By Mehr un Nisa
Before the smoke rose over Delhi’s Red Fort, Indian Administered Jammu & Kashmir was already under siege. Long before investigators linked the blast to the Valley, the arrests had begun. Doctors, women and young professionals were rounded up in a wave of suspicion that felt less like law enforcement and more like collective punishment.
In November, over 1,500 people had been detained across Anantnag, Pulwama, Shopian and Srinagar. The so-called “post-blast crackdown” was, in reality, the continuation of a pre-blast purge, one that targeted Kashmir’s educated class, silenced its women and criminalized its youth.
The case of two Kashmiri doctors, Dr. Adil Majeed Rather and Dr. Muzammil Ganaie, shows how even noble professions are not safe. Dr. Adil left his hospital post months ago, yet faced baseless accusations. No proof. No evidence. Just suspicion. Soon after, Dr. Muzammil, serving patients in Faridabad, was caught in a similar storm. Their families were shocked. Their careers are questioned. These are doctors, not criminals. They heal. They care. Yet in Kashmir, propaganda spares no one. Even the medical community is under scrutiny. Compassion and professionalism are twisted into stories of doubt. Their dedication deserves respect, not suspicion.
On 21 October 2025, two Kashmiri women, Rubeena Akhtar from Srinagar and Nargis Jan from Pulwama, were arrested in Zainapora, Shopian. The official version? “Narcotic possession.” The local version? Another stage-managed operation. Such cases follow a predictable pattern: vague allegations, selective leaks to the media and the complete absence of due process. The women were taken during routine checking. Phones, documents and household items were seized. Their families were not informed of their whereabouts for days. In occupied Kashmir, women’s arrests are designed to shock and silence. They carry a social cost that men’s arrests do not. It is a tactic to humiliate, not investigate. To terrify, not secure. To destroy the will to resist.
The youth have become the primary collateral of India’s security theatre. Alongside doctors and women, five young Kashmiris, Arif Nisar Dar, Yasir-ul-Ashraf, Maqsood Ahmad Dar, Molvi Irfan Ahmad and Zameer Ahmad Ahangar, were arrested across Srinagar, Shopian, Pulwama and Kulgam. Most were detained under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), a draconian law that allows arrest on suspicion alone. It requires no proof, only narrative. In Kashmir, that narrative is ready-made: every young man is a “potential militant,” every outspoken voice a “threat to sovereignty.”
In Shopian, police even moved to cancel the bail of 13 detainees under UAPA, claiming they had “violated conditions.” No evidence was presented. Their release orders were ignored. Courts are bypassed. Rights are irrelevant. For the youth, Kashmir has become a place where even silence is criminal.
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. A parent waiting outside a police station that won’t open its doors. A child asking where her mother has gone. 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.
The Red Fort blast might fade from headlines. But the narrative it unleashed will linger, one that paints Kashmiris as perpetual suspects. Delhi needed a scapegoat and Kashmir, as always, was ready at hand. These arrests were not about stopping violence. They were about controlling the story. They were about reminding an occupied population that it lives under suspicion, not citizenship.
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 author is the head of the research and human rights department of Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR). She can be contacted at the following email address: mehr_dua@yahoo.com