Sunny day….bustling streets….shops packed with people….hawkers busy selling their wares to eager buyers…. chock-a-block traffic ….business as usual….another normal day in the Valley.

A vehicle belonging to the security forces passes by. While negotiating the traffic, it accidentally hits the side of a fruit cart. Some fruits fall on the road. Sudden commotion erupts and people gather there. Some mischievous boys pick up stones and target the vehicle. Some stones are also hurled towards the nearby security picket. Some people record the event on their mobile phones and in no time the videos are viral on social media. Situation is brought under control by the police after some time.
Biting criticism follows by many social media warriors who are unaware of the complete story. These arm chair cavaliers were quick to use terms like death of democracy, choking of dissent, crushing of humanity, etc, for a small incident. They get their likes and rewets and feel good.
Sunny day….bustling street….shops packed with people….hawkers busy selling their wares to eager buyers…. chock-a-block traffic ….business as usual….another normal day in the Valley.
Abida is carrying her toddler son in her arms and selecting socks for him from the hawker. Her father is standing next to her, carrying the shopping bags, whistling playfully to his grandson who responds with jerks and cute laughter. The hawker is an old man, happy with large number of customers around him.
Two young men wait in a nearby shop. Their hands are shaking and eyes are wide. Vacillating between right and wrong, courage and cowardice, worthiness and uselessness of their upcoming act, they wait for the opportune moment. One of them gets up, wipes his forehead, comes out of the shop and moves towards the security picket. He pulls out the pin of the grenade with trembling hands and takes a final look at the picket. The grenade flies on a trajectory… not the one planned by him but the one resulted by his sweating fingers. He runs back in the opposite direction to the waiting motorcycle of his friend. Kaboom !! The grenade blasts half way from the security post, near the cart of the old hawker.
Abida’s father dies instantly. The hawker would die on way to the hospital. Abida is lying in a pool of blood. Her toddler son……with the grace of God is unharmed…but has been thrown towards the footpath. Personnel from the security picket come into quick action. They pick up the toddler and take him to safety. They provide first aid to people and help in evacuating them to the hospital.
Social media warriors are quiet …so are the human rights activists…so are the politicians…so are the separatists….so are the foreign accented human rights champions settled abroad…so are the self proclaimed flag bearers of equality…so is the intelligentsia….so are the lovers of ‘likes’ and ‘rewets’….
The dead are buried -‘quietly’. The wounded get treated in hospitals -‘quietly’. Those maimed for life sit on the hospital beds -‘quietly’….those visiting them express grief – ‘quietly’…..
No stone pelting, no slogans, no traffic blocking, no “khoon ka badla khoon se lenge”….the street becomes normal again the next day.
Amazing understanding!! Amazing arrangement…!! Amazing bias!! Amazing Hypocrisy!!
Another day in paradise.