Kashmiris in Srinagar protest amid India lockdown
Kashmiris chanted for freedom as they carried placards and flags of PoK.
SRINAGAR (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Kashmir’s Srinagar city after Friday (August 16) prayers in a demonstration against New Delhi’s move to strip the region of its special status.
Protesters, including children and elderly women, were seen chanting for ‘freedom’ as they carried placards and flags of Pakistan’s part of the occupied region, Azad Kashmir.
Security forces were deployed outside mosques across Srinagar on Friday, while police vans fitted with speakers asked people not to venture out, according to two Reuters witnesses.
In some parts of the city, posters appeared calling for protests and asking preachers in mosques to talk about the current situation in Kashmir valley.
India has continued its atrocities for 30-years in Jammu and Kashmir in which at least 50,000 people have been killed. Critics say the decision to revoke the region’s autonomy will cause further alienation and fuel the armed resistance.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam alleged that authorities will begin restoring some telephone lines in Kashmir from Friday evening.
Telephone and internet links were cut and public assembly banned in Kashmir just before New Delhi removed the decades-old autonomy the Muslim majority territory enjoyed under the Indian constitution. The measures were aimed at preventing protests.
