Shah Hilal
ISLAMABAD
Early on Monday, when people were yet to come out of their homes, the “uninvited guests” arrived in South Kashmir’s Bijbehara area.
Locals of Pazalpora while showing the damages done by men in uniform said, “it was completely unprovoked”.
“It was around 9:30 AM,” said an elderly wishing not be identified for fear of repression, “police and CRPF men came and started damaging vehicles and then residential houses.”
While one enters Pazalpora village, a warning sign still lays attached to a damaged electricity transformer. The capacity of the transformer is 400 KV. “It was the first casualty,” the visibly perturbed old man said.
“Now, it has become a routine exercise for forces in South Kashmir to enter into an area and first start damaging the (electricity) transformers,” said a college going student, who has not been able to attend the college due to prevailing situation since Eid-ul-Fitr. He resides in the same village.
The damaged household items included Television sets, crockery and other things a common man uses in his daily life.
A top official while detailing the damages done to electricity transformers told The Indian Express on September 12, 2016 that at least twenty such transformers have been damaged by the bullets in Islamabad district only.
By the time, the elder man completes narrating his complaint, a dry stream flows by the road leading inside the village in which a load carrier has been “pushed” upside down. “They do it as well,” he added. “You see, there is Tavera (public carrier), and so many window panes and other electronic property damaged.”
The residents of Pazalpora said that forces even “thrashed men and women”. “We even did not protest against the damages done to our property,” they said. “Still, we were lathi-charged, unlike last two months when they would fire pellets and tear gas hells.”
