Palhallan- village epitomizing tragedy and resistance...... Palhallan has always been a crucial villagein the resistance movementof Kashmir. This village has rendered valuable sacrifices inthe ongoing pro-freedom movement of Kashmir.A strong Jamaat-e- Islami influence, a history of militancy and a crippling curfew keeps Palhalan on the boil Ramzan’s family is not the only one with a bloody history in Palhalan. In the past 20 years, hundreds have been killed by the army, STF, militants and Ikhwan, though most of the deaths and disabilities have come from the guns of armed forces. Palhalan is a village where the Jamaat has had strong roots since1975 when its leader Zahoor ul Haq startedmadrassas. Palhalan soon became a stronghold of the Hizb, the militant arm of theJamaat. According to records, Congress worker Ghulam Ahmad Sheikh, 54,was the first person to die by a bulletwhen he was killed by militants in 1991. Tantray Mohalla,Sofi Mohalla and RaiPora have seen bulk of the deaths: 325 people from 150 households in these areas have been killed in thepast two decades. Out of them,180 were directly or indirectly related to militancy. With militancy on the wane, the HM has become invisible, but the Jamaat stillhas a strong grip here. “Almost every family is associated with the Jamaat. The Jamaat has many local leaders who, over the years,have opened madrassas andstrengthened their hold over Palhalan. Every strike call given by rebel Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani is followed religiously. When Srinagar and other places limped back to normalcy, stone pelting continued in Palhalan.Theycall Palhalan the ‘Kandahar of Kashmir’. Here is why it might yield new recruits for militancy Anguish Palhalan epitomised the anger in Kashmir as eight boys lost their lives and many others were disabled in the firings in 2010.PALHALAN IS called the ‘Kandahar of Kashmir’. It epitomises the riddles of Kashmir:the pro-freedom sentiment, the history of militancy, influence of the Jamaat-e-Islami, State repression and also how new generations inherit these animosities. If Kashmir’s young pick up the gun again, it is possible that Palhalan will yield a big chunk of recruits. And it is the siege that might draw them towards the gun. When Kashmir was burning in thesummer, Palhalan, a village in Baramulla district, 30 km north of Srinagar, embodied that anger. Aslife returns to a fatigued normalcyin most parts of the Valley, Palhalan still reels under military control, earning it the epithet of Kashmir’s ‘curfew village’
Posted on: Sun, 07 Jul 2013 06:30:30 +0000
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