Attacked in India, Kashmiri shawl sellers choose between safety, livelihood

Al Jazeera · Feb 22, 2026 · Collected from RSS

Full Article

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – Ayaz Ahmad stares at his screen, fingers moving rapidly as he types in a group chat on his mobile phone.Ahmad, 28, goes around houses in Hisar, a city in northern India’s Haryana state, selling shawls and other handicraft items – like thousands of other itinerant traders from Indian-administered Kashmir, who crisscross the country on foot or bicycles.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4India is profiling Kashmir mosques, raising new surveillance fearslist 2 of 4India shuts Kashmir medical college – after Muslims earned more admissionslist 3 of 4AI video showing a top Indian official shooting Muslims causes outragelist 4 of 4AR Rahman: Indian composer faces backlash for ‘bias’ in Bollywood remarksend of listBut a spate of hate attacks faced by the shawl sellers in recent weeks has forced them to rethink and strategise what was once a common, winter-time sight across Indian cities: Kashmiris lugging large wraps holding shawls and other wares.Ahmad now runs a WhatsApp group in which nearly two dozen members share information as they guide each other on areas to avoid.“I guide them on where to go and where to avoid because some areas are fine, but others have seen harassment against our members,” Ahmad told Al Jazeera.“Now, our priority is safety rather than business, as harassment incidents continue to happen to our members almost every day.”‘Simply because of my identity’Ahmad formed the WhatsApp group late last month after a Hindu shopkeeper in northern India’s Uttarakhand state hit Tabish Ahmad Ganie, an 18-year-old Kashmiri shawl seller, with an iron rod.“This is a Hindu village. Kashmiri Muslims won’t work here at all,” the shopkeeper was heard shouting in a viral video of the attack, which left Ganie unconscious, while his elder brother Danish, who was also attacked, suffered minor injuries.Ganie, a class 10 dropout, received 12 stitches on his head and his left arm. He is unable to walk due to fractures in his leg.Bloodied, bandaged and wearing a sling, he told Al Jazeera the Hindu shopkeeper was accompanied by two others as they thrashed him brutally.“Not for anything I had done, but simply because of my identity as a Kashmiri Muslim,” he said at his home in Kashmir’s Kupwara district, more than 800km (about 500 miles) from Uttarakhand’s Vikas Nagar area where he was attacked.Ganie’s was not an isolated case, but part of a growing trend of attacks across India on Kashmiri traders and migrant workers, accompanied by a drumbeat of rhetoric against the region’s people on social media and at times, in public speeches from influential individuals linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). That rhetoric often depicts Kashmiris as “security threats” to India, and as “antinational” and “Pakistani agents”.Since Modi came to power in 2014, anti-Muslim hate in India has soared — often patronised and fomented by leaders of the Hindu majoritarian BJP, and at times legitimised through dog whistles by the prime minister himself.But Kashmiri Muslims carry a double burden — their faith and their homeland are both subjects of suspicion and widespread hatred in today’s India.On Christmas Day, shawl vendor Bilal Ahmad was attacked by a Hindu group in Uttarakhand’s Kashipur district after he refused to chant “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” (Hail Mother India), a nationalist slogan that imagines India as a mother goddess. The slogan has been weaponised by the BJP and Hindu right-wing groups, who have often used it as a war cry in their campaign against Muslims and other minorities.Bilal said his family grew concerned after seeing a video of the attack online.“They called me and urged me to return to Kashmir because of the increasing attacks on Kashmiris. After facing harassment, I decided to close my business and came back to Kashmir,” he told Al Jazeera.No easy choicesBut returning to Kashmir is not an easy choice for many.Rampant unemployment due to limited job opportunities in Kashmir often pushes young Kashmiris out of the region to look for livelihoods elsewhere, mainly the northern Indian states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, and the national capital territory of Delhi.Since 2019, when Modi’s government scrapped the region’s decades-old partial autonomy guaranteed by the constitution and brought it under New Delhi’s direct control, a fledgling economy still recovering from the aftershocks of the move has compounded the job crisis.However, anti-Kashmiri sentiments – and resultant attacks on them – spiked last year after a group of armed men attacked Indian tourists in Kashmir’s scenic Pahalgam area, killing 26 people. India accused Pakistan of backing the attackers, a charge Islamabad rejected. The attack triggered a four-day air war between India and Pakistan — the neighbours that control parts of Kashmir but claim it in full — while diplomatic tensions and sporting boycotts continue.In recent months, about 200 cases of attacks on Kashmiri students, shawl sellers or migrant workers have been reported across India. Many were beaten, threatened, harassed, and forced to leave the areas where they were living or doing business.When Bashir Ahmad visited a Hindu-majority locality in early January to sell shawls in Punjab state’s Moga district, he was stopped and asked to show permission to conduct his business. He knew it was a mere pretext. Failing to show any permit, he was abused, and his bag of shawls was thrown on the ground.The 50-year-old man returned to Kashmir after the incident and advised fellow shawl sellers to operate only in areas that other Kashmiris had found safe.Shawl seller Bashir Ahmad returned to Kashmir after he was assaulted [Courtesy of Bashir Ahmad’s family]In neighbouring Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra district, a retired Indian army soldier, Surjeet Rajput Guleria, abused and publicly interrogated an unidentified Kashmiri hawker on January 17, livestreaming the incident on Facebook.The video shows him making anti-Muslim and sexually charged remarks, accusing Kashmiris of supporting Pakistan and engaging in pelting stones at Indian soldiers deployed in Kashmir. “Your sisters and daughters go to Pakistan and return pregnant,” he is heard saying in the video.Local media reports said the Kangra police filed a report against Guleria, but no further action was taken.On February 1, Guleria was back again – livestreaming his harassment of another Kashmiri hawker, Mohammad Ramzan, on Facebook.“He threatened me and demanded that I leave the state. He went through my shawl bundles and mockingly accused me of carrying an AK-47 rifle instead of Kashmiri shawls,” Ramzan told Al Jazeera.He said such targeting of migrants “not only jeopardises livelihoods but also reinforces a climate of fear that affects families” dependent on seasonal trade for survival.It is not just shawl sellers who have suffered.Abdul Hakeem, a resident of Kashmir’s Kulgam district, ran a fruit-selling business in Punjab’s Jalandhar city. He said he faced constant harassment from fellow Hindu vendors, and finally left the area on February 6, after he was given an ultimatum to either leave the state or face consequences.“I had to leave fruits worth about 100,000 rupees [$1,100] behind and return to the valley because my family was afraid due to the rising attacks on Kashmiris outside the valley,” he told Al Jazeera.His 50-year-old mother, Misra Begum, said they did not want him to continue his business if he did not feel safe. “We would rather go without food than see our son get into trouble,” she said.‘Troubling pattern’Kashmir’s main political parties — the governing National Conference and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) — have urged the federal government, which effectively governs the region, to intervene and stop the attacks on Kashmiris across the country.Calling the attacks “unacceptable”, Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said earlier this month he had raised the issue at a meeting of the chief ministers of the northern Indian states and appealed to them to prevent such incidents.Abdullah’s predecessor, Mehbooba Mufti of the PDP, alleged that the attackers operated with the backing of respective state authorities.“[The] state governments appear to be granting silent patronage to mob violence, treating hatred as a shortcut to political success. The rule of law has been replaced by politics of fear,” she wrote on X on February 3, as she shared a video about an elderly Kashmiri man harassed in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh state.BJP spokesman in Kashmir, Altaf Thakur, condemned the attacks on Kashmiri shawl sellers as “wrong and unacceptable”. He said the Kashmiris are an “inseparable part of the nation” and asserted the government would not tolerate such actions.But Kashmiri lawmaker, Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, told Al Jazeera the attacks on Kashmiris are a “troubling pattern” that could not be ignored as they send “an alarming signal” to the people of Kashmir.“Kashmiris, particularly small traders and shawl sellers, travel to different parts of the country to earn a livelihood, but repeated assaults and intimidation were causing fear and insecurity,” he said.