More than 1.300 people, including the entire leadership of all the political parties, with 3 former chief ministers, have now been arrested in the Indian-administered Kashmir.
Cut off from the outside world by a complete communications blockade, locals in Srinagar told The Independent they no longer recognise their city, transformed into a maze of barbed wire barricades since the government moved to strip Kashmir of its autonomy.
Indian-administered section has been subject to a violent insurgency since 1989 that caused an estimated 70,000 deaths, mostly by the Indian Security Forces.
“For the past 70 years, we held high the Indian national flag in Kashmir [even] where separatist sentiment ran deep. This [the arrests] is the gift to people of Kashmir from the fascist regime of India,” The Independent quoted a politician from the mainstream National Conference party who asked to remain anonymous.
By blurring the lines between separatist, pro-India and pro-Pakistan political camps, the arrests in the past 10 days have in effect united the people of the valley in defence of their autonomy, said the politician.
But people are struggling to keep daily life going due to a complete lockdown.
Daily clashes have been limited by laws preventing people from assembling in groups of more than four, but hospital officials told The Independent that they had received at least 15 youths injured by police shotgun pellets to the eye.
An official who has been assigned to brief media on a daily basis said the government was aware of the difficulties people were facing, but insisted the restrictions were “reasonable” because some people were hell-bent on disrupting peace in the region.
But both locals and politicians see the 5 August decision as a move aimed at changing the demography and Muslim-majority character of Kashmir, referring to it as a “conspiracy” to politically disempower them by settling Hindus in the disputed region.
