Kashmir govt in turmoil as coalition splits
India’s governing party ended an alliance with a powerful regional party in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, leading to the resignation of a top official and plunging the disputed mountainous territory into fresh turmoil over its leadership.
Ram Madhav, general secretary of the governing party, the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, said it was severing a three-year alliance with the top political group in Kashmir, the Muslim-majority Peoples Democratic Party.
“Terrorism, violence and radicalisation have risen, and the fundamental rights of the citizens are under danger in the Kashmir Valley,” Mr Madhav said in New Delhi on Tuesday, adding the alliance had not helped to curb a deteriorating security situation in Kashmir. He said power in the area would be passed to the state’s governor.
Shortly after t he announcement, Mehbooba Mufti, the top official in Jammu and Kashmir and the head of the Peoples Democratic Party, resigned from her post as chief minister.
Ms Mufti said that giving control to the governor would enable the Indian central government to exert more influence in Jammu and Kashmir, further alienating locals who were already suspicious of Indian security forces.
“We tried our best for dialogue and reconciliation,” she said at a news conference in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. “Unfortunately, we did not get an appropriate response from the other side.”
Kashmir has been at the centre of a decades-long conflict between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, which both claim parts of the Himalayan territory. Three wars over the claims have killed thousands of people.
In recent months, clashes in the area have worsened as protests bring Indian security forces and Kashmiris into conflict almost every day.
A cease-fire announced by the Indian government last month for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan failed to catch hold. And in the last week, at least four civilians have been killed, including Shujaat Bukhari, editor-in-chief of Rising Kashmir, an English-language daily, who was gunned down by assailants outside his office. It was the first time a journalist had been murdered in Kashmir for several years.
Last week, the UN released its first report on atrocities committed in Kashmir by India and Pakistan. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the global organisation’s high commissioner for human rights, called for an international investigation into reports of sexual violence and torture, sharply criticising Indian security forces.
Within minutes of the report’s release, the Indian government rejected the contents, calling them “fallacious, tendentious and motivated”.
The 2015 alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the Peoples Democratic Party created a state government in Jammu and Kashmir to try to bring peace to the region.