Srinagar: When Niyaz Ahmad Lone’s house in Shopian  was surrounded past

midnight in early spring this year by soldiers and armed personnel from the anti-
insurgency wing of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, he took a quick look at his
belongings before stepping out. The army had been making announcements on
loudspeaker, directing Lone and his family to come out. He didn’t take anything
with him but his family. When the soldiers outside quickly took them away to
another location, Lone knew what was imminent.

By evening, the encounter between the militants trapped inside Lone’s house and
the security forces was over. Three militants were killed and Lone’s entire house
was razed to the ground.

Lone was not the only one to see his house being reduced to rubble on April 1. In
two neighbouring villages, two other houses were destroyed by the security
forces by the end of that day.

The practice of destroying buildings and other structures during gun battles is
not new in Kashmir.

IndiaSpend estimates that as many as 105 houses have been destroyed since

2015 in encounters in Pulwama district alone.

Dreadful though this statistic is, it was not uncommon – during the height of
militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s – for several houses or even entire
colonies t0 be burnt down by the security forces.

For example, in January 1993, after a convoy of the Border Security Force (BSF)
was ambushed by militants in north Kashmir’s Sopore town, the BSF set the
town on fire. More than 45 people were killed that day. In another case, several
shops and houses were set on fire by the security forces in Baramulla’s Pattan
town on August 1, 1990.