Sieges in populated areas including commercial hubs like Lal Chowk Srinagar speakes volumes about the failures of the government in handling street protests and countering offensive of militant groups in Jammu & Kashmir. Neither the challenges of militancy nor the law and order disturbances caused by rocking hurling crowds are new to government forces in Kashmir, but new to people of Kashmir is the revival of 1990 like sieges and crackdowns in populated areas. Though the fact remains that increasing tendency of people to throng the encounter sites is a new trend in the ongoing resistance struggle is a new challenge to the government forces in Kashmir but cordons and searches of the populated areas and even commercial hubs to create a 1990 like atmosphere of fear can’t be justified by the government. Often government forces lay cordons and conduct searches with the claim that militants are hiding in the cordoned areas but on very rare occasion the claim of the government forces about the presence of militants in the cordoned areas comes true. Making civilian populations hostage to encounters with militants is the worst form of human rights violation and true it is that government had suspended the practice of cordoning the populated areas despite seeing government forces engaged in encounters with militants since last more than one and a half decade and the same had brought a perceptible change in the situation on the ground.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti being the minister incharge home has an institutional responsibility to respond to the public outcry against the continuing practice of cordons and searches in the populated areas and more so in commercial hubs like Lal Chowk Srinagar.
Divorcing the practice of cordons and searches in populated areas and more so in commercial hubs Lal Chowk Srinagar will be also a confidence building measure (CBM) in the fast changing security scenario in Jammu & Kashmir state. Last week when Lal Chowk in the city centre was cordoned and commuters were frisked, the government came in for sharp criticism when the claim of the government forces about the presence of militants in the area did not come true. Unfortunately the practice of cordons and searches which was a practice of the government forces in early nineties has been revived in Kashmir the time when Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti a diehard critic of the excessive use of force during the reign of erstwhile Farooq Abdullah led National Conference government is running a popular government in alliance with BJP.It looks strange that a critic of excessive use of force in yesteryears like Mehbooba Mufti is turning a proponent of the revival of the widely condemnable practice of cordons and searches in the populated areas. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti being the minister incharge home has an institutional responsibility to respond to the public outcry against the continuing practice of cordons and searches in the populated areas and more so in commercial hubs like Lal Chowk Srinagar.
