More than 500 people have been rounded up in the latest crackdown in Indian Kashmir which has been on the edge since India announced to repeal Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and divide the territory on communal line on Monday.
University professors, business leaders and activists were among the 560 people taken to makeshift detention centres — some during midnight raids — in the cities of Srinagar, Baramulla and Gurez,
in Srinagar, Baramulla, Gurez and other areas, as jails and police stations of the valley were already overcrowded with the lodgment of hundreds of Hurriyat leaders and activists already booked under false cases.
This time around, the occupation authorities did not spare even pro-India politicians like Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti and Sajjad Lone – who always advanced India’s interests in the territory even at the cost of the sufferings of the Kashmiri people – and detained them.
Experts warn that the valley is likely to erupt in anger at the government’s shock unilateral move once the restrictions are lifted, which could come as soon as the Muslim festival of Eid on Monday.
