Article 370: Kashmir in communications blackout

[icymist]

Source: BBC

Indian-administered Kashmir remains in a state of lockdown a day after it was stripped of a special status that gave it significant autonomy.

Telephone networks and the internet, which were cut off on Sunday evening, are yet to be restored even as tens of thousands of troops patrol the streets.

The revocation of special status was expected to trigger widespread protests, but there is no word on how people have reacted to the news.

Local leaders have also been detained.

<snip>
The BBC's Aamir Peerzada in Srinagar, who managed to speak to colleagues in Delhi on Monday, said: "No-one knows what is happening in other parts of the state - we can't talk to anyone else. People are concerned - they don't know what is happening, they don't know what is going to happen."

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49246434

[icymist]

1. India abolishes Kashmir's autonomous status (Related from DW)

<snip>

Tensions and clampdowns

Earlier on Monday, Kashmir was in a major security lockdown as Indian government forces were deployed to lay steel barricades, place razor wires on roads, and cut off intersections in Srinagar, the region's principle city. Internet services were also suspended as a way of disrupting potential protests.

"Kashmir is like a garrison," Bilal Ahmad, a shopkeeper in Srinagar, told DW. "We're not allowed to move out and all streets are filled with security personnel," he said.

"We really don't know how Kashmiris will react to this decision in the coming days and weeks," Waheed Para, a political worker, told DW. "Right now, there's a curfew-like situation and this will not go down well with the people."

https://www.dw.com/en/india-abolishes-kashmirs-autonomous-status/a-49892487

[pangaia]

2. It is NOT impossible for the same thing to happen here... !!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

3. We have no autonomous states, sovereign and above decency and the laws.

Except, maybe, the White House.

Build that wall.

[Hortensis]

4. My thought of course. Emergency declaration.

And of course, any of several hostile foreign nations could cause a similar effect, and of course worse.

How many of those people who aren't communicating even have street addresses and phone numbers memorized or written down for the various friends, acquaintances and relatives they might want to contact? How many are within an hour's walk?

How many have good emergency water and other stores? Whole counties, states, whatever could be brought to their knees in short order by turning off power and/or water. Closing highways would be top of list.

[EarthFirst]

6. Impossible? No. Improbable? Highly. nt

[Hortensis]

5. This sounds like an extremely serious India-Pakistan escalation

between two nuclear states with heavy religious and cultural issues.

It's so serious that last week advisers got Donald Trump to offer to mediate. Of course, he immediately put his foot in it, blabbing about/claiming he'd already talked with India and sending "shock waves" through both nations. India denied. Fast forward to India's seizure of the entirety of a very large territory that both nations claim as their own, though after ceasefire of a previous war each has been administering half of it.