To our eternal shame ...

Every Indian should hang their head in shame after reading this.

Farooq Ahmed Dar, a 26-year-old shawl maker from Kashmir was tied to the front of an army jeep by one Major Gogoi of the Indian Army, and paraded him through several Kashmiri villages a few days ago. And a video of the incident went viral on the Internet. Army claims he is a "stone pelter", but Dar, his family and neighbours say he is not, he never was. Scroll.in reports after meeting him:

"This is how Dar said his day proceeded. After he cast his vote in Chil, 33 km from Srinagar, he said that he got on to his motor cycle to attend a condolence meeting at his sister’s house in Gampora village, 20 kms away. His brother Hilal followed him on another motorcycle.

"A few kilometres before their destination, at Utligam village, Dar said he was stopped by an army patrol.

The patrol consisting of at least 17 personnel was led by a major, Dar said. The security men surrounded him and pulled him off his motorcycle. After looking at his identity card, they questioned him about why he was so far from his home. They then began to beat him up and accused him of being a stone pelter. But, said Dar, there were no visible disturbances in the area when the stopped him.

“They thrashed me for 20 minutes,” Dar said, adding that after the beating, they attempted to push him into a stream.

"The soldiers then tied him to a vehicle and paraded him “through 10-20 villages” with a piece of paper attached to his chest declaring that he was a stone pelter, Dar said. He said he did not have a clear recollection of events that transpired when he was tied up. “I was not in my senses,” he said."

Farooq Ahmed Dar's account is bound to be true. Because had he been a stone pelter, the army wouldn't have allowed him to go home on the same day. More importantly, Dar was among the 7% voters in his area who had cast his vote defying a ban and threat of death issued by terrorists. Besides the e-paper I have quoted, he facts have been brought out by several front-line newspapers, including the Indian Express and Hindustan Times.

If Kashmir is boiling today, it's to a large extent because of army and police officers like Gogoi, who have tortured innocent Kashmiris without bothering to think about the long-term consequences of their action. And there are a lot of Indians to glad-hand officers like Gogoi who display tremendous disdain not only to Kashmiri Muslims, but also to the laws of the land.

Please put yourself in Farooq Ahmed Dar's shoes for a minute. You belong to a small minority of Kasmiri Muslims who still have faith in India, you're among the 7% of people who've voted. And on the same day you are picked up by an insane army officer from the road, beaten up, get a judgment "stone pelter" stuck on your chest, and you are strapped to the bonnet of a jeep and paraded through villages like an animal.

Even if I accepted, for the sake of argument that Dar is indeed a stone pelter, which Indian law allowed him to be treated in such an inhuman manner? And what about that nearly-forgotten word "human rights"? Does Geneva Convention allow an army to treat even a captured enemy soldier like that?

And the tragedy is: Farooq Ahmed Dar is a law abiding Indian citizen.

Finally, to our eternal shame, the chief of the Indian Army has commended the Major for this grossly illegal and immoral act.

Terrorists try to break up our democracy from outside. When protectors of the law break laws themselves, the corrode the system from within. They are two sides of the same blob of shit.

Kolkata / 26 May 2017