BRUTALIZED CHILDHOOD

Children are akin to small plantlets of a nursery bed, which would grow into a future progeny and lead the world to different heights. As the production of crop depends upon the health of plantlets of nursery bed, in the similar fashion future of a nation also depends upon health, safety and security of our children. But when it comes to Kashmir we see Children are robbed of their innocent souls here even before they could understand why, or at least robbed of their eyesights in broad daylight and then random ‘stray bullets’ get blamed for it. Somehow, the state has found new word replacements for ‘collateral damage’.
Take the results filter to 2016, and you’d see the list getting longer and longer as hundreds of young boys and girls were maimed and blinded with pellets, some of them even lost their lives.
As the bloodshed ravaged Kashmir, even toddlers had to visit the already over crowded hospitals, not for their vaccination shots unlike children elsewhere; they were there among the pellet injured.
Fierce gunfights between rebels and Indian forces are almost a daily occurrence and children often bear the brunt.
This kind of brutal state violence perpetuates the cycle of violence in J&K and can inspire family members of victims to respond with violence. Young children who find their loved ones killed, disappeared, or raped are socialised with a vengeance for their personal loss.
It is India and the global community’s responsibility to protect the innocent children of Kashmir so they can live a dignified and peaceful childhood.