(19 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir – 19 September 2024
1. Various of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeting Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and waving towards the people as he arrives for the election rally
2. Supporters of BJP shouting "Modi Modi"
3. Various of Modi speaking at the rally
4. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister: ++AUDIO AS INCOMING++
"We have said in the parliament that we will restore the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir. Only BJP will fulfil this commitment."
5. Modi speaking at the rally
6. Cutaway Soldiers
7. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister: ++AUDIO AS INCOMING++
"So much has changed in the situation on the ground compared to the past. Election campaigning continues until late at night, and people are celebrating democracy. The youths have instilled confidence that their vote, which is the democratic right, can bring the right change."
8. Various of people at the rally
9. SOUNDBITE (Urdu) Raja Nasrullah, BJP supporter:
"Since the BJP came to power, there are no more shutdowns, and the situation has improved. We can now travel at night. The previous government had ruined the region, and we had been suffering for the last 70 years."
10. Various of security outside the venue of the election rally
STORYLINE:
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Indian-controlled Kashmir on Thursday to campaign for his party in the local election.
It is the first such vote in Srinagar since New Delhi stripped the disputed Himalayan region of its semi-autonomy in 2019.
Modi’s visit to the city of Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley, the heartland of decades of anti-India rebellion, comes amid strong public opposition there to New Delhi’s changes five years back.
That move revoked the region’s semi-autonomous status, annulled its separate constitution, downgraded and split the former state into two centrally governed union territories— Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir — and removed inherited protections on land and jobs.
Authorities laid razor wire and erected road checkpoints to close the roads leading to the venue of Modi’s election rally in Srinagar’s main commercial center.
Armed paramilitary troops and police in flak jackets patrolled the area, snipers and sharpshooters were positioned atop buildings near the venue.
“We have said in the parliament that we will restore (the region’s) statehood. Only BJP will fulfil this commitment,” Modi said to a cheering crowd at the rally while referring to his Bharatiya Janata Party.
BLP supporter Raja Nasrullah said that since the party came to power, things have improved in his life.
Since 1947, Kashmir has been at the heart of conflict between India and Pakistan after British rule of the subcontinent ended with the creation of the two rival countries.
Both administer part of it but claim the territory in its entirety.
Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the insurgency is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, a charge Islamabad denies. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting, which most Kashmiri Muslims consider a legitimate freedom struggle.
Thursday’s visit was Modi’s second to the Muslim-majority region to campaign for his party candidates in the ongoing election. Voting began on Wednesday, with a brisk turnout in the first phase.
AP video shot by Meraj Ud Din
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