Thread by @lfovkofficial

Fact Finding Report on Kashmir September 17th - 21st 2019
A team of 5 women visited Kashmir from September 17th-21st 2019. We wanted to see with our own eyes how this 43 day lockdown had affected the people, particularly women and children.
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

The team consisted of Annie Raja, Kawaljit Kaur, Pankhuri Zaheer from National Federation Indian Women, Poonam Kaushik from Pragatisheel Mahila Sangathan and Syeda Hameed from Muslim Women’s Forum.

#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

Besides spending time in Srinagar, we visited several villages in the districts of Shopian, Pulwama and Bandipora. We went to hospitals, schools, homes, market places, spoke to people in the rural as well as urban areas,
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

to men, women, youth and children. This Report is our chashmdeed gawahi (eye witness account) of ordinary people who have lived for 43 days under an iron siege.
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

Shops closed, hotels closed, schools, colleges, institutes and universities closed, streets deserted was the first visual impact as we drove out from the airport. To us it seemed a punitive mahaul that blocked breathing freely.
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

Across all villages of the four districts, peoples’ experiences were the same. They all spoke of lights, which had to be turned off around 8PM after Maghreb prayers. In Bandipora, we saw a young girl who made the mistake of keeping a lamp lit to read for her exam on the

chance that her school may open soon. Army men angered by this breach of ‘curfew’, jumped the wall to barge in. Father and son, the only males in the house were taken away for questioning. ‘What questions?’,no one dared ask. The two have been detained since then.
#KashmirBleeds

‘People die without warning or mourning. How will I inform my sisters about their mother’s death?’ Ghulam Ahmed’s voice was choked. ‘They are in Traal, in Pattan. I had to perform her soyem without her children’.
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

The story was the same wherever we went. People had no means of reaching out to loved ones. 43 days were like the silence of death.
At a Lalla Ded Women’s Hospital in Srinagar several young women doctors expressed their absolute frustration at the hurdles that had been placed in

their way since the abrogation of Article 370. ‘There are cases where women cannot come in time for deliveries. We were told that several women are delivering babies prematurely due to the stress and khauf (fear) in the present condition.
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

A senior doctor from Bandipora Hospital told us that people come from Kulgam, Kupwara, and other districts. Mental disorders, heart attacks, today there are more cases than he could ever recall. One orthopaedic doctor from SKIMS was stopped at the army imposed blockade while

he was going for duty. He was held for 7 days. Boys as young as 14 or 15 are taken away, tortured, some for as long as 45 days. Their papers are taken away, families not informed. Old FIR’s are not closed. Phones are snatched; collect it from the army camp they are told.

No one in his senses ever went back, even for a slightly expensive phone. One estimate given to us was 13000 boys lifted during this lockdown. They don't even spare our rations. During random checking of houses which occurs at all odd hours of the night,
#KashmirBleeds

the army persons come in and throw out the family. Tehmina from Anantnag recently urged her husband, ‘Let us have another child. If our Faiz gets killed at least we will have one more to call our own. Abdul Haleem was silent.
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

He could see the dead body of his little boy lying on his hands even as she spoke these words. ‘Yeh sun kar, meri ruh kaanp gayi,” he tells us. The humiliation and torture they have suffered for 70 years has reached a point of no return.
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

Abrogation of 370 some say has snapped the last tie they had with India. Even those people who always stood with the Indian State have been rejected by the Govt. ‘So, what is the worth in their eyes, of us, ordinary Kashmiris?’
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

Since all their leaders have been placed under PSA or under house arrest, the common people have become their own leaders. As we report our experiences and observations of our stay in Kashmir, we end with two conclusions.
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

That the Kashmiri people have in the last 50 days shown an amazing amount of resilience in the face of brutality and blackout by the Indian government and the army.
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds

We reiterate that nothing about the situation is normal. All those claiming that the situation is slowly returning to normalcy are making false claims based on distorted facts. We salute the courage and resoluteness of the Kashmiri people.
#KashmirStillUnderCurfew #KashmirBleeds