By Zahid Rafiq
SRINAGAR, Jammu Kashmir
On Friday morning, a mob of more than a hundred people caught hold of a mentally challenged man in northern Jammu Kashmir’s Sopore town.
They stripped him, thrashed him, and built a fire in a paddy field.
As the mob chanted, “Kill him, push him into the fire”, the young man tried to beg his way out.
The man, who was later identified as Wasim Ahmed, after videos of the incident went viral on social media, became another victim of the growing incidents of mob violence, in a region where rumors are rife about the presence of a mysterious braid-chopper.
Harmeet Singh, the district police chief, said: “We rushed to the spot as soon as we heard of the incident and we rescued the young mentally challenged man from the people.”
“He always used to wander around the streets but today the people suspected him of being a braid-chopper,” he added.
In the past month, the braid-choppers have allegedly attacked 110 women, in the disputed region, and cut their hair. Almost all the incidents have taken place while the women were at home, and the cut hair have been left at the crime scene.
'He grabbed me'
Tasleema Jan, one such victim of the braid-cutting incidents, told Anadolu Agency: “I had gone to the attic upstairs to bring my son’s uniform and I saw a shadow flit behind me.”
“I tried to walk down quietly, to tell my husband and son and the neighbors to check our attic but as soon as I put my foot down on the first plank of the stairs, he grabbed me,” said Jan, who is in her forties.
She said that attacker strangled her with her son’s school tie and when she tried to rip off his black mask, he sprayed something on her face and she passed out.
“My husband and son resuscitated me after 10-15 minutes and my hair had been cut into pieces. I used to have hair this long,” Jan said, pointing to her lower back.
Tasleema was the seventh woman to be attacked by the braid-chopper in the Batamaloo neighborhood of the capital Srinagar.
As she narrates her ordeal, an announcement crackles from a mosque loudspeaker asking people to remain vigilant of the braid-choppers.
Outside her house in the narrow lane, a few young men sit on a pavement saying they are part of the neighborhood’s vigilante group to protect the dignity of the women and to nab the braid-chopper.
Neighborhood vigilante groups
“The braid chopper had a close shave last night. He was there at the window of the area president’s house and he sprayed something at his daughter but we spotted him right at the moment and he ran away, jumping off the two-story house,” says Shahid Rasool, a vigilante in his twenties.
Over the past few months, the incidents have become part of everyday conversation, and detailed descriptions of the braid-chopper have emerged.
The braid chopper, according to the locals, is extremely agile and walks in spring-fitted shoes that allow him to scale not only walls but also houses. He carries with him a spray that knocks down people. Anesthesiologists in the region deny knowledge of any such canned sprays that can make people unconscious.
“I have no knowledge about the existence of any such spray but as an anesthesiologist I can confirm to you that administering anesthesia is serious business and if there is an overdose the person can die,” Khalid Feroz, an anesthesiologist, told Anadolu Agency.
He said, so far, there have been no casualties in these reported attacks, or even injuries, due to people falling after losing consciousness.
The doctors believe that there are essentially no braid choppers and blame the whole situation on overwhelming stress and trauma in the region, where conflict has killed more than 70,000 people since 1989 as India and Pakistan fight for control.
India maintains more than half a million troops in the disputed region. Last year, hundreds of thousands of people came out in open rebellion against the Indian rule in the region, which responded by killing more than 100 civilians, wounding over 15,000 and arresting 15,000 people.
Mental health crisis
“It is a classic case of dissociative disorder and all the doctors know it. There is a mental health crisis in this place with such a long and unending conflict and then the oppression within the society that puts extreme pressure on the women,” a senior psychiatrist told Anadolu Agency on the condition of anonymity.
“But what is surprising is that the government instead of coming out and calling it disassociate disorder, which they knew after the first six cases, announced a prize money of $9,000, further feeding this fire instead of quelling it. As a psychiatrist I can explain everything except the government’s response,” he said.
The psychiatrists refuse to speak on record saying they do not want to become easy targets for a government that is "up to sinister games" and a people "driven to frenzy with fear".
Many locals blame the Indian agencies for the braid-chopping attacks, seeing it as a part of India’s psychological operation against Kashmiris.
The separatist leaders of the region responded to the incidents by calling for shutdowns and anti-India protests.
“This government has deep intelligence networks and overwhelming presence in Kashmir and yet they are unable to catch a single culprit. That is why the people are angry, because they are under attack. The dignity of our women is under attack. It seems that the Indian agencies are involved in all this,” senior Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told Anadolu Agency.
The police officially say that they are investigating the incidents and have so far made no arrests.
Police looking for clues
“Whenever someone commits a crime, he or she leaves behind some evidence in the form of footprints or fingerprints but in these cases, we are still looking for clues,” Munir Khan, the Kashmir police chief, told journalists on Friday.
Off the record however, police say they are sure after preliminary investigations that there are no braid-choppers.
In the region, trust in the police, which is seen as an extension of the Indian state, is scarce.
Taking justice into their own hands, angry mobs have attacked innocent civilians, even killing one.
A 70-year-old man in south Kashmir was killed earlier this month when his neighbor suspecting him of being a braid-chopper struck him on the head with a rock. A young crossdresser was caught and beaten by a mob in Srinagar; two middle-aged tailors out to receive cloth from a customer were stripped and bludgeoned; a young man was hung upside down from a tree after being severely beaten. Dozens of other incidents of mob violence have been reported.
The legend of the braid-chopper meanwhile grows and anger gathers people into mobs -- their ire falling on common civilians.
