Indian Flag Torched in Protest
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INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 2015 HK protester knocks Indian flag torched in protest ‘beating’ case delay HONG KONG: A Hong Kong pro-democracy protester appar- Jailed separatist leader causes outcry ently assaulted by police-in a beating captured on video- SRINAGAR: Demonstrators set fire to an slammed the authorities yesterday for failing to charge his Indian flag and hurled rocks at riot police attackers and demanded they are officially identified. It is six in Kashmir’s largest city yesterday as months since the attack on Civic Party activist Ken Tsang, protests over the arrest of a top sepa- footage of which was beamed around the world at the height ratist leader turned violent. Hundreds of mass protests for free leadership elections in Hong Kong. took to the streets of Srinagar, capital of But little progress has been made in the case, which rocked Indian-administered Kashmir, to vent the reputation of the normally respected police force. Tsang’s their anger at Masarat Alam Bhat’s lawyers appeared in court yesterday to apply for a judicial detention after he fronted a rally earlier review, which would ask for the officers’ names to be disclosed in the week where followers waved to Tsang and allow him to pursue the case privately, they said. Pakistani flags. A public investigation is ongoing after police arrested seven The violence erupted soon after wor- officers for “assault occasioning actual bodily harm” in shippers emerged from Friday prayer November. services in the city’s mosques, chanting A spokesman told AFP they remain suspended from duty. pro-Pakistan slogans and “we want free- They are yet to be charged. “A private prosecution is our last dom”, according to an AFP reporter on resort,” Tsang said ahead of the hearing. “It’s difficult to under- the scene. The police tried to disperse stand why the police still need more time for their investiga- the crowds by firing tear gas and then tion. “The whole process didn’t treat me like a victim, but like a wielding their batons. criminal. I’m just left asking ‘why’?” Video footage aired by local At least 16 people were injured dur- television network TVB showed a group of plainclothes officers ing the clashes, including three police- hauling a handcuffed Tsang to a dark corner in a protest-hit men, an officer who was not authorized public park in the early hours of October 15 last year. to speak to the media told AFP on condi- SRINAGAR: Kashmiri protesters shout slogans as they prepare to burn an tion of anonymity. Bhat, who was Searching for justice Indian flag during a protest yesterday. — AFP released in March after several years The video shows one officer stands over him and punches fully, television images of Bhat leading a public safety legislation. Kashmir has him, as three others are seen repeatedly kicking him. Tsang’s behind bars, was arrested early yester- day at his home in Srinagar, a day after chorus of his supporters chanting “jeeve been rocked by violent protests this week lawyer Gerard McCoy questioned why the case had taken so jeeve Pakistan (long live Pakistan)” and after the brother of a top rebel leader was long in court yesterday. “If one reversed the situation and sev- police registered a case against him. “He (Bhat) has been arrested after a other slogans against India’s rule of the killed by the army near the town of Tral in en demonstrators had beaten up a police officer and were disputed region triggered widespread the south of the Kashmir valley. Kashmir caught on film, is it vaguely probable that after six months they case for unlawful activity was registered against him,” K Rajendra, the state’s condemnation from politicians and the is divided between India and Pakistan would not have been facing justice?” he asked. media. Anti-India sentiment runs deep since the two countries gained inde- Department of Justice counsel Johnny Mok said that police director general of police, told AFP. The case stems from a rally on Wednesday across Kashmir, a picturesque Himalayan pendence in 1947. Both claim the territo- were still working on the identification issue and that they region which is India’s only Muslim- ry in its entirety. Although several rebel wanted Tsang to help them. But McCoy said that Tsang had organized to welcome another separatist leader, Syed Ali Geelani, on his return to majority state. groups have been fighting Indian forces been held “face down by the police officers” and any identifica- Bhat rose to prominence in 2010 since 1989 for independence of a merger tion procedure six months on could harm his case. It was “strik- Srinagar from New Delhi where he had spent the last three months receiving when he organised a series of mass of the territory with Pakistan, street ingly obvious” who the attackers were, given the visual protests before being detained without protests have become the principle footage, he said. — AFP medical care. Although that rally passed off peace- charge for four years under controversial mode of opposition to Indian rule. — AFP Violence shakes Pakistan’s shrinking Sikh community HASAN ABDAL: Pilgrims descended from all over Harcharan Singh, 22, witnessed one of the killings the world on a small town in Pakistan that is home last September-that of his friend Harjeet. “It hap- to one of Sikhism’s holiest sites this week, dipping pened in front of me. The man came, shot him and into holy spring water and solemnly offering left quickly (on a motorbike) before anyone knew prayers. They have come from India, Britain and the what was going on,” he said. “Nobody knows who Middle East to the Panja Sahib Gurdwara in Hasan it was. Nobody knows who did it. Forget that-we Abdal, 55 kilometers from Islamabad, where Guru have had around six attacks on us. Still nobody Nanak, the founder of the religion, is said to have knows who did what.” imprinted his hand. But for Pakistani Sikhs, who Harjeet’s family fled a military operation in mainly live in the countries restive northwest; this restive Tirah Valley in Khyber tribal agency around year’s celebrations are also a time of healing after eight years ago, later setting up shop in Peshawar. six murders during August and September that His father, Harbhan Singh, a mountain of a man have left their community in fear. with a majestic red turban, recalled peaceful times The 500-year-old religion was founded in what in his beloved home where he says Sikhs were well is now part of Pakistan, a Muslim-majority country respected and unmolested. of nearly 200 million people. Most Sikhs left “We have been here long before the creation of Pakistan for India after both countries gained inde- Pakistan, before the British period. Since then, we pendence from Britain in 1947. Around 20,000 had no worries,” he said from the small living room Sikhs remain in Pakistan today, most in the coun- at his home in Peshawar, flanked by Harjeet’s two HASAN ABDAL: In this photograph, Sikh pilgrim girls carry gifts after final prayers at the tries restive northwest, which has been rocked by red-headed daughters. Gurdwara Panja Sahib during the annual Vaisakhi festival. — AFP an Islamist insurgency for more than a decade, forc- Singh, who speaks only the Pashto language of ing many to leave their homes in the tribal areas on the region and not the Punjabi that Sikh holy texts ly there are no leads in any of the cases. Rabia Abdal, where more than 1,000 police were the Afghan border for the city of Peshawar. are written in, said his family was struggling to Mehmood, a researcher on minorities at the Jinnah deployed to protect 5,000 worshippers who had make sense of what happened. They had no ene- Institute in Islamabad, said military operations come to offer prayers over the course of this ‘Long before Pakistan’ mies, he said, and were now relying on their sav- against the Taliban that displaced millions of week’s three-day Vaisakhi festival marking the There, they have set up businesses and often ings to get by because they had closed the shop Pakistanis in the past decade have clustered Sikhs Sikh new year. work as traders, their men instantly recognizable by out of fear. “You can’t predict about the customer in major cities, increasing their visibility and making For some such as Bhagwant Singh, a 77- the distinctive untrimmed beards and high turbans whether he is a friend or enemy. You could be an them more vulnerable. year-old shopkeeper from the Indian city of that distinguish them from their Muslim counter- enemy for all I know,” he said. Back at one of the “It’s actually a reflection of what has been Amritsar who had made the pilgrimage along parts. They have earned a reputation for upright- city’s two remaining Sikh temples still in use, high happening to other minorities Sikhs have with his wife for the first time in their lives, the ness and have many loyal customers who praise fencing, CCTV cameras and two policemen have become part of that group in the way that they journey has been peaceful. “I wanted to see their honesty. But their peace was broken in the been deputed to protect the place of worship for are targeted,” she said. “Their concern is that the this place in my lifetime and now I feel at second half of last year with a spate of killings tar- the first time in its history.