CHILL-BRASS, Kashmir — As Indian forces have tried to quell a Pakistan-supported insurgency in the Kashmir region, stories have circulated for decades about Indian officers’ rough treatment of young men accused of backing the militants.

But it is difficult to point to any single image more disturbing over that time than a video clip that started spreading on social media on Thursday. It showed a young man tied to the front bumper of a military jeep as it patrolled villages, apparently serving as a human shield against stone-throwing crowds.

The man looks dazed and miserable, his knees splayed and one of his pants legs pulled up. Tied to his chest is a piece of paper, on which his name is scrawled. “Look at the fate of the stone-pelter,” a soldier announced over a loudspeaker, a video of the episode shows.

By the weekend, the bound man, a shawl weaver named Farooq Ahmad Dar, was described by some analysts as a defining image in the 27-year insurgency. Authorities in the region on Sunday took the unusual step of filing a criminal complaint against the army for tying Mr. Dar to the jeep, according to Ghulam Hassan Bhat, the deputy inspector general of police for central Kashmir.