On the cold winter evening of December 2020, I and M were walking along the Jhelum Bund complaining about how cold it was. After a while, the conversation shifted to how we would have failed had it not been for covid. Because of the lockdown, the JK-BOSE had ordered all schools to conduct the 11th-class exams in-house rather than having different exam centres. This was our second last exam and we were equally worried and excited about the last one, Maths. After a while, we saw two men in uniforms and both of us automatically went silent. The conversation resumed only when we were sure that we were out of their earshot. This time the topic of conversation was something else. Far too sensitive and far too dangerous. We automatically started talking about Kashmir, Article 370/35A, censorship, etc. In a place like Kashmir, where everyone is under a scanner and everything is being watched, where people talked in hushed voices and walked with their heads down, I and M had known each other long enough to know that the other person was safe to talk with. The conversation ended when we reached Budshah Bridge. M had to take a right towards Ghanta Ghar and I had to take a left towards Hari Singh High Street, where I would catch a bus and go home. It took me a while to find a bus but I found one somehow. When I reached home, I was greeted by my mother’s usual questions about how the paper went, etc. I answered her and went to my room to change. It was there when I logged into my Twitter account. The first tweet on my timeline was about a #SrinagarFakeEncounter. I scrolled down to see a lot of the tweets carrying the same hashtag. While the hashtag was self-explanatory, it took me a while to find out what had happened. According to the state, they had “eliminated” three deadly terrorists and it was a “big win” for them while locals on the spot believed that it was a fake encounter. While stories like these were common in Kashmir and enough to break one’s heart, this story left a deeper mark on me. One of the boys killed was 16-yearold Ather Mushtaq. According to his family, Ather, just like me, had left home to take his exam. The only difference was that while I made it back home, Ather did not. He did not even reach his exam centre. He was picked up and taken to Srinagar’s HMT area where he was killed in a fake encounter. According to the family, his face had been mutilated and his body tortured. This incident shook me to the core and I spent that night thinking about Ather. He was my age; had left home for the same thing I had but I was lucky enough to come back home while he was not. I wondered if things would have been different had he left his home a little earlier or a little later. That night, I wrote in my journal, “In Kashmir, everyone is born with their names written on a bullet and the bullet is bound to kill us. That is how our fates are. I wonder what would happen if I ever got caught in a situation like this. What would I do? What will I do if my friends or cousins are caught in a situation like this? Today, when M and I saw those men, we both went silent. Deep down both of us are scared and we may pretend otherwise, but it is the truth. I wonder how long it will be before I am caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wonder what would happen if I am killed. What would my family do?” That night several scenarios played in my head about what would happen to my family if someday they get the news that their son had been killed too. I thought, rethought and played and replayed the scenes in my head. It was not that I was imagining all these things just for the sake of it but because it was probably the first time that I could relate to an incident to such a deeper level. The next day was more shocking. In Kashmir, a new rule had come up where by bodies of those killed were not even returned to their families. Ather’s family was denied the right to bury their child. He along with the other two was taken 115 kilometres away to Sonmarg where they were buried. The families were not even allowed to hold the funeral. What started as protests of justice- online and offline turned into a plea of people begging for the bodies of loved ones. #SrinagarFakeEncounter soon became #ReturnTheBodies. Videos of Ather’s family protesting in Srinagar did rounds on the internet. In one of the videos one of his family members was crying while he said that if people do not stand up for them, the same thing will happen to others as well. This again opened emotional floodgates and anxious thoughts of what my family would do in case I was killed and then buried somewhere else. Or what would I do if one of my friends or family members was killed similarly? All these thoughts had already crossed my mind several times but at that point, it felt like something that could happen to me or anyone I know. At that point in life, I used to think that “things like these” only happen in villages where people face them on a daily basis. While it is true that living in Srinagar was easier than living in villages or towns, it did not change the fact that it could happen to anyone anywhere. I was then faced with the reality of how insignificant the value of a Kashmiri life is. The killable Kashmiri whose life could be ended at any time. I knew this from examples of 2010, 2016, and the Shopian Fake Encounter where three men were killed and named “hardcore terrorists.” It later came out that they were just killed for the sake of medals. Ather’s father was soon booked under UAPA and the family never got to see their son again. While the rest of the world celebrated New Years, Kashmiris were still stuck in the same cycle of violence and death. Nothing had changed. Fake encounters, demolishing of houses, UAPA/PSA, it had all been the same as it had been the previous year or the year before that. A few days later, local media houses did a follow-up with Ather’s family where his father said that he had dug a grave in their ancestral graveyard. His father promised that he would fight till his sons’ body is returned or till the day he dies. Pictures of his sister showing his roll number slip went viral and seeing them, all I could think of was my own younger sister. What would she do in case of my killing? I had no answers to these questions. All there was left in me was anger and rage that I could not let out. I have been looking for words but have failed at them. I do not think there is a right way for a story like this to be told. It has been around two years now since Ather was killed. While several local and international media houses told this story, nothing changed. Ather’s father still goes from one camp to another writing applications and letters to authorities asking for his son’s body. In these two years, I have often thought of Ather and how different his life might have been had he done things differently that day. I still think of him and wonder what might have happened had he lived in areas that are typically considered to be safer than the others. What would have happened to him had he decided to go with his friends or do anything else that would have made sure he wouldn’t be at the place where he was picked up? This incident was also what changed my views on several things. I stopped looking at life where one believes that the next day would be better but from a perspective where the next is uncertain and unsafe, where no one is safe inside their house. It also started to make sense to me why my mother would call me after I was out after sunset. Even though it is unlikely that call would make any difference if I ever get picked up. At last, I came face to face with my truth; that I and everyone else I know is just a body in front of the trigger-happy Indian forces who will not think twice before emptying their rifles on me and then closing the case by calling it an encounter or a misfire. This belief got stronger when four men were killed just three kilometres away from my house in November of the next year or when another young man was killed in an “accidental fire” this year. Incidents like these often make me aware of my privilege of being alive and having the chance to leave Kashmir. What often accompanies me is the guilt that I somehow made it out while someone else did not. I had the opportunity when someone else did not get it. I often think of thousands of families who have lost everything and I wonder how long before mine is one of them. As pessimistic and hopeless as it sounds, I believe most Kashmiris have faced this question. Three years later, an empty grave still waits for Ather and dozens like him
In Kashmir, everyone is born with their names written on a bullet and the bullet is bound to kill us. That is how our fates are. I wonder what would happen if I ever got caught in a situation like this. What would I do? What will I do if my friends or cousins are caught in a situation like this? Today, when M and I saw those men, we both went silent. Deep down both of us are scared and we may pretend otherwise, but it is the truth…
