Indian-Held Kashmir Observes Shutdown

Indian-held Kashmir on Monday observed a shutdown in protest against the supposed crackdown on pro-self-determination and pro-independence members and leaders by the Indian authorities ahead of the region's April 29 vote in the parliamentary elections



The Indian police have been accused of either placing Kashmiri activists under house arrest or sending them to prison to prevent them from campaigning for a boycott of the upcoming elections.



However, the police refuse to acknowledge the detentions, but a senior police officer told an Anadolu Agency correspondent that the arrests had not been made because of polls but because of law and order situations and that these people were considered to 'foment trouble.'



The streets of Srinagar were deserted throughout the day as shops stayed shut and public transport was not functioning.



Most government and private offices also closed because of the shut down while India's armed forces were deployed across the region.



The call for the shutdown came from the octogenarian leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who had been under house arrest for most of 2013 and after arriving in Srinagar on April 16 from New Delhi was immediately put back under house arrest.



Shabir Ahmad Shah and Nayeem Ahmad Khan, two other senior separatist leaders, have also been placed under house arrest while pro-independence leader and chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Mohammad Yasin Malik, has been detained in a police station in Srinagar. Another resistance leader Mushatq-ul-Islam has been detained in a police station in Batamalo.



"The Indian administration became afraid of the election boycott campaign and detained all the leaders," Hurriyat leader, Khan has said.



While Ayaz Akbar, spokesperson for Geelani's Tehreek-e-Hurriyat party has said that "during this farcical exercise of Indian democracy, India is stopping us from reaching out to people and then they will claim they had fair elections." 



Zahid Rafiq



englishnews@aa.com.tr - Ankara