Graffiti eulogising Zakir Musa, the slain founder of al-Qaida’s Kashmir branch, on a school gate in Aanchar

SOURA: An arrowed heart for “Pakistan” painted in red on a school wall adjacent to “Zakir Musa” and “ISJK” (Islamic State of Jammu and Kashmir) scribbled on the other wall is where the “liberated zone” in Kashmir begins.

Aanchar, popularly known as “Chhota Pakistan (Little Pakistan)” in the valley, is the belt where stone-pelters and mob rioters first came out onto the streets and have been continually clashing with security forces since August 5, when the Central government revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories.

Historically, the area of Jamia Masjid and its neighbourhoods, including Aanchaar, controlled by its chief cleric, the Mirwaiz , have been in favour of Pakistan and opposed to Kashmir’s most popular mainstream leader, Sheikh Abdullah, who negotiated Article 370 with New Delhi after the princely state under Maharaja Hari Singh had acceded to India in 1947.

The clashes between the supporters of Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq and the Sheikh are so legendary that they came to be known as “Sher-Bakra” street fights. Sher is a reference to Sheikh’s honorific title, “the Lion of Kashmir”, earned for challenging the Dogra autocracy in the 1930s and ’40s, and bakra (goat) is an allusion to the long beards sported by orthodox Muslims and Pakistan favoring the Mirwaiz.

Even as Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has been under detention since August 5 the area, which erupts into protests every Friday after prayers, has registered mob rioting and violence. Except now the nature of clashes and the parties involved have changed.

On a pavement in Soura, half-a-dozen old men sitting and watching passersby in cars and on scooters told TOI that the violent protests are a response to New Delhi’s revocation of J&K’s special status. But no one is able to answer why no one raises J&K’s former state flag (plough and white lines on a red cloth) or its own constitution in the protests. While the old men rack their brains for a response, a group of young men joined them shouting the slogan “Naara-e-Takbir, Allah hu Akbar”.

“They are lying. The protests have nothing to do with the abrogation (sic) of Articles 370 and 35A. The truth is that we want freedom from India,” the young men declared.

Soon the political fragmentation in Kashmir becomes clearer as the other group insists that National Conference secured freedom for Kashmir with Article 370 but that is now gone. “Go to Aanchar, you will find out the truth,” two younger boys on a motorbike screamed from the opposing camp on the street.

The access roads to Aanchar are broken and blocked by concertina wire, with some deployment of security forces. “People are being oppressed here only because they have stood up for the cause of freeing Kashmir from India,” a woman in a hijab told TOI. On the walls of several buildings, however, graffiti eulogising Islamic State and Zakir Musa, the slain founder of al-Qaida’s branch in Kashmir, muddled the political sentiment.

The voices in the zone get more confusing as disagreement extends from politics to other issues, including the number injured and hospitalised during clashes between security forces and rioters. In Soura, the number of people injured in the Friday clashes varied from 40 to 200. But no one seems to know who and where the injured are. “You can go to the two main hospitals — SKIMS and SHMS — to meet the injured,” a young man said.

At the two hospitals, the authorities told TOI that though dozens were injured, only one person died of pellet injuries. A Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) official said they had only seven injured people in the hospital. A pharmacist at Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS) said that in Aanchar area, most pellet victims don’t come to government hospitals because they fear they will be caught by the police. “They are treated by their own area doctors in their homes,” he said.

The paramilitary in the area claimed that both the violent protests and the casualties have been marginal. A CRPF jawan from Uttarakhand deployed in the Eidgah area since 2016, when massive violence broke out after Hizb commander Burhan Wani was killed by the security forces, said the violence of the last 40 days has been negligible compared to the previous years. “They still pelt stones at us every now and then but the magnitude is less than half from before,” he said.

