250 Days of Kashmir Lockdown: 93 Deaths, Fear of Yasin Malik’s ‘Extra-Judicial Killing’

Many in the disputed region fear Yasin Malik, a pro-freedom leader who is in incarceration, could be executed.

DESPARDES — Indian troops have reportedly killed 93 Kashmiris including 3 women during the past 250 days of lockdown in the disputed Himalayan valley.

Last year, on August 5th Delhi’s BJP-government revoked the special status of Jammu & Kashmir — a Muslim-majority region which remains disputed between India and Pakistan since partitioning in 1947.

Since the annexation of the disputed territory last year, nearly 1000 people have also been critically wounded due to use of brute force, firing of bullets, pellets and teargas shells on demonstrators protesting the lockdown, says a report.

According to reports, more than 700,000 Indian military, paramilitary and police personnel are in occupied Kashmir.

The research report by Kashmir Media Service (KMS) said thousands of Hurriyat leaders, activists, politicians and civil society members continued to remain under house arrest or in jails. It said the increasing cordon and search operations had also added to the miseries of the already suffering people of the occupied territory.

British lawmaker Lord Nazir recently shared a videoclip of arson act being carried out by Indian personnel on his social media handle.

Meanwhile, jailed Kashmiri separatist Yasin Malik has been slapped with a slew of cases, including reopening of 30 years old murder charges. He is being denied a fair trial, his family and rights activists have alleged.

Many in the disputed region fear the pro-freedom leader could be executed. In 1984, JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat was sent to the gallows by the Indian state.

Malik, one of Indian-occupied Kashmir’s prominent pro-independence leaders, is the chief of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which was banned by the Indian government last year and declared an “unlawful association”.