Three amateur short videos from restive Kashmir went viral on social media last week. One of these which caused outrage showed a group of CRPF jawans being heckled, hit and kicked by a mob outside Srinagar. However, the jawans who are deployed in Chadoora area during the bypoll to Srinagar Lok Sabha seat show remarkable restraint.
In the video, a youth whacks one of the jawans in the head whereas another can be heard saying “Haya layus ma (Hey, don’t beat him).” That, however, does not stop another attacker from flipping off the jawan’s helmet. The jawans stay calm and do not react. One of them who is attacked yet can be seen walking coolly and calmly with an INSAS rifle and there is smile on his face.
J&K police have arrested four persons. Earlier the CRPF formally filed a complaint over the video clip saying its men were assaulted “with the intention to cause injury to government employee and obstruction in government duties/election duty”. DGP Shesh Paul Vaid lauded the restraint shown by the jawans and said, “Any armed force in the world would have retaliated with force... It would have led to death of those ruffians.”
But the sympathy this video had generated for the security forces facing tough times in Kashmir was diluted when two more videos captured during the bypoll which was marred by widespread violence surfaced.
While in one of these a Kashmiri youth can be see being used as a human shield by the Army men who have tied him in front of a jeep which is moving through a village and, in the background, a warning ‘Those who throw stones will meet the same fate’, can be heard, the other shows a CRPF jawan shooting directly in the head of a stone-pelting protester outside a polling station in same area.
“A case has been registered in connection with that incident also. It is a matter of investigation and action will be taken against whoever is found guilty,” Mr Paul said.
