Once Upon a Time in . . . Kashmir
We journey to Indian-occupied Kashmir, where the cinemas have been turned into torture chambers.
A half-broken red swivel chair left behind by CRPF men in one of the rooms at Firdous Cinema. The chair, and the walls, have turned black with dirt and grease.
Friday is the most pious day of the week for Muslims.
On August 18, 1989, a Friday, Allah Tigers chief air marshal Noor Khan was hell-bent on doing something in the service of Allah. The small radical outfit effectively shut down cinemas, bars, and beauty parlors — all deemed to be “un-Islamic” — in the Kashmir Valley.
Khan went out to put his radical ideas into practice just when the insurgency in Kashmir against Indian rule escalated to its peak. Toward the fall of 1989, insurgents took up arms in reaction to the years of atrocities, humiliation, and, finally, a rigged election. Men and boys crossed the border into Pakistan, were trained, and returned to fight the Indian forces, who had by then appeared on every bend of the road. Even today, for every dozen Kashmiris, there is an Indian troop deployed.
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