Jammu and Kashmir stonepelter wants azadi, and a police job

SRINAGAR: A 6-year-old boy , sliver of a brick in hand, looks ahead at a group of CRPF men and shouts, "Aye, Bihari". As others burst out in laughter, more join in. The insults flow thick and fast. "Bhel puri, Kallu". Then in chorus: "Pagal, pagal". The boy then pulls down his pants and pees in the direction of the security men.
"That drives them crazy ," says an ace stonepelter who goes by the code name "JD". He has been to jail four times and has two FIRs against him.

"JD" was 15 years old when he flung his first stone at the security forces. That was in 2008. Eight years on, "JD" finds the situation different.

"My father is ill. His kidneys are giving him a lot of trouble and he is diabetic. My mom is old and I have a sister. Abbu's business -he used to supply walnut furniture to the Indian Army -has almost come to a halt. There's no money in the house. It's now up to me to find a job and look after them. I will have to work, even if it is with police, whom I have hated all my life. With my qualification, Class 12th fail, I can only be a special police officer. That will give me Rs 6,000 a month." JD" explains the abuses the boys hurled at the CRPF men. "They (CRPF) hate being called `pagal' (mad)."

But why "bhel puri"? He stops to laugh, the ferociousness gone from his face, suddenly looking like any normal 23year-old tickled at a joke.

"That's because they come here from India to sell bhel puri around street corners to us." In 2010, 'JD' was hauled up by the cops once more. In 2011 too.

"They came at night to my house in Nowhatta (downtown Srinagar). That's the only way they can get us, by surprise. My mother cried and abbu begged. But that's how life is for us." So is this agitation different from 2008 and 2010 as the refrain is everywhere in the valley these days? JD pauses to think. "It seems so. There are stones being pelted even in places like Rangreth, which is close to the JAKLI ( Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry) headquarters.There are these two kids, one is four and another seven, 'DK' and 'PK'.

"Nobody leads mobs like they do. They know dozens of slogans by heart. You have to listen to them. When has this happened before?" JD says the killing of Bur han Wani, the 22-year-old Hizbul commander, was indeed a catalyst. There was no need for separatists and militants to fan the current wave of aggression. "There is a saying," the bearded, wiry man in jeans, sneakers and a trendy Henley says: "That someone's blood can colour our existence. Many militant leaders have died before this. Burhan was different. He was a good man. He once let an army man go in Tral when the soldier spoke about his six sisters who had to be looked after and married off. Burhan's blood has coloured Kashmir now."

What about their arsenal?
Is there any truth in reports that there is an industry that actually supplies stones and rocks to the pelters? "I don't think that happens. Yes, once I did find a truckload of these things dumped at a place very convenient for us. But most of the time, we break walls and steal from construction sites.Also, this is not the deserts of Rajasthan. There are stones everywhere."

Told that Wani's "successor" Zakir Rashid Bhat had in a recent video asked the Kashmiri youth not to join the police as it "will sabotage our movement", JD says, "He can afford to talk like that. He is the son of a rich man. My father is a carpenter."