Let us all wake up, refuse to give any space to militants or militancy
Our hypocrisy is exploding in our face. Our dishonesty is killing our children. It can no more be denied.
For three decades, we made ourselves statistics for the militants and for Pakistan. Now we have achieved the hateful task of even making our children the statistics of terror attacks.
For the rest of the world, these are simply headlines.
Girl injured in Srinagar grenade attack succumbs, death toll rises to 2
Student injured in Srinagar grenade explosion dies.
For the world, this headline from Kashmir is yet another random terror killing across the world.
Rafiya Jan, daughter of Nazir Ahmad Tinda. Resident of Dargah Hazratbal in Srinagar. Killed in the grenade attack by militants in a busy marketplace near Amira Kadal yesterday. Let us question ourselves today. Is this all that Rafiya is for us too? Is this all that Rafiya is for Kashmir? Just a name, daughter of so and so, resident of so and so? Is Rafiya just another random terror killing for us too? Is Rafiya not your daughter? Is Rafiya not my daughter? Is Rafiya not the daughter of Kashmir whose body was torn apart in the grenade lobbed by militants? Srinagar Mayor Junaid Mattu said that Rafiya had just passed her Class 12 examination with flying colors and was preparing for her professional entrance examinations. Innocently the girl went to Lal Chowk to buy books for competitive examinations.
Let us look at this clearly. It does not matter whether our children want to become doctors, engineers, chartered accountants, architects, musicians. Our sons and daughters can get killed by militants if they go to the neighborhood market to buy books. Rafiya died due to multiple injuries that she had suffered in the blast. Read this and realize the gravity of what we are doing to ourselves. Is this what the life of our children is worth? This daughter of Kashmir, this daughter of us all – she bright and beautiful child had dreams of building a good career for herself. She had dreams of building a happy life for herself, her parents, her brothers, and sisters.
Now all is lost because the militants killed her. All is lost because we refuse to wake up to the truth. We refuse to admit that the militants are killing us and our children. We refuse to admit that they shall keep killing us till we keep giving them space in Kashmir.
These so-called Mujahideen take responsibility if a policeman is killed. And if a civilian dies, we start blaming the Indian security agencies. Why are we not blaming the Mujahideen for killing us and our children? Why are we not questioning and blaming Pakistan for killing us and our children?
The second civilian who died in the grenade attack at Amira Kadal is a 60-year-old civilian Mohd Aslam Makhdoomi. Who is Mohd Aslam? He is you. He is me. Our elder brother, our cousin, our uncle – he is one of us. The civilian is Rafiya, your or my daughter, our sister, our child. Our brothers and sons who have joined militancy are killing us and getting killed. All around us, Kashmiris are dying. One by one by one. Read the writing on the wall, my brothers and sisters. Read the writing and refuse to give space to militants and to militants. Refuse to give space to the ideology espoused by Pakistan. Or sooner or later, one by one this monster of militancy shall consume us all.
Let us wake up and resolve that from this day, Kashmir shall NOT give any space to militants or to militancy. Say no to terrorism once for all!
