Schools and telephone lines to be opened in Kashmir
RESTRICTIONS EXPECTED TO BE EASED IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS, OFFICIAL SAYS
Authorities were to begin restoring some telephone lines in Kashmir from last night, including in the main city of Srinagar where afternoon prayers went peacefully amid heavy security, the top state official said.
Telephone and internet links were cut and public assembly banned in Kashmir just before New Delhi removed the decades-old autonomy the territory enjoyed under Article 370. The measures were aimed at preventing protests.
“You will find a lot of Srinagar functioning tomorrow [Saturday] morning,” Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam told reporters.
“Over the weekend, you’ll have most of these lines functional,” he said, responding to a question about landlines.
‘Functioning normally’
Security forces were deployed outside mosques across Srinagar yesterday, while police vans fitted with speakers asked people not to venture out, according to two witnesses.
In some parts of the city, posters appeared calling for protests and asking preachers in mosques to talk about the current situation in the Valley.
Subrahmanyam said 12 of 22 districts in Jammu and Kashmir are functioning normally, with night time restrictions in five districts.
In the Kashmir valley, Subrahmanyam said schools would open after the weekend, and restrictions on movement would be lifted after a review of each area.
“It is expected that over the next few days, as the restrictions get eased, life in Jammu and Kashmir will become completely normal,” he said.
Hundreds of political leaders and activists remain in detention, some of them in prisons outside Jammu and Kashmir.
At least 52 politicians, most of them belonging to the National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party regional parties, are being held at a hotel on the banks of Srinagar’s Dal lake.