A 26-year-old shawl maker Farooq Ahmad Dar has said that he is not going to vote again after he was paraded through various villages by being strapped infront of an Indian military jeep, reported Scroll.in. Dar is a resident of Chil village. He left his home early on the Election Day to cast his vote at the polling station, local middle school. He returned home that night with arm broken by the Indian Army. According to Indian army, he was serving as a human shield as there was a lot of violence that day due to eight civilians died.
Farooq Ahmad Dar said, “The Indian soldiers were playing with me as if I was a toy. What am I, a human being or an animal? The government should take action against the army personnel.” He was in pain even though there were no bruises, “There are no bruises over the surface but I am [physically] hurt on the inside,” he said. “I can’t lift my hands. I can’t walk straight, I tremble if I try. They played with me like a football.”
The video of the incident was viewed by the Indian Army and they called for an inquiry to the incident. An officer from the Indian Army’s Rashtriya Rifles branch, who tied Dar to the jeep, was given approval from various quarters in the army.
According to Dar’s family, “They insisted that there was no violence in the area in which the young man had been picked up and that he wasn’t the sort to hurl stones at the security voices.”
Dar said, after he had casted his vote, he got on to his motor cycle to attend a condolence meeting at his sister’s house in Gampora village, 20 kms away. His brother Hilal followed him on another motorcycle. A few kilometres before their destination, at Utligam village, Dar said he was stopped by an army patrol.
The patrol had 17 personnel and it was led by a major, Dar said. The security men pulled him off his motorcycle. After looking at his identity card, they questioned him about why he was so far from his home. They then began to beat him up and accused him of being a stone pelter. But, said Dar, there were no visible disturbances in the area when they stopped him.
“They thrashed me for 20 minutes,” Dar said, and Indian Army attempted to push him into a stream. “My leg was immersed in the water but I managed to push myself back and got back up.”
The soldiers tied him to a vehicle and paraded him “through 10-20 villages” with a piece of paper attached to his chest declaring that he was a stone pelter, Dar said. He said he did not have a clear recollection of events that transpired when he was tied up. “I was not in my senses,” he said.
One memory that did stand out, though, was that the people of Khospora village tried to get him released. “But the RR [Rashtriya Rifles] men told them that they would not let me go as I was a stone pelter,” Dar said. “But I am not. I am an honest man. The whole area knows that.”
Sonpa, Najan, Chakpora, Hanjiguroo, Khospora, Rawalpora, Arizal, Hardapanzoo are some of some of the villages he remembered passing through. He repeated the names as if he had memorised the trail of his hurt. “They humiliated me publicly,” Dar said.
Dar estimates he was paraded for at least 20 km-25 km but his brother Qadir estimates the distance to have been greater. “He was taken in circles through different villages,” Qadir said. “They must have paraded him for 30 km-40 km.”
At 4 in the evening, Dar said he was taken to a Central Reserve Paramilitary Force camp in Hardapanzoo where, he alleges, he was “still tied up and not offered water.” Later, Dar said he was taken on another ride, this time inside a jeep. Around 8 pm he was released from the Rayar camp of the army near Arizal.
Due to fear of harassment, he did not file an FIR.
After this incident he had lost his faith in the democratic process and said, “I used to vote but won’t do so anymore.”