Fazil Allai, a Class VIII student from south Kashmir’s Shopian, was back home in no time on April 11. “They closed the school because of an encounter between a group of militants and security forces in Khudwani,” the 14-year-old told his mother. “Funeral processions will come out soon.”

He took a cold shower soon after and left for Khudwani village, 10 kilometres away, with his elder brother Umar, 16, and other boys from the village.

“All the boys in our village were talking about going to Khudwani,” Fazil’s uncle, Abdul Gani Allai, 59, was to say later. “Fazil and his brother, Umar, joined them.”

There was another group of young boys headed to Khudwani that morning. Bilal Ahmad Tantray, living with his grandparents in Mishpora’s Havoora village, had noon chai made by his grandmother before setting off for Khudwani with his friends.

“I was cutting vegetables when I saw that he was getting ready to leave for the encounter site,” his grandmother says. “I pulled his pheran and told him not to go, not to leave me. He didn’t listen. ‘Why stop me when all the other boys are going,’ he said and left.”

The funerals

Children participating in ritual protests against security forces, raising “aazaadi” slogans, is common in many parts of the state, especially south Kashmir. When civilians die, caught in a crossfire or during episodes of crowd-control tactics going wrong, such protests morph into funeral processions.

In Khudwani’s Wani Mohalla, where the boys were headed, a protest was already underway.  Security forces, exchanging gunfire with three armed men holed up in a house, were struggling to rein in a group of pro-aazaadi locals who wanted the militants to escape.

The “encounter”, as such clashes are called in Kashmir, had begun the previous night. But heavy rains forced a pause in the operation until dawn.

When the rain subsided early morning, the encounter resumed. People of Khudwani and neighbouring villages began pouring out onto the streets soon after. A house was set on fire, forcing the militants to rush into another. Meanwhile, hundreds of pro-aazaadi protesters began pelting stones to distract the forces. More troops were ushered in. Soon the air was reeking of tear gas. The controversial pellet guns were also used. Finally, as the crowd got more unruly, the guns came out. Fazil Allai was there. So was Bilal Ahmad Tantray. The two boys were shot and killed before they could take part in a funeral march.

“We weren’t allowed to go near Fazil’s body,” Umar says. “When I tried to lift him to try and save him, the forces fired pellets at me. I fell down and fractured my arm.” He lifts his pheran to show his right arm, cast in a sling.

Umar Allai, Fazil’s brother

Fazil’s body was rushed home in a car. “He died on the way. He had a bullet injury in his neck and his abdomen,” says one of the boys who helped Umar bring the body home.

The news of the tragedy reached Bilal’s grandmother around noon. He is injured, she was told. Half an hour later, his father was informed that his son, shot in the chest, had died on the spot.

A mujahideen in the making 

According to unofficial sources, before the Khudwani incident, 138 people had died in Jammu and Kashmir (until April 10 this year). “Which means,” a Scroll report explains, “that, on average, at least one person has died every day (in the state in 2018).”  According to the New Delhi-based South Asia Terror Portal, a project that evaluates terrorist and violent movements in South Asia, 17 of the people killed in Kashmir until April 8 have been civilians. On the wet Wednesday afternoon in Khudwani, the civilian toll went up by two.

Fazil’s grandfather

But it’s not the cold arithmetic of deaths that keeps Fazil’s grandfather awake at night now. “Fazil slept with me every night. He was my favourite,” he says, tears running down his face. Fazil’s uncle, Mushtaq Allai, was also killed in an encounter. Mushtaq, though, was a militant. “Fazil looked a lot like my dead son,” the grandfather says. “I kept Fazil close to me because I didn’t want to lose him too.”

Just 12kms away—in Kulgam’s Kujar village—is the house of Bilal’s parents. Dressed in a dark green pheran, arms and feet tucked inside the traditional Kashmiri gown, his mother is surrounded by some 30-35 women. Her empty eyes give away the shock of losing her young son. Her mother sitting next to her tries to coax her into responding to our questions, but she remains silent. She fainted when she heard about Bilal’s death, a relative informs. She hasn’t spoken since. Bilal’s father is on the rooftop with the other male members of the family. Nazir Ahmad Tantray’s eyes are bloodshot. He is silent too.

As we head out, we hear the words of Bilal’s youngest brother, 12-year-old Majid, pierce the silence. “The Indian forces killed my brother,” he says, “and one day I will kill them all.” The Class VII student says he wants to be mujahideen when he grows up.

Naseema Tantray, Bilal’s mother

Of children caught in the violence

On March 30, the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society released a report on violence against children in the state in the last 15 years. According to the report, 4,571 civilians were killed between 2003 and 2017; 318 of them were minors. This constitutes 6.95 per cent of civilian killings.

“The pattern of killings of children in the 15-year period suggests that children were direct targets of state violence, as part of its stated offensive to curb uprising and militancy,” the report says.

Of the children who died, 144 were killed by the armed forces and the state police, accounting for 44.02 per cent or nearly half of the total children killed, the report states.

As many as 110 children killed in state violence were shot dead, and not less than 8 children died due to injuries inflicted from pellet shotguns fired by government forces.

‘Keep your compensation’

Irfan Mehraj, the co-author of the report, says the family of these victims are rarely compensated. “Sometimes the victim family files a case with the State Human Rights Commission and claim compensation for crimes committed against their children,” he says. “But the government rarely offers compensation in such cases. Take last year’s election day killings as an example – our office is litigating the cases of minors killed in Budgam on the polling day. The government has failed to even file first information reports, giving compensation is not even in the picture.”

Mehraj adds that the violence against children in Kashmir has to be understood within the context of “the children and youth of Kashmir serving as a deliberate target for the Indian state, whether it is PMSSS scholarship for Kashmiri children, Bharat Darshan by Indian Army for youth under Sadbhavana operations, or shooting of bullets and pellets or illegal detentions and preventive detention of minors. These acts are aimed at altering the mindset of youths of Kashmir, which constitute 65 per cent of our population”.

At Fazil’s home, his uncle, when asked if the family was expecting a compensation, says they are not expecting anything from “this government”. An old woman in a green pheran, Fazil’s aunt, walks up to him and whispers something. “You see,” he conveys the message, “she is telling me to tell you that we don’t want money in return for our son.”

According to the J&K victim compensation scheme, 2013, however, loss of any civilian’s life is compensated with an amount of Rs 2 lakh. The scheme does not list a separate amount for minors.

Political failings 

It is not difficult to find political justification as to why politicians have been avoiding meeting families that have lost children to the ongoing violence in the state. “Generally, we reach out to almost all victims of violence in Kashmir,” says Nayeem Akhtar, spokesperson of PDP, the party that governs J&K in alliance with the BJP. “We are proud that we have been able to do this. Mufti saab (Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, former chief minister) used to go visit most families in the past, and even Mehbooba Mufti (the current chief minister and Mufti’s daughter) used to go. But, right now, the situation in south Kashmir is extremely volatile. As soon as it stabilises, we will certainly visit”.

Tanvir Sadiq, political advisor to Omar Abdullah, the president of the opposition party, National Conference, says that when they were in office, they made sure that the Divisional Commissioner handed out compensation to all victims of violence. “When the PDP came to power, Mufti saab used to visit these houses making it all such a political stunt,” he adds.

Politics in Kashmir has hit a new low this year. A growing rift is clearly visible between PDP and its alliance partner BJP.

J&K’s tourism minister and the CM’s own brother Tasaduq Mufti has said that if the parties who had signed the agenda of alliance couldn’t live up to their promise and resume a political process then PDP must “take one last bow and apologise to people for having unknowingly pushed them into something they did not deserve”.

He admitted that the PDP and the BJP were supposed to be partners in rebuilding Kashmir “but due to the non-fulfilling of commitments, we have ended up being partners in a crime that an entire generation of Kashmiris might have to pay with their blood”.

While the state’s powers-that-be are locked in a political tussle, it is hard to forget the 12-year-old Majid Tantray’s chilling warning: “I will become a mujahideen and avenge my brother’s death.”

Majid Tantray, Bilal’s brother