Wounds old and new deepen in a generations-old, seemingly endless struggle.
Farzan Sheikh was in his bedroom doing his ninth-grade math homework when he heard a commotion outside. It was late in the afternoon of March 28, 2017, and a funeral procession was passing by in his neighborhood in Srinagar, in the part of Kashmir that’s administered by India.
Curiosity drew the then 16-year-old into the street, where he glimpsed a shrouded corpse carried by mourners. Then he heard pro-Kashmir slogans and saw Indian police use tear gas and pellet-firing shotguns to scatter the crowd. Sheikh ran toward the narrow alley leading to his home.
CONTESTED TERRITORY
India and Pakistan both claim
Kashmir—a disputed region of
some 18 million people. India
administers the area south of
the Line of Control; Pakistan
administers northwestern
Kashmir. China took
eastern Kashmir from
India in a 1962 war.
ASIA
PAKISTAN
INDIA
Boundary claimed by India
CHINA
PAKISTAN
Srinagar
JAMMU
AND KASHMIR
Boundary claimed by China
Boundary claimed by Pakistan
Boundary claimed by India
INDIA
NGM MAPS
“I saw a policeman with a gun aiming at me, and he shot directly at me,” he said. “That was the last thing I saw.”
The schoolboy fell to the ground, bleeding from his left eye; the left side of his abdomen and his neck and chest were pierced with countless lead pellets. A stranger on a scooter rushed him to Srinagar’s SMHS Hospital, the main state-run facility, where his parents found him.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/kashmir-conflict-anger-indian-police/
