Troops lock down Kashmir as India votes to strip its status
NEW DELHI • Indian lawmakers passed a bill Tuesday that strips the statehood from the Indian-administered portion of Muslim-majority Kashmir amid an indefinite security lockdown in the disputed Himalayan territory, actions that neighboring Pakistan warned could lead to war.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist-led government submitted the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Bill for a vote by the lower house of Parliament a day after the surprise measure was introduced alongside a presidential order. That order dissolved a constitutional provision, known as Article 370, which gave Kashmiris exclusive hereditary rights and a separate constitution.
“After five years, seeing development in J&K (Jammu and Kashmir) under the leadership of PM Modi, people of the valley will understand drawbacks of Article 370,” Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said just before the bill was passed.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim the region in its entirety, although each of them controls only parts of it. Two of the three wars the nuclear-armed neighbors have fought since their independence from British rule were over Kashmir.
How the 7 million people in the Kashmir Valley were reacting was unclear, because the Indian government shut off most communications, including internet, cellphone and landline networks. Thousands of troops were deployed to the region amid fears that the government’s steps could spark unrest in Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state. Tensions have soared along the Line of Control, the militarized frontier that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
An Indian paramilitary soldier on patrol during a security lockdown in Jammu, India, on Tuesday.