comrade after a grenade blast at a market in Srinagar on November
4, 2019.Tauseef MUSTAFA / AFP
Thousands of Indian troops imposed a curfew in Kashmir
on Tuesday, with razor wire and steel barricades blocking main
roads a day ahead of the one-year anniversary of the restive region
being stripped of its autonomy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed direct rule last August 5,
promising peace and prosperity after three decades of violence that
have seen tens of thousands of people killed in an anti-India
uprising.
Officials announced a two-day “full curfew” on Monday citing
intelligence reports of looming protests in the Muslim-majority
region of seven million people, where locals have called for the
anniversary to be marked as a “black day”.
Police vehicles patrolled the main city Srinagar after dark on
Monday and again on Tuesday morning, with officers using megaphones
to order residents to remain indoors.
A “full curfew” means people can only move around with an
official pass, usually reserved for essential services such as
police and ambulances.
The Himalayan region is already subject to restrictions to
reduce the spread of the coronavirus, with most economic activities
limited and public movement curtailed.
On Monday morning, new razor-wire and steel barricades were
placed on main roads on Srinagar, and on Tuesday thousands of
government troops fanned across the city and surrounding
villages.
“Police in vehicles moved through our locality and from
loudspeakers ordered us to stay indoors for two days — as if we
were not already caged,” said Imriyaz Ali, who lives in the
Srinagar old town.
“I saw mobile phones of two of my neighbours taken away by
soldiers when they got out to buy bread from a local baker early in
the morning,” said one villager by phone from Nazneenpora
village.
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– Painful memories – For locals, the new curfew brought back
memories of the weeks-long clampdown a year ago.
Then, a total communications blackout was imposed, with phone
and internet access cut and tens of thousands of fresh troops moved
into the valley — already one of the world’s most militarised
regions.
Around 7,000 people were taken into custody — including three
former chief ministers. Hundreds remain under house arrest or
behind bars to this day, mostly without charge.
Kashmir has been split since 1947 between India and Pakistan,
both of which claim it in full. it has been the spark for two wars
between the arch-rivals.
For Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, Kashmir’s
special status had produced “nothing but terrorism, separatism,
nepotism and big corruption,” he said last year.
The move, which has been accompanied by an upsurge in violence
that is set to make 2020 the bloodiest year in a decade, has
triggered major economic hardship exacerbated by the coronavirus
pandemic.
Many locals are also angry that for the first time, people from
outside Kashmir are being granted rights to buy land, fearing that
India wants to change the region’s demographic makeup.
“Indian government claims that it was determined to improve
Kashmiri lives ring hollow one year after the revocation of Jammu
and Kashmir’s constitutional status,” Meenakshi Ganguly from Human
Rights Watch said in a statement.
“The authorities instead have maintained stifling restraints on
Kashmiris in violation of their basic rights.”
-AFP
Read more https://swordpress.com.ng/2020/08/04/indian-kashmir-under-curfew-ahead-of-black-day-anniversary/