Coercive measures: Curfew in Indian Kashmir on eve of Independence Day

Protesters barred from hoisting Pakistan’s flag

SRINAGAR: Authorities imposed a curfew in parts of the main city of Indian-administered Kashmir on Friday to prevent any move by freedom fighters to celebrate Pakistan’s Independence Day, police said.

The restrictions in Srinagar, which included the closure of the city’s main mosque during Friday prayers, were announced on the eve of Independence Day in both India and Pakistan and follow a recent spike in violence.

“The restrictions are imposed to prevent miscreants from hoisting Pakistani flags and to avoid loss of life,” Director General of Police K Rajendra told AFP.

The anniversary of the partition of the sub-continent in 1947 is often a tense period in Kashmir, a picturesque Himalayan territory which has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule.

Several Kashmiri groups have spent decades fighting for independence.

The conflict has left tens of thousands, mostly civilians, dead. Additional checkpoints and razor wire barricades have been erected along major arterial roads in Indian-controlled Kashmir to thwart militant attacks amid the deployment of thousands of troop reinforcements.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 15^th, 2015.