Braid-Chopping affects psyche of children across Kashmir

The fear of braid chopping has not only petrified women and girls across Kashmir, but has also affected the psyche of children as well.
Three-year-old Adeeba Farooq said on Sunday that she has seen three back-to-back incidents of braid chopping in her locality at SD Colony, Batamaloo, here.
“And since then, I stay home all the time and fear playing outside,” she told Kashmir Post.
Adeeba’s mother Shazia said she has “noticed strange changes” in Adeeba behavior ever since the series of incidents of braid-chopping took place in her neighborhood. “She is a very jolly kid and plays all the time. But now she doesn’t leave me for even a second and fears someone will come from the window and cut her hair. Though she has a short hair, her fear persists,” Shazia said.
She said Adeeba has abandoned going to her crèche because she thinks the braid chopper will come, knock her down with some spray and chop off her hair. “Every morning when I wake her up and ask her to get ready for the school, she makes excuses of having stomach ache or feeling nauseated. A few hours later, after she is done with throwing tantrums, I ask her ‘why did you make excuses in the morning’, she silent whispers, ‘Mama, I fear this braid chopper.”
The mystery of braid-chopping in Kashmir has created a fear psychosis among children who think that the ‘ghost braid chopper’ is chasing them all the time.
Bisma Khan, a resident of Nowgam—where couple of incidents of braid chopping have happened—has sent her daughter to her brother’s place at Hyderpora to make her feel protected.
“When the braid of women was cut in Nowgam, I and my mother-in-law started panicking and would close all doors and windows and talk about this mysterious braid chopping all the time. My five-year-old daughter would listen to our conversations.”
“And this everyday talk eventually developed fear psychosis in her and she was scared of even going to washroom,” Bisma said.
“My daughter would often skip her food, no matter how much I would force her or how much I would scare her. But now on mere utterance of the word ‘braid chopper’, she would take all the food, but eventually I realised I am using a wrong tactic because my daughter is feeling scary,” Bisma said.
She said she then sent her to her brother’s place and “she is doing fine there.” More than 100 cases of braid cutting have taken place across Kashmir and no culprit has been booked by the police who claim that “every criminal, when he commits a crime, leaves evidences behind in the form of footprints or fingerprints, but in all cases of braid chopping, no such evidence has been found.”
Speaking in the backdrop of fears over braid-chopping incidents, a renowned psychiatrist in Kashmir, said: “When a mother is scared and feels shaken in her own space, how can her children feel safe?”