Protests erupt after Kashmir loses autonomy
NEW DELHI — Protests erupted across Kashmir on Thursday as India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, prepared to address the nation about his decision to unilaterally revoke the autonomy of the disputed region.
Human rights activists said that as many as 500 people had been arrested in nighttime raids across Kashmir and taken to makeshift detention centers. According to police officials reached by telephone, protesters in Kargil, a mountain town, hurled rocks at members of the security forces, wounding several, including the district’s top official. Residents of Srinagar, Kashmir’s biggest city, said that at least three men had been killed during demonstrations there, but that information could not be immediately confirmed.
On Monday, Modi’s government announced that it was revoking the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslimmajority state and a disputed territory that several times has driven India and Pakistan to war. The move ratcheted up tensions with Pakistan instantly.
On Thursday, Pakistan shut down a crossborder train, the Samjhauta Express, which has been running for more than 40 years but is often suspended when relations between the nucleararmed neighbors turn icy. Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the Pakistani railway minister, said he expected tensions to remain high for at least a year.
“There can even be war,” he said. “I am not saying that we want war, but we should be prepared for it.”
Much of Kashmir remains incommunicado. Internet service, the mobile phone network and even landlines have been disabled since Sunday in many areas, making it difficult for information to emerge. Soldiers have flooded the streets, imposing a strict curfew, and some families are beginning to run out of food, according to Indian news outlets.
The Modi government has insisted that taking away Kashmir’s autonomy will bring peace and prosperity, and the move has proved to be quite popular in the rest of India. People just about everywhere except in Kashmir have celebrated, as most Indians consider Kashmir an integral part of the country. Even progressive politicians who usually clash with Modi, such as Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s chief minister, have backed him on the issue.
But human rights activists — and practically all Kashmiris who have been able to get their voices heard — have called the move one of the most undemocratic, unconstitutional and authoritarian steps any Indian government has ever taken.
Many say they suspect the move was at least partly driven by the rightwing, Hindu nationalist agenda of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which has a long history of sowing division between India’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims.