Gunfight videos besiege social media

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 28

Frames moved frantically. A person shouted, “Where is this boy from?” The video then moved closer to the face of a fatally wounded protester. His beard neatly dressed and his eyes shut.

A dozen-odd boys and men struggled to move the motionless body, later identified as that of Zahid Rashid, through a barren field as mobile phone cameras follow in pursuit — metres away from the site of a raging gunfight.

The video, one of the many that overwhelmed the social media on a bloody Tuesday, provided rare glimpses into a chaotic Kashmir where civilians are rushing to sites of gun battles to help out besieged militants. These videos opened an unprecedented live stream from the encounter area, beaming visuals onto mobile phones and laptops, and triggering a wave of anger.

Rashid, whose last moments were captured on the video, became the first of the three protesters who got killed in the Chadoora area of central Kashmir.

In another video, which captured Rashid’s journey home from the hospital, an angry teenager runs a commentary from inside the ambulance as it is intercepted by the police near the Jehangir Chowk here.

The video shows frantic moments as police personnel halt the vehicle leading to fistfights with the ambulance inmates. As the police fire tear-smoke shells to disperse the crowds that assembled around the ambulance, the video kept rolling and captured a woman’s emotional outbursts from inside the vehicle.

These videos are increasingly being uploaded on the social media. A worried police had launched a crackdown earlier this month as it detained several dozen youth for administrating online messenger groups in one of the districts of south Kashmir in a bid to root out the growing coordination between protesters.

However, the impact of such crackdowns is becoming ineffective. The state government had also previously blocked the internet and phone signals in the areas where the security forces were involved in counter-insurgency operations.

The visual elements — photographs and videos — are proving to be a mobilising factor in the region, where the front lines are changing drastically. The militants have effectively used the social media in recent years, releasing video statements, which have catapulted their popularity and their cause.