This is what they show you, but you don’t realise!

Kashmir hit by flash floods. We lack proper management. Nothing new!

People have been waiting for help. No government officials have reached certain areas. People are managing stuff on their own.

But this particular incident happened in one of the flood hit localities ( News Courtesy GreaterKashmir ). I read it out to somebody and the reaction I got was, “WHAT???”. Lets see what you think about it!

“CRPF personnel arranged two boats and asked people to board it. After taking some video shots, they made the people disembark the boat, and left the spot, leaving us shocked,” said Mohammed Yaqoob. “It seemed they wanted to show it to the world that Indian troops are carrying out rescue operations in Kashmir,” he added. As Yaqoob was heaping abuses on the government, a Major of Rashtriya Rifles, leading a patrolling party of the troops, passed through the area. He told Greater Kashmir that “We cannot do anything, it is not our job.”

My cousin once told me about an incident which probably took place in the early eighties. She had been playing cricket in school with her brother and his friends, and the kids realized that they were being filmed. They did not care much about it. There was a strike in the coming few days, October 27th – if I remember correctly. Schools were closed and so were other offices. To my cousin’s amazement, the local channel news claimed that schools were open and strike was not observed in the valley. The footage they used in support of this was the same one where my cousin was playing cricket in school.

Tampering news from Kashmir is not a new trend. Earlier they had to do it rarely, but now they have to be on their toes to make sure they project the news the way they want. And they make sure they have enough preparations for that. They want to show people (of course not Kashmirs) that the armed men of India have good relations with the local people. Show them how they have been performing their duties all this while and that the human rights abuse cases are alleged and fake.