Frigid Nights, Shattered Homes: The Cruelest Spectacle of Rendering Kashmiris Homeless in the Snow
Shazia Ashraf Khawajha
Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir stands today as a wounded page in human history, a place where savagery has been legalized and humanity lies like a cold corpse, shivering in the snow. It is a valley where people are alive, but life has died. Where breaths are drawn, but fear has shackled every heart and mind. Over a million Indian armed soldiers stand at every alley, every rooftop, every doorway, as if an entire nation is held in collective custody. But more terrifying than the guns are the policies designed to bury the truth, break voices, and enslave minds.
Here, truth is not a word—it is a crime. And the punishment for this crime is sometimes a broken home; sometimes walls collapsing on a mother’s doorstep; sometimes the sight of children’s bodies shivering under the open sky in the cold; and sometimes a lifetime of silent screams that the world simply does not want to hear.
The demolition of journalist Muhammad Afraz Deng’s home was not merely the destruction of a building—it was a declaration: if you write the truth, not even the icy nights will offer you refuge. In Kashmir, demolishing a home is not an act of clearing land—it is a weapon to break the people’s spine, trample their dignity, and bury generations in fear. Silencing institutions like the Kashmir Times through punitive actions is part of this very policy: do not write the truth, compromise with falsehood, or your remaining breaths will also be confiscated.
The raids in Kashmir are not just raids—they are a daily agony that has seeped into the very walls of homes, the sleep of children, and the moisture in the eyes of the elderly. Every knock on the door at night sounds like the footsteps of death. Women stay awake all night, clutching their children to their chests, praying that perhaps this night will pass in peace. A silent fear has spread throughout the region—a fear that cannot be heard, is deemed unnecessary to see, but is felt with every single breath. India has now imprisoned Kashmir in a mental vise, after the guns. In this imprisonment, day is not day, and night is not night. There is only waiting—for the next raid, the next explosion, the next funeral.
And all of this is happening as winter’s merciless spears rain down upon Kashmir. The snow is arriving, and the icy winds are on the attack. In such a season, to have one’s home demolished is not an insult to humanity—it is the murder of humanity. Every family rendered homeless is a new grave in the snow. The question is not where they will go. The question is: why does the world not awaken? In which court of law is there justice for these shivering children? Which global conscience retains enough life to smell the ashes of these homes and feel shame?
The resolutions of the United Nations have become dust gathering on books in libraries. The reports of OHCHR, communications by special procedures and of and on reports by Indian human rights organisations calling on Indian governments to stop its brutal repression falls short to make India accountable.
Global powers hear the screams of Kashmiris, but their ears are buried in a wall of promises and empty rhetoric. This silence is not mere negligence—it is complicity. When the cry of the oppressed is ignored, the oppressor is not just given power—they are given a license. In Kashmir today, that license belongs to brutality, and the world stands by as a silent spectator.
India is terrified of the truth, which is why it demolishes homes, expands graveyards, and breaks the pens of journalists. But truth can never die. It rises from the ashes, it emerges from the rubble, and ultimately, it topples the very thrones that tried to suppress it.
Yet, the bitterest question is not when truth will prevail. The bitterest questions are: How many more homes will become graves of ice before then? How many children will draw their last breath in their mother’s lap in the midnight cold? How many women’s screams will die, crashing against unhearing walls? And how long will the world continue to carry the coffin of its own shame?
Kashmir is screaming. If the world still chooses to sleep, let it remember: Those who are silent in the face of oppression are no less guilty than the oppressors themselves.
Kashmiris deserve justice, dignity and fulfilment of promises made to them by India Pakistan and United Nations security council.
Writer is research associate at Kashmir Institute of International Relations and can bereachedat: