Video by International Rehabilitation Council for Torture victims (IRCT) for Channel 4, UK
Article Source: Kashmir Watch

Film on torture in Kashmir reopens old wounds, annoys some Indians

By MUDASIR AHMED

SRINAGAR: Two days after the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture victims (IRCT) released their film titled ‘Kashmir’s Torture Trail’ on UK’s Channel 4, the netizens on Thursday flooded the social networking sites with comments about the film.

The real time micro-blogging site Twitter was flooded with tweets highlighting torture tales in Kashmir while Facebook also remained abuzz with shares and posts applauding the film as “devastating and damning evidence of widespread torture” in the Valley.

Mirza Waheed, author of the internationally acclaimed novel on Kashmir ‘The Collaborator’ while sharing the film on Facebook, wrote: “Just watched the documentary. Devastating. Damning evidence of widespread torture. It’s going to be a sad, sad night.”
Another Facebook user who commented on the thread, said, “No documentary can ever record the misery Indian colonization has inflicted on life and letters in Kashmir. Certainly, none can freeze the psychological torture under which most of us have to dissimulate our true belief under a system which extorts loyalty.”

Twitter news feed is filled with #Torturekashmir tweets ever since the trailer of the film was released a few days ago, prompting the Kashmiri Twitterrati to flock the site and share their thoughts and experiences without any let up.

Thousands of tweets like “Kashmir’s horror stories,” “Pain and suffering all these years,” “Skin plucked at places,” with hashtag #TortureKashmir were published in a short-amount of time beginning with 8 pm on Friday, July 6.

Twitter user ‏@AlhaquMurun posted, “A sneak peak at the horror stories of #Kashmir that trended under #TortureKashmir.”

Another twitter user ‏@panditkmr tweeted, “Kashmiri Prisoners Vs Abu Gharib & Gwantanamo- India practised it in #Kashmir before US did it.”

Twitter user @ShaalKak wrote: “Electrocution, beatings and sexual humiliation were the three most tactics used by forces in #Kashmir #TortureKashmir.”

@Shaalkak was retweeted by user user ‏@IbneBattuta, who originally came up with the idea to use hashtag #Torturekashmir to tell tales of torture in Kashmir. Quoting celebrated Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali IbneBattuta wrote, “They make a desolation and call it peace. #torturekashmir.

Kashmir’s rapping sensation ‏@MCKashKashmir posted on his feed: “#TortureKashmir when all you saw was the blood of countless people smeared across the walls of a torture chamber.”

Malaysian-based Kashmiri student Muhammad Faysal ‏@_Faysal tweeted, “He had no nails on any of his fingers or toes. Skin plucked at places, kidneys not working.” #TortureKashmir.”

Kashmir-based journalist Shuja-ul-Haq wrote, “Kashmir can never move on unless its bloody past is accounted for. #torturekashmir.”

“Only place in the world where the most dignified name reminds of torture. ?#PAPA-1 ?#PAPA-2 ?#TortureKashmir,” Shuja added.

The film also prompted sharp reactions from a section of Indian media branding the film as “unusual” and “strange.”

UK-based Correspondent of India’s leading newspaper ‘Times of India’ said in an article titled “Jammu and Kashmir ‘nightmare’ in UK media,” that the hour long documentary challenges India’s credentials as a “democracy, accusing security forces in Jammu & Kashmir of being responsible for disappearances of 8,000 Kashmiri civilians and extra-judicial executions in the past 22 years as well as for rape and torture.”

The same day, the daily wrote, the UK’s Guardian newspaper carried an extended piece on the same subject “in a clearly co-ordinated assault against India’s human rights record.”

Questioning the documentary for its absence of a “neutral party or any voice from J and K government or central government,” the ‘Times of India’ wrote: “Strangely, the production team was in the Kashmir valley at the time of last year’s stone-pelting incidents in which over 100 youths were killed. There are questions being asked whether they were tipped off by those who planned the demonstrations.”