HE was just another schoolboy carrying a backpack of books when he left his home in Srinagar, Kashmir, last month.
Before the day was out, 17-year-old Tufail Ahmad Mattoo had been proclaimed a martyr.
On June 11, Tufail was on his way home from a tutorial centre when a teargas canister fired by police shattered his skull. His death triggered a fresh chapter of violence in Kashmir, a flashpoint region that has sparked two wars between India and Pakistan.
The small funeral his family had planned was overrun by a crowd who took Tufail's body to the Martyrs' Graveyard, resting place for freedom fighters and Islamic militants. "Thousands came to demand freedom from Indian rule," Mohamed Ashraf Mattoo, Tufail's father, said.
"My son had been murdered in cold blood but the authorities were heartless. Even his funeral procession was shelled with teargas. With their help, my son became a martyr."
In the five weeks since the burial, Srinagar has witnessed a series of street battles between stone-throwing boys, some as young as eight, and security forces with Kalashnikovs. The schoolboy "stone pelters" have become the new face of the region's tensions. Since Tufail's death, 14 protesters and bystanders have been killed. Last week the Indian army was deployed in Srinagar for the first time in two decades to quell the violence.
The stone pelters - who grew up amid the separatist insurgency that erupted in 1989 and claimed 68,000 lives - say they have been backed into a corner. "We remember the horrors of the insurgency. We don't want violence. But it is the only language India understands," Sharif, 20, said in a Srinagar backstreet during a curfew. "We want azadi (freedom) from India, from Pakistan, from fear. The more they stamp on us, the stronger our will becomes."
The man who must unravel the intransigence of youths such as Sharif is Omar Abdullah, the British-born Chief Minister of Indian-controlled Kashmir.
"For some of these youths it's ideological; some have nothing better to do; some are deeply frustrated and cannot see a better future; some are angry because they have not benefited from the economic progress elsewhere in India," he said. "There's no pigeon hole. Some throw stones because it pays well."
This was a reference to allegations that separatist groups were paying children to take to the streets. But Tufail's father warns that: "When boys see boys being shot and killed, the experience sticks to their brain. My son's death has produced multiple stone pelters".
The Times UK (16 July 2010) and The Australian (17 July 2010)
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