Roads in Kashmir wear deserted look on Eid

Eid prayers were limited to neighbourhood mosques in Kashmir on Monday as authorities imposed strict controls and security forces fanned out across towns and villages, restricting the movement of people and prohibiting congregations in large grounds.

Eid-ul-Adha prayers concluded without any violence, police said.

Rohit Kansal, Principal Secretary and the designated official spokesperson of the government said, Eid was celebrated in 90 per cent of the places. The festive buzz was missing with roads deserted across large swathes of the Valley, the silence broken only by police sirens and IAF helicopters hovering overhead.

Kashmiris woke up to armed personnel deployed in every corner asking them to remain indoors.

The Eidgah ground and places such as the Hazratbal shrine, the TRC ground and the Syed Saheb mosque were quiet and desolate this Eid — which comes exactly a week after the Centre announced the revocation of J&K’s special status under Article 370 and splitting of the State into two Union Territories.

There were reports that former chief ministers — Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti — were allowed to offer Eid prayers but no details were available.

At many places, people could Kashmiris living in New Delhi gather for a function to observe Eid al-Adha away from their homes, on Monday

be seen requesting security personnel to let them through.

One of them was Mohammed Asgar, a resident of Indira Nagar in this main city of the Valley.

I want to wish my brother who stays across the road but I am not being allowed to do so, said Asgar, who wanted to meet his ailing brother in Shivpora, a

distance of less than a kilometre from Indira Nagar.

Some people gathered outside hotels housing media personnel, hoping they would be able to call their children and families in other parts of the country, but returned dejected when they learnt phones were not available to media personnel as well.