Eyewitnesses reveal what Kashmiris feel about India’s revocation of Article 370
The decades-old conflict of Kashmir has resulted in horrific wars and continuous border tensions between Pakistan and India. The issue has strained the bilateral relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours as it is at core of their foreign and security policies.
India’s brutal occupational forces have committed a plethora of inhuman grave felonies in the Himalayan valley, but Kashmiris’ resilience has throughout been remarkable.
The Indian government on August 5 repealed the special status given to the occupied Kashmir under the constitution’s Article 370 and Section 35 A, and bifurcated the region into two Union Territories – Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. The arbitrary move is feared to spark unrest in the disputed territory.
Also Read: Sensible voices from India oppose abrogation of special status for Kashmir
It is going to be about two weeks since the communication blackout has been imposed in the valley, therefore not much news is coming out of the territory. While the Indian government claims that “all is well” in the occupied Kashmir, the reality tells the otherwise. Some eyewitnesses have revealed the truth to media about the situation in Kashmir.
A Srinagar-based NDTV reporter, Nazeer said he was struggling to find a person who sided with India today. The people who had previously sided with the Indian democracy were imprisoned, he added.
“They are more than 100 including former MLAs, former ministers and two former chief ministers who have been jailed. Since then, the politics and narrative in Kashmir has changed forever. Those who sided with India and opposed militancy and separatism are completely on a different side now,” he said.
He said the common people were really suffering in the valley. He told how a blind man met him and rejecting the propaganda asked from the Indian government to lift the curfew so that they could tell how happy they were.
A Kashmiri man told media that there was scarcity of food and medicine in Indian occupied Kashmir.
An Indian politician said she travelled across Kashmir during this curfew and everywhere people were enraged over the Narendra Modi-led government’s move to change special status of Kashmir. She said people could not even celebrate Eid-ul-Adha.
“People were denied to go to Eid congregation. Even call for prayer was not allowed. They prayed at home,” she said.
She said Indian people should fear that the state terrorism conducted by the BJP government in India would spread to other areas as well.
