India deployed thousands of security forces and slapped an indefinite curfew on Kashmir’s summer capital yesterday a day after Muslims set fire to public buildings in protests against New Delhi’s rule, officials said.
The government has been trying to respond to the biggest separatist demonstrations in two years in Kashmir triggered by the killing of a 17-year-old student by police in June. Seventy people have died in the ensuing protests, most from police firing into protesters.
Troops equipped with assault rifles patrolled deserted streets and blocked off lanes with razor wire and iron barricades in Srinagar, the heart of an insurgency where tens of thousands of people have been killed in two decades of violence.
PHOTO: EPA
The curfew extended to other big towns in the Kashmir valley.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told NDTV news channel that the fresh violence in Muslim-majority Kashmir had dealt a setback to an anticipated new government peace initiative.
“Such protests create problems for everybody else,” Abdullah said. “How can you take this move forward if violence continues?”
PHOTO: REUTERS
Police have accused the region’s main separatist leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, of instigating violence and arson. Farooq denied the charges.
After Eid al-Fitr prayers to mark the end of the Ramadan fasting month, tens of thousands marched through Srinagar on Saturday, setting fire to government and police buildings. Farooq led the main demonstration.
Killings of civilians have fueled anger across Kashmir, where sentiment against New Delhi’s rule runs deep. Human rights groups say India’s Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which gives security forces wide powers to shoot, arrest and search in battling a separatist insurgency, further alienates people.
PHOTO: AFP
India’s Congress Party-led federal government is considering a partial relaxation of the act in Kashmir as part of a peace initiative expected in the next few days. However, no consensus has been reached on the issue yet, local media have reported.
“We don’t want peace, we don’t want the peace of a graveyard,” Farooq said in a statement. “We want a solution of the Kashmir dispute and that will end all the problems.”
Peace in Kashmir is crucial for improving relations between India and Pakistan, which are trying to revive peace talks halted after India blamed Pakistan-based militants for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The neighbors claim Kashmir in full though they rule it in parts and fought two of three wars over the region.
After leading a special prayer on Saturday, Farooq is said to have asked worshippers to march in Srinagar. Carrying green flags, thousands of people chanted: “We want freedom. Go India, Go Back.”
Demonstrators later attacked and torched a building housing the offices of the state police and the electricity department, the police officer said.
“This is the first time that an Eid congregation has been converted into a protest,” police said in a statement.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani — a key leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella organization for separatist groups espousing nonviolent struggle — demanded that India accept Kashmir as a disputed territory, withdraw hundreds of thousands of troops and release all political prisoners as a precondition for peace talks.
The Indian government did not respond to the demands.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done