INDIA TO EASE KASHMIR CURFEW BUT RESIDENTS FEAR LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AFTER MODI'S SURPRISE MOVE
▶ ‘In seven decades of conflict, this is the worst Eid that Kashmir has ever seen,’ said a shopkeeper too afraid to let his son on to the streets
India is to ease Kashmir’s 10day curfew after its independence celebration today, the state governor said.
Communications, however, will stay blocked, Satya Pal Malik told The Times of India.
“We don’t want to give that instrument to the enemy until things settle down,” he said.
The lockdown resulted in restricted Eid Al Adha celebrations for the Muslim-majority region.
The communication blackout and severe restrictions on movement have been in place in the disputed territory since August 4, when India announced it would end Kashmir’s special semi-autonomous status.
In Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, only a dozen or so shops were open and the streets deserted as loudspeakers bellowed from army vehicles that “the imposed restrictions are still in force”.
According to residents, about 8,000 people protested after Friday prayers during Eid, which ended on Tuesday, with security forces using tear gas and pellet-firing shotguns to break up the rally.
Fearing further protests and unrest in the long-restless region, tens of thousands of extra Indian troops have been deployed, turning the picturesque main city of Srinagar into a warren of barbed wire and barricades.
Although the four million residents of Kashmir, where an insurgency has for decades simmered, are used to blockades, they have never seen one like this.
Amid a labyrinth where entry and exit points are changed frequently, people find themselves disoriented in their own city, and struggle to memorise its frequently changing street map. The restrictions made it especially difficult to mark Eid, and those who rely on the festival to make an income have lost out.
“Every year, I sell sheep worth 30 lakh rupees [Dh155,000],” Mohammad Iqbal, 24, a farmer, told The National. “[Prime Minister Narendra] Modi has ruined our business.”
Dilpazeer Ashraf, 36, a handicraft-shop manager, said the tradition of sacrificing and distributing meat among neighbours, friends and relatives meant nothing this year.
“In seven decades of conflict, this is the worst Eid that Kashmir has ever seen,” he said.
He will not let his son on to the streets for fears that “he might not come back”.
Mr Ashraf said he worried that the current loss of “identity, business, civil liberty and the right to offer prayers” is now a permanent change, and that Kashmiri Muslims might lose celebrations such as Eid altogether.
Yesterday, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan warned India that his country was prepared to respond to any aggression in Kashmir, vowing the time had come to teach New Delhi a lesson. “The Pakistani army has solid information that they [India] are planning to do something in Pakistani Kashmir, and they are ready and will give a solid response,” Mr Khan said during a televised speech in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
“We have decided that if India commits any type of violation we will fight till the end.”
Mr Khan’s warnings of war represented a steep escalation in Pakistani rhetoric after Islamabad said last week that it had ruled out a “military option” over the dispute.
“The time has arrived to teach you a lesson,” Mr Khan said in the speech marking the country’s independence day, which takes place a day before India’s. In Islamabad, posters urged residents to express solidarity with Kashmiris, and roadside traders sold Azad Kashmir flags as well as the Pakistani flag commonly displayed on August 14.
After the move to abolish Kashmir’s special status, Pakistan has launched a diplomatic offensive aimed at reversing the order and formally asked the United Nations Security Council late on Tuesday to hold an emergency session to address India’s “illegal actions”.
Pakistan has also expelled the Indian ambassador, halted bilateral trade and suspended cross-border transport services. But analysts said the actions were unlikely to move Delhi.
Mr Modi’s government said old laws prohibiting people from outside Kashmir from buying property and settling there and taking up government jobs had hindered its development.
This week, Mr Khan lambasted the international community for failing to challenge India and said turning a blind eye to the spread of Indian Hindu nationalism was the same as appeasing Hitler, a comparison he made again yesterday.
As tension simmered with India, Pakistan moved ahead with independence day celebrations, which began at the stroke of midnight with firework shows in major cities, where residents jammed the streets waving the national flag from their cars and motorcycles.
In August 1947, the British Raj was dismantled with the subcontinent divided into two independent states – Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Millions were uprooted in one of the largest mass migrations in history, with experts estimating at least a million died in the communal violence unleashed by the partition that continues to haunt the subcontinent to this day.
Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan after independence from Britain, and has been the spark for two wars between the two nuclear-armed arch rivals.