That bazooka-like weapon carried by the Indian soldier on the left is a Carl Gustaf M3 manufactured by Saab in Sweden. It is a high explosive weapon used by special forces against bunkers, tanks, & armored vehicles & in Kashmir is routinely used to demolish homes in hunt to kill military operations. India signed the first contract with Saab for Carl Gustav M2 weapons in 1976 & for the Carl Gustav M3 in 2005. In 2016, Saab began scouting for partners in India to develop & manufacture the M4 in India.
This photo is from a May 5th, 2018 military operation in the Chattabal area of Srinagar. The Carl Gustav M3 features in many photos of that operation in which three Kashmiri men were killed, there was extensive damage to homes, & a 22-year-old civilian named Adil Ahmad Yadoo was crushed by an armored vehicle. Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq & Yasin Malik issued a joint statement saying, “Unaccountability has made the forces in Kashmir utterly contemptuous of the life of Kashmiris. The murders are hidden through brazen lies as in the case of Yadoo by saying it was a traffic accident.” The use of such high explosive weapons in a densely populated urban neighborhood only reinforces the utter contempt the Indian Army shows for Kashmiri lives.
In 2012, during a genocidal siege by the Burmese military against the Rohingya, Carl Gustav M3 weapons purchased from Sweden by India turned up in Burma, left behind by government troops in their fight against ethnic Kachin rebels in the northern part of Burma. There is photographic documentation, including the serial numbers of the bazookas. The question was how Burma had obtained the weapons from India when the European Union maintained a weapons embargo against Burma since 1996. Did Saab attempt to bypass the embargo by trafficking them through India? India, of course, denied that it had trafficked the weapons to Burma. So how in the hell did they get there from Indian arsenals? Neither Sweden nor India can appeal to their credibility on this issue & it is not reckless speculation to suggest the two countries may have been in cahoots. If the Burmese generals used them against the Kachin people did they also used them against the Rohingya during the 2012 siege in Arakan state?
By allowing the sale of Carl Gustav M3 weapons to India, the government of Sweden is directly implicated in the colonial occupation of Kashmir & in the monstrous crimes committed using these weapons.
(Photo by Umar Ganie, May 5th, 2018, from a military operation in Chattabal, Srinagar)