No Healing Yet in the Kashmiri Graveyard

Ahead of Burhan Wani’s death anniversary, fierce encounters and civilian deaths return to the Valley.

- Naseer Ganai

AT the martyrs’ graveyard in south Kashmir’s Tral town, two boys stood silently by the grave of Burhan Wani, the 22-year old who was killed by government forces in an encounter on July 8 last year in Kokernag. The boys, seventh-grade students at the local government school, raise their hands and pray for Burhan. Then they move aside and talk about the “healing power” of the soil of his grave. “People from far and wide come here and take handfuls of this soil,” says one of them. “They believe it can cure disease. My ailing mother asked me to get some soil from Burhan’s grave. She rubbed it on her face and instantly felt much better.”

Burhan’s engraved memorial plaque stands out, visible from quite a distance, in this graveyard where more than 50 militants slain by government forces are buried. Most are locals. People come here to pray for their “martyrs”. Some take away a handful of soil from Burhan’s grave. Clearly, everything about Burhan is sacred to them.

Sajad Ahmad, a 25-year-old driver standing nearby, overhears the boys’ conversation. “There are always visitors at Burhan’s grave and the crowds will swell in the days ahead,” Sajad says. All three, however, refuse to be photographed—quite unthinkable in these parts a year ago, when people poured into the streets on hearing “Burhan killed!” and scores of pictures of people mourning the slain Hizbul commander flooded the internet. So why this new found reticence?

Schoolboy Numan is quick with the reason: “The STF (Special Task Force, a counter-insurgency formation of the Jammu and Kashmir Police) will arrest us and beat us ruthlessly. We don’t mind being beaten by the STF if that could bring us azadi (freedom), but why get thrashed when azadi isn’t just around the corner?”