Indian authorities issued an order Monday to impose a "full curfew" in occupied Kashmir, a day before the first anniversary of August 5, when the Modi-led government stripped the region of its autonomy, generating widespread criticism and reproach.
Authorities announced a two-day "full curfew" citing intelligence reports of impending protests in the Muslim-majority region of seven million people, where locals have called for the anniversary to be marked as a "black day."
Police vehicles patrolled the main city of Srinagar at dusk on Monday and again on Tuesday morning, and officers used megaphones to order residents to stay inside.
A "full curfew" means that people can only move around with an official pass, generally reserved for essential services such as the police and ambulances.
The Himalaya region is already subject to restrictions to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, with most economic activities limited and public movement restricted.
On Monday morning, new barbed wire and steel barricades were put up on Srinagar's main roads, and on Tuesday thousands of government troops were deployed throughout the city and surrounding villages.
"The police in vehicles moved through our town and from the loudspeakers ordered us to stay inside for two days, as if we were not caged," said Imriyaz Ali, who lives in Srinagar's old town.
"I saw the cell phones of two of my neighbors that the soldiers took away when they bought bread from a local baker early in the morning," said a villager by phone from the village of Nazneenpora.
New curfew brings painful memories for locals
For locals, the new curfew brought back memories of the crackdown from a week ago a year ago.
Then, a complete blackout in communications was imposed, access to telephones and the Internet was cut, and tens of thousands of new troops moved to the valley, one of the most militarized regions of the world.
Around 7,000 people were detained, including three former chief ministers. Hundreds remain under house arrest or behind bars to this day, most without charge.
Kashmir has been divided since 1947 between India and Pakistan, which claim it in its entirety. It has been the spark of two wars between archrivals.
For Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, Kashmir's special status had produced "nothing but terrorism, separatism, nepotism and great corruption," it said last year.
The move, which has been accompanied by an increase in violence that will make 2020 the bloodiest year in a decade, has caused major economic difficulties exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Many locals are also angry that, for the first time, people from outside Kashmir are given the right to buy land, for fear that India wants to change the demographic makeup of the region.
"The Indian government claims it was determined to improve Kashmir's lives sounding empty a year after the revocation of the constitutional state of Jammu and Kashmir," Meenakshi Ganguly of Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
"Instead, the authorities have maintained stifling restrictions on cashmere in violation of their basic rights."
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