Monthly Archives: July 2013

The Indian government has lifted a curfew and an Internet shutdown imposed to keep a lid on protests after Indian soldiers killed four unarmed civilians last week in the Ramban district of Kashmir. India has also promised to investigate the Ramban shootings in a familiar effort to calm tensions.

On Thursday, during a protest over the alleged desecration of the Quran by Indian Border Security Forces, the soldiers opened fire on civilian protesters, killing four people and injuring 48. The BSF claimed that there were “terrorists” within the crowd and that the soldiers had shot only in self-defense. As protests spread in response, the Indian government raised the compensation for the dead from $3,400 to $8,400, and assured a job to a kin of each of the slain.

India has maintained over half a million soldiers in the Himalayan region of Kashmir and grew a 100,000-strong local police force to deal with a popular rebellion that cropped up in 1990 against Indian rule. Military shootings of civilians like those in Ramban are familiar to Kashmiris – as are the Indian government’s subsequent probes. Kashmiris, however, have learned to put little stock in the exercises, since they are never followed with prosecutions.

“All Indian probes in Kashmir are farcical. They are an end in itself,” says Hameeda Nayeem, a professor of English at the University of Kashmir.

Three weeks ago, two young men from Bandipore in north Kashmir were shot dead by the Indian Army. The Army later said it was “a mistake” and a similar probe was ordered.