Indian Kashmir was put under federal rule yesterday following the collapse of the state government over a land row that prompted more than a week of rioting in the Muslim region, officials said.
India’s only Muslim-majority region was thrown into crisis when chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned on Monday after a key political ally withdrew support, protesting the allocation of land to a Hindu pilgrim trust.
The order was revoked by Azad, a member of the Congress party that leads the federal government, but only after violent street protests that lasted more than a week, in which six people were killed and hundreds injured.
Kashmir state’s governor, N.N. Vohra, “issued a proclamation on Thursday evening and assumed, with immediate effect, all the functions of the government of the state,” an official statement said.
It is the third time the scenic Himalayan region will be directly ruled by New Delhi since an Islamic insurgency, which has left at least 43,000 people dead, broke out 18 years ago.
Vohra, New Delhi’s top representative in the region, also dissolved the state assembly, the statement said, making him the administrator of the troubled region.
“Based on the conclusion that no group or party was in a position or willing to form the Government of the State, Vohra sought the concurrence of the President of India for issuance of a Proclamation to enforce Governor’s rule,” the statement said.
The region is due to go to the polls in September or October.
The state government had last month decided to give land to a Hindu trust so it can provide accommodation to thousands of pilgrims who visit a Kashmir mountain grotto each year.
Muslim separatists said the land transfer was a ploy to settle Indian Hindus in Kashmir.
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