Militaristic approach of Kashmir police to ensure COVID-19 lockdown

In some of the videos online, the Spain police can be seen singing songs and playing musical instruments outside houses to keep the people entertained and hope alive during the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic. In a stark contrast, the Kashmir police seems to have taken militaristic approach with the Police registering 337 First Information Reports (FIRs) and arresting 627 in less than a fortnight to enforce a lockdown in the region.

Dilbagh Singh, director general of the J&K police, on March 27 said, “People have to cooperate in breaking the chain of this deadly virus and to ensure this, at times Police has to be harsh but that is only for betterment of the community.”

However, the message had a subtly telegraphed green signal for the physical beatings.

There are several videos doing rounds on social media in which the gun-wielding and baton-waving police personnel are seen thrashing civilians, making them squat, crawl, frog-march, duck-walk, and do sit-ins.

Bhat Tawseef, an engineering student from south Kashmir’s Kulgam, on March 27 left for Srinagar to attend to his aunt who had undergone a surgery. After Tawseef got a proper permission from district magistrate of Kulgam to travel, he left home. The distance between Kulgam and Srinagar is roughly 50 miles.

But, even after obtaining a legal order he alleged ‘unnecessary brutality from the Jammu and Kashmir Police’ who stopped him on the way and thrashed him without even listening to him.

The beatings were so severe Tawseef had to hospitalized with multiple fractures and an injury to his eye.

Recounting his nightmarish journey, he said, after being stopped at Khudwani area he showed his permit to the baton-waving police personnel, but they did not entertain it.

“Show this pass (permit) to someone else. The district magistrate issues such permits in exchange of 10 rupee notes. This holds no value,” he was told by the uniformed personnel deployed there.

After which he said the police beat him up.

“They didn’t listen to me. Neither did they care to know the reason of my travel. If this was not enough, they further started beating up my uncle and aunt, despite me informing them about her operation.”

Tawseef further added that even under a lockdown people with medical emergency are allowed to move and he had the permission too. But in J&K some policemen are too drunk in power.

“Their uniform is the license to perpetrate violence,” he lamented.

In another case of police brutality, three employees of the prestigious Jammu and Kashmir Bank also alleged that they were physically assaulted by police personnel when they were returning from their office.

“Instead, we were beaten up by the security forces personnel deployed near Harwan Bridge,” said one of the employees sharing pictures of the torture marks.

In an incident that reflects poorly on the Jammu and Kashmir police, a non-Kashmiri speaking cop, sporting trimmed beard was seen atop his vehicle with a microphone and announcing regarding the lockdown while also hurling invective and abuses on the local residents.

“Hey you Kashmiris, b******s, enough is enough! Stay indoors or I will beat the hell out of you….,” he said and went on with abusive language against Kashmiris.

After the video of the incident went viral, J&K Police on their social media page by the name Sopore Police admitted regarding the incident and said after preliminary investigations proved the offense, an FIR against the erring official was registered and he has been suspended.

On similar lines, in one of the videos purportedly from Jammu’s Samba district an SSP-ranked police officer can be seen repeatedly kicking an elderly person on the road.

The incidents capture the horrors of violence against civilians in Kashmir at the hands of police personnel ensuring a lockdown not with a humane approach, but with a militaristic one.

Ironically, the police is using the words ‘Care’ and ‘Free’ in its campaign and saying it is not ‘Curfew’ whereas Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) is in force in several districts of Jammu and Kashmir.