(16 Aug 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – 16 August 2024
1. Various of soldiers standing guard on street
2. Various of people walking on a street
3. SOUNDBITE (Urdu) Haya Javaid, Srinagar resident:
"People are happy that after a long wait, they can finally choose their representative who will represent them in the legislative assembly. Over the years, people have suffered a lot because no one was representing them. People are very happy that elections have been declared in Kashmir."
4. SOUNDBITE (Urdu) Malik Zahoor, Srinagar resident:
"It would have been great if statehood had been restored, as the leaders elected in the elections would have had more powers. The central administration has once again tricked us into keeping the region as a Union Territory so that power remains vested in the central administration. Now that the elections have been announced, we hope that statehood will also be granted."
5. Various of soldiers standing guard on street
STORYLINE:
India on Friday announced three-phased assembly elections in disputed Kashmir that will start on September 18, the first since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in 2019 stripped the Muslim-majority region of its semi-autonomy and downgraded it to a federally controlled territory.
Since those changes the region has remained on edge, governed by a New Delhi appointed administrator and run by bureaucrats with no democratic credentials.
The elections are to be held through October 1 in a staggered process that allows the government to deploy tens of thousands of troops to prevent any outbreak of violence.
Votes will be counted on October 4.
The multi-stage voting will elect a local government — a chief minister who will serve as the state’s top official with a council of ministers — from pro-India parties participating in the elections.
However, contrary to the past, the local assembly will barely have any legislative powers with only nominal control over education and culture.
Legislating laws for the region will continue to be with India’s parliament while policy decisions will be made in New Delhi.
Local politicians have demanded the earliest restoration of statehood so that full legislative powers could be returned to the local assembly.
The polls will also be the first for the region’s assembly in a decade.
The last assembly election was held in 2014 after which Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party for the first time ruled the region in a coalition with Kashmir’s Peoples Democratic Party.
In 2018, the BJP withdrew its support to the government following which the assembly was dissolved.
A year later, New Delhi divided the region into Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir while scrapping its statehood amid a massive security and communications lockdown for months.
Kashmir is divided between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.
Each administers part of the territory, but both claim the entire territory.
Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989.
India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.
Pakistan denies the charge, and most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle.
Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
Authorities say violence in the region has reduced significantly since 2019 but in recent months, there has been a sharp rise in militant attacks on government forces in parts of the Hindu-dominated Jammu area.
AP shot by Mahraj Ud Din
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