Srinagar busy:
Thousands in the JAMMU and Kashmiro occupied by India -ilegally with “resistance tattoos”, including the assault rifles signed to oppose the authority of New Delhi, have aligned themselves to scrub them from their bodies, fearing the police remuneration.
Basit Bashir receives up to 100 people, mostly men, every day in its laser clinic in the main city of Srinagar, quickly floating on designs that range from AK-47 rifles to Islamic symbols like a growing moon.
“I have safely eliminated AK-47 and similar type tattoos of the arms and neck of more than 1,000 young people who use laser,” Bashir told AFP in his clinic in the old Srinagar room while exploding high-intensity light pulses to break the ink.
“After Pahalgam, we have seen an increase in the number of people with medium or AK-47 tattoos for extraction,” said Bashir, 28.
A young man arrived this week with an AK-47 tattoo after his friends told him it was “better to eliminate it” since the situation was “very precarious,” he said.
In Iiojk, body tattoos have been a form of political expression, such as graffiti, since a movement of freedom against the illegal Indian government broke out in 1989.
The deeply sustained anti-india feeling has remained. Many who grew during the violent lifting had their bodies signed with symbols that expressed not only the resentment towards the Indian government but also with their religious identity.
Bashir, the laser coach, said he initially began to erase the tattoos that represent Muslim religious symbols. “They wanted to eliminate tattoos, believing that it was prohibited in Islam and wanted to be buried as pure after death,” he said.
But others with slogs in favor of independence began to reach large numbers after 2019, when New Delhi canceled the partial autonomy of the region and was reduced in dissent and protests.
Thousands were arrested and civil liberties were drastically reduced. Police and security forces increased surveillance after the change of 2019 in the state of the territory.
They punished the political expression suggesting resistance or a reference to the disputed nature of Kashmir in any way, even on social networks.
“I started getting a current of fearful young people and women looking for their tattoos to be removed safely,” Bashir said.
In some days, more than 150 people appeared in their clinic, which led him to buy a new machine for one million rupees (almost $ 12,000).
“Many of them told me their stories of being harassed by the police for their tattoos that show any anti-india feeling,” he said.
The hurry to make tattoos erase for fear of police retaliation now generated more than 20 laser clinics in Srinagar, charging between 300 and 3,000 rupees ($ 3.50- $ 35) for work, depending on the size of the tattoo.
Feeling hurry, Bashir said he had trained in the state of Gujarat of India to learn to erase tattoos safely. “People come from all back,” Bashir said. “Many have told me their horrible stories to face the police interrogation for their tattoos.”
Many doubted, they were afraid of younger motivations for tattoo. “My family and my friends of school rebuke me all the time for my tattoos,” said a student, pressing my teeth during the painful procedure. “I can’t deal with that anymore, that’s why I came here.”
Another, a lawyer who hoped to find a game for marriage, said he had an assault rifle tattooed on his arm during the 1990s when the armed rebellion was in full swing.
“That is what I had seen around me during my childhood: soldiers and militants wielding and shooting from their AK-47,” he said, denying to be identified by fear of reprisals.
“Everything has changed since then,” he said, showing the blisters that now replaced the rifle after two laser rounds. “These things are problems.”
