jeans, a ring on each finger and a checkered Arab-style scarf, Mehraan, 22 and already a veteran, knows where he is going: to the police checkpoint on the Gojwara Road.
“It’s going to be big. We’re under a lot of pressure, but it’s going to be big,” he says as he strides through narrow lanes, past food stalls and open drains full of human and animal waste.
Mehraan is a “stone-pelter,” as they are now known in the Indian part of Kashmir. For weeks now, it has been the same routine. An incident sparks a surge in demonstrations. There are injuries and finally a teenager is killed, hit by a teargas canister or shot. The demonstrations turn to riots, then repression brings a fragile calm. Until another cycle starts.
This week will see the first high-level official talks between India and Pakistan since the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008.
By the standards of Kashmir, where at least 50,000 people have died in a 20-year civil conflict, the current violence is relatively mild. Last week, after days of protests and curfews, police arrested scores of young men. Many more went underground. This was the “pressure” Mehraan had referred to.
So the rocks thrown by Mehraan and his friends have a wider resonance. Enemies of India claim the violent demonstrations reveal the iniquity of the “occupation” of Kashmir and the commitment of locals to independence or accession to Pakistan. Enemies of Pakistan dismiss men like Mehraan as being in the pay of politicians and Pakistani intelligence services.
Mehraan and his friends tell a different story, however. As he strode through the rundown Nowhata, collecting fellow stone-pelters as he went, the shopkeeper said he started attacking security forces when his cousin was shot dead two years ago. Then he was arrested and, he claims, tortured. Since then, he says, he has wanted two things: Azadi (freedom) and “blood for blood.”
Alongside him, a 14-year-old says he started a few weeks ago when his friend was killed, allegedly by security forces.
“These things happen and nothing is changed and then they happen again,” he said.
In fact, many things have changed in Kashmir in recent years. Though clashes between militants and security forces occur weekly — last week four extremists died in two incidents — a fragile peace has come. The resultant economic growth cannot satisfy the demands of a population of whom 62 percent are under 30 and about half are under 25 and unemployed. Drug abuse, suicides and psychological disorders are rife among the young.
“The reasons for the stone-pelting are mixed,” said Ali Mohammed Sagar, one of two parliamentary representatives from Nowhatta. “Sometimes it is genuine resentment at the government, sometimes it is just to have a bit of action after Friday prayers. Sometimes political groups and parties have egged on people. And unemployment is of course a serious problem.”
Another issue may be generational. Political leaders who were once firebrands are less vocal now, while a moderate local government was elected last year.
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