Encounters, Streamed Live: Inside The Dangers Of Kashmir's Social Media Wars
On March 28th, as security forces fought a terrorist of the Hizbul Mujahideen holed up in a building in Chadura, a town in north Kashmir, the gunbattle was being streamed live by 22-year-old Zahid Rashid on his Facebook page. Much like the case with other encounters in Kashmir, the forces soon found themselves battling another front - a hostile crowd of locals, pelting the jawans with stones. This new, dangerous turn in Kashmir's war on militancy - of stone-throwing civilians acting as an outer layer of defence for terrorists - is being provoked, in part, police believe, by live streams like those on Rashid's Facebook page.
