Afzal Guru - Hero of Kashmiri Youth

Gloomy Saturday Morning-09/02/2013

As the sunlight struck my eyes, I begin to stretch my arms thinking to come out of my bed. Usual beginnings of my day start with searching my cell phone to check in the Facebook details. I got disappointed to find it out of sight, I could see the clock and realizing the routine has started I rushed out of my room and seeing the girls roaming in hostel corridor, all ready to attend their college day, hurried to freshen myself. Finally,

I woke up to my senses and rushed to wake my friend to follow the same steps. Instead of her morning greeting tone I heard a mourning tone      "Afzal Guru is hanged”. I hardly believed her at first and began to look for my cell phone keenly everywhere and when I got hold of it with shivering hands, I could see the Facebook updates with bitterness and mourning all around. Rest in Peace Afzal Guru followed every inspiring thought. Ask a Kashmir what’s on his mind, its Afzal Guru without a doubt.

I closed my eyes and could feel the tear. I hardly knew the man who is no more now but I can sense my heart sinking and missing its beats. I can feel his pain while being hanged. I can feel the thoughts and memories colliding his mind in that second of murder. Nothing can be done to save him as he has been murdered but he will always remain alive in every heart and mind of a Kashmiri. Yet again I realized life is too short to indulge in futuristic planning, to plan about your living and your family, to have expectations and get hurt.

I don’t know much about Kashmir's history but what I could know is the phase of distress and pain. Born in 90s, I hardly know anything about the happenings in my State. I hardly had an idea about the sufferings we have faced. Every time once in a while I regret of being born in a country of brutality and inhumanity especially towards my State.  As I grew up to maturity I could recollect the distress and pain we have been through.

If you can feel something right now is the pain of a man who was denied fair trail, who was snatched from his family, who had an unaccomplished dream and wanted to see his son grow into that dream, to fight injustice, to be known to world as an innocent Kashmiri. The story of Mohammed Afzal has enraged us because his story is our story too. It’s not only he who died its millions of Kashmiri Muslim hearts that died with him. We have always been a miscarriage of justice, and even if we protest, we do not expect justice. We have lived through too much brutality to believe in their justice any more. We want our own existence.

His words remain engraved in our hearts: "Kashmir has everything that you don’t want to see in a civilized nation. They breathe torture. Inhale injustice. Even if they kill me for no crime of mine, it would be because they cannot stand the truth." ~ Mohammad Afzal Guru