At least 318 children have been killed in J&K in around 14 years — from 2003 up to 2017 — and constitute 6.95% of the casualties in the ongoing conflict in the State, according to a study by the J&K Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS).
The report, titled ‘Terrorized: Impact of Violence on the Children of Jammu and Kashmir’, claims that children (less than 17 years old) “were not viewed differently by armed forces” and have been targeted as part of the offensive. At least 144 children were killed by the security forces and the State police, “which alone accounts for 44.02% of the total [number of] children killed”.
“Most of the children, at least 110 of them, killed in state violence were shot dead in different incidents of violence, and not less than eight children died due to injuries inflicted from pellet shot-guns fired by government forces,” the report recorded.
Twenty-seven children died to due drowning either caused due to the negligence of armed forces in the Wular lake tragedy or on being chased by government forces during a protest, the report said.
