NEW DELHI Authorities enforcing a strict curfew in Indian-administered Kashmir will bring in trucks of essential supplies for an Islamic festival next week, as the divided Himalayan region remained in a lockdown Saturday after Indias decision to strip it of its constitutional autonomy.
NEW DELHI — Authorities enforcing a strict curfew in Indian-administered Kashmir will bring in trucks of essential supplies for an Islamic festival next week, as the divided Himalayan region remained in a lockdown Saturday after India’s decision to strip it of its constitutional autonomy.
Pakistan said that with the support of China, it will take up India’s unilateral actions in Kashmir with the U.N. Security Council and may approach the U.N. Human Rights Commission over what it says is the “genocide” of the Kashmiri people.
Kashmir is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan and is divided between the archrivals.
Rebels have been fighting New Delhi’s rule for decades in the Indian-controlled portion, and most Kashmiri residents want either independence or a merger with Pakistan.
India’s main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, demanded a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the situation in Kashmir on Saturday, saying there are reports of violence and people dying.
Talking to reporters in New Delhi, Gandhi said “things are going very wrong there” and called for the Indian government to make clear what is happening.
On Thursday, Modi assured the people of Jammu and Kashmir, as the state is known, that normalcy would gradually return and that the government was ensuring that the current restrictions do not dampen the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha on Monday.
New Delhi rushed tens of thousands of additional soldiers to one of the world’s most militarized regions to prevent unrest and protests after Modi’s Hindu nationalist-led government said Monday that it was revoking Kashmir’s special constitutional status and downgrading its statehood. Modi said the move was necessary to free the region of “terrorism and separatism.”
The indefinite 24-hour curfew was briefly eased on Friday for weekly Muslim prayers in some parts of Srinagar, the region’s main city, but thousands of residents are still forced to stay indoors with shops and most health clinics closed.
