Kashmiris are expressing worry over the escalating suicides recently, unwitnessed to this level before in Kashmir.
A string of events since 2019 had changed the dynamics of Kashmir with people in India clapping it on as a “masterstroke” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With his “masterstroke” the abrogation of article 370, people were “locked up” for three years, because COVID-19 intensified the situation deeper. After this, due to long lockdowns, the economy and tourism crashed and thousands lost jobs.
Drowning in depair in the most militarized zone in the world, most Kashmiris felt hopeless. Psychiatrists report that girls as young as 12 and 13 are getting psychiatric help because they are depressed, many feel depressed because they see no future for themselves. Over the last few decades, more than 6000 people have taken their lives due to engulfing anguish.
Due to prolonged conflict, unrest, unpredictability, living in an atmosphere of fear, worry, crashed economy, with no jobs, the youth are getting into drugs. Brown sugar, cannabis and directly injecting heroin into the blood through needles are getting common. Thousands of Kashmiri youth are in the claws of drug addiction. Drug addictions also lead to the pathway of suicide because people lose their thinking capacities.
In Srinagar on June 26: All the members of the leading amalgam of socio-religious organizations MutahidaMajlis-e-Ulema (MMU) Jammu Kashmir led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, have expressed grave concern over the spike in suicide cases in Jammu & Kashmir.
In a joint statement, they said “it is tragic and a bitter fact that in Jammu and Kashmir, the social waywardness, promotion of drugs, domestic violence, family disputes, increase in the divorce rate, and above all, the rising graph of suicides is a cause of great pain and anguish for every conscious human being.”
We feel it is time that something concrete is done for Kashmir to remove the shadows in the Valley and allow the sunshine of hope to come in to stop future suicides from occurring.