Few masked men from the Srinagar's downtown have recently opened a new front against government and the separatists in Kashmir. To everyone's surprise these boys were against the popular separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani too. They accused these politicians of perfidy. These masked youth brought all the activities to a standstill as if the whole Kashmir is struck with paralysis, after the death of Wamiq Farooq. Government is weary of the situation and is unable to decide the next move. Government has blamed PDP of backing stone pelters. But PDP has been sarcastic and said "stone pelters import stones from Pakistan".
Perhaps a new way of expressing separatism is in the making. These unknown faces have not only challenged the credibility of the present separatist structure but have unnerved the government quarters too. They hijacked the show and announced four days protest for the killing of a teenager. Wamiq, a boy from Rainawari was a cricketer. struck a tear gar shell on his head and succumbed in the hospital, triggered mass protests.
Some masked youth during his mourning ceremonial appeared in the downtown and brazenly spoke against separatists. For the frenzied youth, every politician was like an entrepreneur: running political enterprise to earn money. For them both insurgency and counter-insurgency was a profit making business. Insurgency is a business enterprise for mainstream and counter-insurgency is a means of business for separatists. Nationalism is a word used to seek sympathy and honour among the pro Indians. The word anti-India is a tool to exploit the sentiment of masses in Kashmir. But the ground reality is far away from all these classical rhetoric.
The journalists of Kashmir seemingly are betraying themselves. Perhaps they betray their organizations, too. They report what their organizations want to air. The truth becomes an unfortunate causality in the bargain. They don't show the truth. Had they showed the truth from day one then things would have been different. The perception about Kashmir would have been real. Journalists created a wrong perception about Kashmir and a Kashmiri. That has brought a bad name to Indian journalism. That is why a journalist with national media is frightened to move freely in Kashmir, particularly during mass protests. Hurriyat called national media as a war machine and PDP also did not say good about them either. Though everyone has a history in Kashmir be it PDP, Hurriyat or National Conference. PDP patron was a home minister when the whole Kashmir was burning. Hurriyat people brought guns to Kashmir without knowing how to tackle, when the barrel goes berserk. And national conference has always been unpredictable.
The srinagar's downtown area has always been the chief recruiting area for all kinds of political movements from Sheikh Abdullah's National Conference to Mirwaiz's Hurriyat Conference. All the political parties, particularly Hurriyat has intermittently invested on areas surrounding Jamia Masjid in Nowhatta, during the last twenty years. To keep their hold on the population, politicians campaigned in the downtown for agenda setting. They all tried to influence popular faces who exercise considerable influence over the masses in the downtown. This area has a potential to bring whole Kashmir to a standstill.
The government's only weapon to use against protesters is crackdown. The youth of the area has become immune to this tactic of deterrence. The masked youth are possibly the product of these crackdowns. The retort of these faceless youth reflected the alienation: they generated by and by, against the government and the separatists.
These boys repeatedly focused on those who are being mercilessly flogged by security agencies. They even attribute that those who venture out for some genuine reasons, are also not being spared.
I would like to attribute an example of my colleague with Sahara Time Pervaiz Majeed who recently got a severe thrashing near Maisuma when he tried to save two school going boys from getting beaten up by CRPF. The behaviour of the security forces is as atrocious for a common man as it is for a stone pelter, Pervaiz agitated.

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