Two stories in the Washington Post

Rage in Kashmir meets India's brute force


By Alistair Scrutton
Reuters
Tuesday, September 2, 2008; 2:27 AM

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - The world's largest democracy locks up protest leaders without charge, shoots dozens of demonstrators dead, beats and intimidates ordinary citizens and raids homes without warrants.

Welcome to Indian Kashmir, where the biggest separatist protests in two decades have clashed with the might of the state.

"They are ruthless, trigger happy," said Ghulam Rasool Bhat, a laborer who says he was beaten by federal police after he tried to buy milk for his two nephews under a curfew in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir.

He lay in a bed, both legs bandaged where a soldier, shouting "Get your milk from Pakistan" had smashed a rifle into his shins. His legs felt, he said, as if in a continuous cramp.


Police have shot dead at least 35 Muslim protesters in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley after a row over land for a Hindu shrine spiraled into marches and strikes against Indian rule.

More than 1,000 people have been wounded in clashes over three weeks, hospital officials and police say, with the Kashmir Valley often under curfew. Hundreds of people have suffered police baton beatings and bullet wounds, doctors say.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090200130.html


In Kashmir, Conflict's Psychological Legacy
Mental Health Cases Swell in Two Decades


By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 1, 2008; Page A09

SRINAGAR, India


Suraya Qadeem's brother was one of the Kashmir Valley's brightest students. Handsome and disciplined, he had been accepted into a prestigious medical school in Mumbai. But just weeks before Tahir Hussain was to pack his bags, the 20-year-old was shot dead by Indian forces as he participated in a peaceful demonstration calling for Kashmir's independence.

At his funeral, Suraya Qadeem, also a medical student, wept so hard she thought she might stop breathing. Seventeen years later, she spends her days counseling patients in Indian-controlled Kashmir who have painfully similar stories.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/31/AR2008083102088.html