Daily Times

Shops and businesses shut in Indian-held Kashmir on Sunday and authorities imposed a lockdown in some parts of the disputed region’s main city after Kashmiri leaders called for a strike to mark the anniversary of the martyrdom of a Kashmiri man who was convicted in an attack on the Indian Parliament.

Hundreds of police and paramilitary soldiers patrolled largely deserted streets in Srinagar. Authorities put old parts of the city under lockdown, with major roads blocked by razor wire and barricades in anticipation of anti-India protests and possible violence. Public transport was largely off the roads.

Call for the strike was given by All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-led Hurriyat forum, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and other pro-freedom leaders and organisations on the occasion of martyrdom anniversary of Kashmiri leader Muhammad Afzal Guru.

Kashmiris were incensed when in 2013 Afzal Guru was secretly hanged in a New Delhi jail on charges of being involved in a 2001 Parliament attack that killed 14 people, including five gunmen. People in Kashmir believe Guru was not given a fair trial, and the covert execution led to days of deadly anti-India protests in the Muslim-majority region, where anti-India sentiment runs deep.

The Kashmiri leadership has also called for a strike on Feb 11 to mark the day in 1984 when pro-independence leader Maqbool Butt was hanged in the same New Delhi jail after being convicted of killing an intelligence officer. Kashmiris demand that the remains of the two men buried within the jail compound be returned to the region.

Indian police registered a case against Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front over calling for shutdown in the occupied valley on the martyrdom anniversaries of Maqbool Butt and Afzal Guru. A JKLF spokesman in a statement in Srinagar condemned the registration of the case, saying that India will never be able to suppress the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle by the dint of force.

Police arrested five youth during cordon-and-search operations in Badgam and Bandipora districts.

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in a tweet said that the BJP government has made a prison out of the beautiful land of Jammu and Kashmir. She said continued internet blackout, illegal detentions and archaic laws have been slapped on popular politicians in order to keep them silent.

A day earlier on Saturday, police summoned two journalists for questioning in Srinagar for reporting about the strike call issued by the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. The Kashmir Press Club called it harassment. “It has become a routine with police to summon journalists for their stories,” said Ishfaq Tantray, the club’s general secretary. “It is an attempt by the law enforcement agencies to define new terms of journalism in Kashmir. They’re trying to define to us what we should report and how we should report.”

Police in a statement said they registered a case against the group for ‘attempts to incite violence and disturb law and order situation’.