Independence Day in Jammu-Kashmir, Saturday August 15, is being held with the entire region under lockdown, a sad fact for its residents.
Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of the moderate Hurriyat group and Syed Ali Shah Geelani, chairman of the breakaway Hurriyat group, have been placed under house arrest in Srinagar by authorities.
Separatists have called for a complete shutdown on the Saturday.
This year’s extraordinary security arrangements have become necessary as the separatists have carried out a number of attacks in the valley over recent days.
Earlier in the week, militants injured three security men including a police officer and two Central Armed police Forces (CRPF) troopers in addition to a civilian in a grenade attack in the Khanyar area of Srinagar.
Most roads and markets in uptown areas where authorities had less restrictions began emptying of people in the afternoon of Friday as commuters, shopkeepers and shoppers preferred to go home early because of frequent frisking and checking with the resulting tension in the city.
At home, children played, making the most of the situation but with limited celebrations to entertain them. This is a tense moment long in the resolve.
Ahead of Indo-Pak NSA-level talks, Pakistan has stated that it will not “abandon” the Kashmiris’ “legitimate struggle for freedom”, stressing that to have normal and cooperative relationship with India it was necessary to settle the decades-old dispute – according to Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit in Delhi, who made the remarks in his speech marking Pakistan’s Independence Day.
“Aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir could neither be ignored nor put on the back burner. No matter how much more time their legitimate struggle takes, Pakistan will never abandon Kashmiris and their cause,” Basit stated.
National Security Advisors of both India and Pakistan are to hold talks on terrorism-related issues for the first time on August 23 in New Delhi. This was decided in a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif last month in Ufa, Russia.
India is expected to present viable evidence of terrorism coming from Pakistan by exampling recent attacks in Gurdaspur in Punjab and near Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir.
India’s case is stronger given the capture of Mohammed Naved Yakub, a Pakistani national and a LeT operative, who carried out an attack on a BSF bus last week near Udhampur.
None of this gives cause for the young girl in Jammu pictured here to allow a real smile to break through her serious countenance.
