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| File photo BBC |
The most severe sanctions have pushed India occupied Kashmir into a lockdown situation for more than three weeks, and insider information barely exists since the abolition of Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir on August 5. Thousands of additional troops have been deployed in the region, and reportedly about 3000 people, including political leaders, businessmen and activists, have been detained. Many have been shifted to prisons outside the state.
Doctors and health officials don't want to talk to reporters about any patient, no matter what the disease. But the villagers have shown me their wounds and have blamed them on the security forces. People in one village says that the army returned home just hours after India's controversial decision to end special arrangements between Kashmir and Delhi under its management.
Two brothers alleged that they were awakened and taken out to an area where about a dozen other men from their village were gathered. These people were afraid of serious consequences when their identity was revealed.
One of them said, 'They killed us. We kept asking them, 'What have we done? You ask the villagers if we did something wrong? 'But they didn't want to hear anything and they didn't say anything, they just kept hitting us.'
'They hit every part of my body. They kicked us, hit us with poles, and gave us electric shocks, beaten with wires. They hit us on the back of the legs. When we became unconscious, they gave us electric shocks to bring us to consciousness. When they hit us with poles and we screamed, they filled our mouths with dust.
"We told them we were innocent. We asked them why they were doing this. But they did not listen to one of us. I told them not to torture us, just shoot us. I was praying to God for death because this violence was intolerable. '
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| File photo BBC |
Another young villager said security officials kept saying to him, 'Tell the names of the rockers.' He was referring to young and young boys, who have been the face of civilian protests in the Kashmir Valley for the past decade. ' He said that he told the soldiers that they did not know anyone, on which they were asked to remove glasses, clothes and shoes. 'When I took off the clothes, they brutally beat me with poles and rods for about two hours. When I became unconscious, they gave me electric shocks to bring me to consciousness. ' He said, 'If they do this to me again, I'm ready to do anything. I'll pick up a gun. I can't stand it every day. " The young man added that the soldiers told everyone in the village to warn them that if anyone else participated in the demonstrations against the forces, they would face similar consequences.
Everybody we spoke to in all the villages, they believed that the security forces did this to scare the villagers so that they were afraid to protest. Another person who showed us his wounds said that "15 to 16 soldiers" dropped him to the ground and were badly tortured 'with wires, guns, poles and perhaps steel rods'. 'I was half unconscious. They pulled my beard so badly that I felt like my teeth would fall out. ‘He said that a boy who witnessed the violence on him told him that one soldier tried to burn his beard but another soldier stopped him.
