India Keeps Kashmir in Lockdown as Anger Grows Across the Valley
Communications restrictions continued across Kashmir two weeks after Article 370 was scrapped.
(Bloomberg) -- Communications restrictions continued across Kashmir two weeks after India scrapped the region’s autonomy, while the fate of detained political leaders -- including former chief ministers -- remains uncertain.
India yesterday said all government offices along with around 190 schools would be reopened from Monday, however curbs in some parts of the capital Srinagar were reimposed after protesters clashed with police, the Press Trust of India reported Sunday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has remained silent on the detention of scores of political leaders. The Indian Express listed 27 prominent leaders including three former heads of local government, members of the former legislative council and a mayor who have been detained without legal recourse.
The forced removal of the state’s most senior politicians would make it difficult for the federal government to restore normalcy in a region that has been locked down for so long, said Khalid Shah, associate fellow at the New-Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.
“In absence of a political system for such a large population which is angry and alienated and hostile, how does the government look towards easing tensions?” Shah said. “Today there’s no difference between a separatist and a mainstream, pro-India politician. If at all there’s a violent eruption, who will control that? Because you need politics to be a buffer, to channel people’s anger.”
Nearly 4,000 people have been arrested and held under the Public Safety Act, a controversial law that allows authorities to imprison someone for up to two years without charge or trial, AFP reported Sunday.
Eight people were injured in protests across six places in the valley, PTI reported citing government spokesman Rohit Kansal. Although there were reports that landlines had been restored in some parts of Srinagar, government numbers remained unreachable after repeated attempts Monday.
Modi’s surprise move to scrap seven decades of autonomy in India’s only Muslim-majority state has raised tensions with neighbor and nuclear rival Pakistan, which also lays claim to the Himalayan border territory. The United Nations Security Council held a rare closed-door meeting on Friday, called after China backed Pakistan’s demand’s for a high-level discussion on India’s actions. It failed to produce concrete action.
India has called the Kashmir decision an internal matter with no bearings on its international borders with Pakistan and China. Yet China has raised concerns about the decision to split the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories to carve out the mainly Buddhist region of Ladakh -- an area of strategic importance nestled between Tibet and Pakistan.
To contact the reporters on this story: Archana Chaudhary in New Delhi at achaudhary2@bloomberg.net;Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Unni Krishnan
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