Kashmir put in lockdown a year after self-rule lost
Security restrictions were imposed in many parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir yesterday, a year after New Delhi revoked the disputed region’s partial autonomy.
Officials lifted a curfew in the city of Srinagar late on Tuesday, but said curbs on public movement, transport and commercial activities would continue because of the pandemic.
Government forces placed barricades across many roads, bridges and intersections. Shops and other businesses remained shut and police and soldiers stopped residents at checkpoints, only letting the occasional vehicle or pedestrian pass.
On August 5, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, scrapped its separate constitution and removed inherited protections on land and jobs.
The region was split into two federal territories – Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir – and Indian authorities enforced an information blackout and security clampdown.
Thousands of Kashmiri youths and pro-independence leaders, as well as pro-India Kashmiri politicians, were arrested. Hundreds are still in detention.
As some of the restrictions were eased, India enforced another lockdown. In Ladakh’s Muslim-majority Kargil district, religious and political groups demanded revocation of the order, calling yesterday a “black day”.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan demanded yesterday that the international community “force India to reverse its present course against the Kashmiri people” and said “Pakistan will always be with its brothers and sisters” in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
On Tuesday, he unveiled a map of Pakistan that, for the first time in 70 years, included Indian-held Kashmir and Junagadh within its boundaries. India rejected the move as “an exercise in political absurdity”.
The status of Kashmir has been disputed since Pakistan and India split after the end of British colonial rule. They each control part of the region and fought two wars over their rival claims.
Initially, the anti-India movement was largely peaceful, but after a series of political blunders, broken promises and a crackdown on dissent, Kashmiris launched a full-blown armed revolt in 1989.