The Red Fort blast provided the perfect excuse, but not the cause, for this crackdown. The detentions began weeks before the explosion. They were part of a long-running pattern: detain first, justify later. Once the blast occurred, Delhi’s propaganda machine simply retrofitted the narrative. Suddenly, every Kashmiri detainee was a “suspect.” Every arrest became “intelligence-based.” It was a textbook example of post-event justification, using a national security scare to legitimize repression already in motion.Doctors, teachers and engineers are the faces of a self-reliant Kashmir. But by targeting them, the Indian state attacks the Valley’s intellectual backbone. Educated professionals challenge the imposed image of Kashmiris as radicals or dependents. Their success exposes the lie that the occupation is about “development.” Arresting doctors like Adil and Muzammil sends a chilling message: your education, your integrity, even your silence, none of it will save you. This is the logic of occupation: punish knowledge, reward obedience.
The UAPA, Public Safety Act (PSA) and NDPS Act have become tools of social control. They are not used to prosecute crimes, but to manufacture them. The same people who are detained under one law are rebooked under another once courts intervene. It is legal ping-pong designed to keep Kashmiris perpetually trapped in custody. This legal warfare has erased the distinction between citizen and suspect. Every Kashmiri youth with a phone, every doctor with a degree, every woman with an opinion, is now fair game.
Behind each arrest is a family in free fall. A wedding postponed. The crackdown has stripped Kashmir not only of freedom but of normalcy. Hospitals are losing doctors. Universities are losing students. Families are losing faith in justice. And the world, as always, is losing its conscience.If doctors can be branded terrorists before a crime even occurs, what does that say about the rule of law? If women can be detained for “narcotics” without evidence, what does that say about the rule of justice? And if youth can be jailed for thought crimes, what does that say about democracy itself? Kashmir doesn’t need another investigation. It needs introspection, from a world too comfortable with India’s excuses and too indifferent to Kashmir’s pain.
And the truth is simple: the arrests began before the blast, because the real target was never terrorism. It was Kashmir’s voice.The Red Fort blast provided the perfect excuse, but not the cause, for this crackdown. The detentions began weeks before the explosion. They were part of a long-running pattern: detain first, justify later. Once the blast occurred, Delhi’s propaganda machine simply retrofitted the narrative. Suddenly, every Kashmiri detainee was a “suspect.” Every arrest became “intelligence-based.” It was a textbook example of post-event justification, using a national security scare to legitimize repression already in motion.