Kashmiris were living in an India-imposed lockdown several months before the rest of

the world started experiencing it for another reason -- the corona virus pandemic. They
have been facing communication blackouts, security blockades and curfew for a whole
year now.
Children have not been able to go to school since last August when India stripped
Kashmir of its special constitutional and legal status, annexing it and making it a part of
the Indian union against the will of the local people. Internet connectivity in the region is
often blocked for days, telecommunication lines are arbitrarily stopped and Friday
congregations in mosques remain banned in several towns and cities.
“We are used to living under the curfews,” Dewani, a lawyer in Kashmir’s Shopian
district, told Sujag in a long-distance interview on the evening of August 4, 2020. He
could hear protestors on the streets chanting anti-occupation slogans while he was
talking.  “This is nothing new for us. We know our lives are dispensable in Kashmir.”
Many in the occupied region have suffered serious personal tragedies as well during
this period.  
Rakhshanda, a 50-year-old resident of Kulgam district, is wistfully awaiting her 15 year
old son’s return home. He was picked up by the Indian security forces on the charges of
throwing stones at soldiers. “My son is not a criminal,” she said in a message sent
to Sujag. “The Indian authorities raid our houses and abuse our women. My son
resisted all that intrusion but they charged him with pelting stones despite the fact that
he had been at home all the time because of the corona virus pandemic.”
The Indian authorities have imposed stringent curbs on news media.
Rakhshanda, too, was arrested for her son’s perceived crime but was released after
being kept in detention for two weeks. These arrests, however, are overshadowed by a
much bigger tragedy: Her husband was also killed by the Indian forces.
Kashmir’s residents claim that more than 400 people have been killed in their homeland
in the past four months in various incidents of violence perpetrated by the Indian state.
The government in Delhi does not acknowledge these deaths but Baijayant Panda,
vice-president of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), does admit that as many
as 4000 Kashmiris have been picked up under the Public Safety Act. He, however,
claims that all of them have been released.
But local residents contradict his claim by saying that only some prominent politicians –
such as former chief minister Omar Abdullah -- have been released but that too under
court orders. Many Kashmiris, including another former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti,
still remain in detention.
Even before the last year’s annexation, Indian occupied Kashmir had been the most
militarized place on earth. According to the 2020 Armed Conflict Survey --
carried out by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, an independent think tank
based in London -- more than 500,000 Indian troops are deployed there. This means
that there is one soldier for every 30 civilians living in Kashmir. This soldier-civilian
ratio is higher than even that in wartime Afghanistan.
People in Kashmir are also worried about domicile certificates being issued to non-
Kashmiris in large numbers by the India authorities.
Commenting on the ubiquitous presence of security personnel in Kashmir, Ruhail, a
journalist in Pulwama, said he had to cross six to seven checkpoints on his way home
from work. The two places are only ten kilometers apart.
But, he told Sujag in an interview, such heavy presence of the Indian security forces has
not established peace in the occupied region. “There have been more encounters and
more disappearances than before even when more local residents are being picked up
[in the name of maintaining law and order].”
The Indian government has also imposed a large number of highly oppressive and
arbitrary laws in Kashmir -- all of which go against the United Nations’ Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. These include laws to search without warrant, keep
people in prison without trial, pick up suspects without informing their families and
regard any incident of stone pelting as an act of terrorism.
“The security forces can search any house at any time without any warrant,” said
Ruhail. “They also came to my own house at 2:00 am to carry out a search operation,”
he added. “My mother is a patient of Parkinson’s and dementia. I had to calm her down
while the forces rampaged through the house.”
The possibility for the abuse of power has increased as corrupt state officials see the
latest Indian crackdown as an opportunity to earn some quick bucks.
The Indian authorities have imposed stringent curbs on news media too, clamping down
heavily even on legitimate news content by labelling it as ‘anti-social or anti-national’.
The government functionaries also have the power to dub any news as fake and then
stop it from being published or aired.
The possibility for the abuse of power has, indeed, increased since last August as
corrupt state officials see the latest Indian crackdown in Kashmir as an opportunity to
earn some quick bucks. Basit, a lawyer in Shopian, told Sujag about a number of horrific
cases of corruption involving local police. In one incident that he narrated, policemen
picked up a young boy, charged him under an anti-terrorism law and then demanded
700,000 Indian rupees from his father for his release.
People in Kashmir are also worried about domicile certificates being issued to non-
Kashmiris in large numbers by the India authorities. According to Ruhail, the number of
such domiciles stands at around 400,000. They also complain that Kashmir’s land is
being allotted to non-Kashmiri Hindus and private firms incorporated outside Kashmir.
As Ruhail put it: “This is similar to what Israel did in Palestine by building illegal
settlements.”
Note: To protect the people quoted in this report from any reprisal, their names have
been either shortened or changed.