Last Tuesday was a tumultuous day in Bandipore, a little valley on the banks of Wular lake in north Kashmir. Two incidents took place here in a matter of a few hours which together may symbolise the beginning of a new paradigm shift in J&K. They signal a renewed phase of violence with the sluggish peace process.

Two men from a local Rashtriya Rifles unit barged into a house in a small neighbourhood of Gurjjars in Kunan village. They were in plainclothes and carried a grenade. The family alleged that the two had asked the male members to leave and then attempted to rape their daughter. The family raised an alarm and, within minutes, the entire village encircled the house. The angry villagers overpowered the two armymen and started thrashing them. Their faces were then blackened and they were taken in a procession to Bandipore market. This is one of the first incidents since militancy began in Kashmir in 1990 of common people taking the law into their own hands. Interestingly, the villagers didn’t even mask their faces.

A few miles away, an interesting incident was taking place around the same time in another village. The villagers were returning to their homes after burying a local boy who had joined the militants recently and was killed in an encounter with the army. A group of separatist leaders from the moderate Hurriyat faction had come to join the funeral ceremony. But as soon as they started addressing the villagers, there were angry shouts from the crowd. The Hurriyat leaders were told to stop “doing business on dead bodies”. The incident indicated that this village, known for its separatist leanings, had transcended another fear.

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