pahalgam-attack-fearing-detention-people-rush-to-remove-tattoos

Fearing strict police retaliation, hundreds of people in Kashmir are rushing to get their infamous tattoos removed from their body parts, especially arms and necks. 

 

The tattoos ranging from “AK-47, and half crescent moon” are reportedly the ones getting removed by the laser clinics across Srinagar city.

 

The AK-47 tattoos, although they have become famous among gangsters and criminal gangs, however, some musicians like Sidhu Moosewala, Bohemia and international hip-hop artists including Tupac, Big E, and Eminem have occasionally used metaphorical references about “guns and violence” to idolise their music across the world, affecting millions of fans.

 

"I have safely removed AK-47 and similar type tattoos from the arms and necks of more than 1,000 young people using laser," said Aqib Bashir, who is running the clinic in Srinagar city.

 

The region was recently rocked by of vicious terror attack at its famous tourist spot Pahalgam, where 26 were killed and another 20 were injured. 

 

Shortly after the deadly assault, the Indian government said “digital footprints and some markers” point to the involvement of the Islamabad-backed Terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, while Pakistan has rejected the involvement and said that the group no longer exists. 

 

"After Pahalgam, we have seen a rise in the number of people with a crescent or AK-47 tattoos coming in for removal," 28-year-old Bashir told reporters here. 

 

A young man came in this week with an AK-47 tattoo after friends told him it was "better to get it removed" since the situation was "very precarious", he said.

 

The infamous tattoos and graffiti first gained prominence during the 1989 breakout of the militancy after two years following the infamous alleged rigging of the 1987 elections. 

 

Many who grew up during the violent uprising had their bodies inked with symbols expressing their religious identity.

 

Bashir told reporters that when he first started removing the Tattoos from people’s bodies, it was because "They wanted the tattoos removed, believing it was prohibited in Islam, and wanted to be buried as pure after death.”

 

But others with pro-independence slogans started coming in big numbers after 2019, when New Delhi cancelled the region's partial autonomy and clamped down separatist and mainstream political leadership in the region.