https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/world/asia/kashmir-arrests-india.html
Indian authorities say life is returning to
normal in Kashmir. But thousands of
people have been detained, and the
military still patrols the streets, firing
pellet guns and tear gas to quell
protests.
Atul Loke for The New York Times
By Jeffrey Gettleman, Kai Schultz,
Sameer Yasir and Suhasini Raj
Aug. 23, 2019
NEW DELHI — On Aug. 5, at 1:15 a.m.,
Asifa Mubeen was woken up by the sound
of barking dogs as police officers began
pouring into her yard.
Her husband, Mubeen Shah, a wealthy
Kashmiri merchant, stepped out onto
their bedroom balcony in the night air.
The officers shouted that he was under
arrest. When he asked to see a warrant,
his wife said, the officers told him there
wouldn’t be one.
“This is different,” they said. “We have
orders.”
It was the start of one of the biggest
mass arrests of civilian leaders in
decades carried out by India, a close
American partner that bills itself as one
of the world’s leading democracies.
Local officials say that at least 2,000
Kashmiris — including business leaders,
human rights defenders, elected
representatives, teachers, and students
as young as 14 — were rounded up by the
federal security forces in the days right
before and after the Indian government
unilaterally stripped away Kashmir's
autonomy.
The detainees have not been able to
communicate with their families or meet
with lawyers. Their whereabouts remain
unknown. Most were taken in the middle
of the night, witnesses said.
Critics say that even under India’s tough
public safety laws this is illegal, and that
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is bending
the Indian legal system to cut off any
possible criticism in Kashmir and go after
anyone with a voice — be that a
successful merchant like Mr. Shah, a
politician or a professor.
“Kashmir is silent as a graveyard,” said
Vrinda Grover, a human rights lawyer.
The Indian government isn’t sharing what
charges the detainees face or how long
they will be held. Some were reported to
have been flown on secret air force
flights to jails in Lucknow, Varanasi and
Agra.
On Thursday, the United Nations Human
Rights Office said it was “gravely
concerned.’’
Political analysts say the mass roundup
was the final piece of a detailed plan that
Mr. Modi’s government set into motion
last year. This included postponing state
elections in Kashmir to create a gap in
local leadership. Indian officials then
changed India’s Constitution and moved
to erase Kashmir’s autonomy and
statehood without any input from
Kashmiris — though many lawyers have
said that might not be legal, either.
Bringing Kashmir to heel has been a
Hindu-nationalist dream. It was India’s
only Muslim-majority state (it is now to
become two federally administered
territories) and a place where Pakistan,
India’s archrival, enjoys some support.
Kashmir was an obvious sore for the
nationalist political movement that has
flourished among India’s Hindu majority,
powering Mr. Modi’s stunning rise.
For decades, Kashmir has been racked by
militancy, oppression and unrest.
Kashmiris are feeling especially
demoralized and cornered now. The fear
is that the area is about to ignite; even
with phone lines cut, leaders in jail and
soldiers on every street, protests are
erupting. Some are peaceful. Others
descend into stone-pelting clashes.
But the fury is there, always.
“There is only one solution!” the crowds
cheer. “Gun solution! Gun solution!”
Mr. Modi’s move instantly raised tensions
with Pakistan, a Muslim-majority nation
that also claims part of Kashmir. Its
prime minister, Imran Khan, harshly
criticized Mr. Modi on Wednesday, saying
he had rebuffed Mr. Khan’s requests to
talk.
Large numbers of troops have been
moving on both sides of the border,
fortifying positions in the Himalayan
mountains, according to Western
intelligence officials.
Both nations are armed with nuclear
weapons, and President Trump has urged
them to reduce tensions and to avoid
tipping the crisis over into war .
But Mr. Modi seems intent on digging in,
and he has the Indian public firmly behind
him. Many Indians see Kashmir as an
integral part of India, and this move has
stirred up jingoist feelings. Indian news
channels have referred to the detainees
being flown out of Kashmir as “Pakistani
terrorists’’ or “separatist leaders,’’ toeing
the government line.
The Indian Home Ministry will not answer
questions about the mass arrests,
including how many people have been
taken into custody. The Foreign Ministry
won’t say why foreign journalists
continue to be blocked from setting foot
in Kashmir, even when government
officials insist the situation is returning
to normal.
Mr. Modi has said that the state of
Jammu and Kashmir, which includes the
war-torn Kashmir Valley, had suffered too
long and needed a change. He promised
that the new arrangement would improve
governance, bring peace and bolster
outside investment, which many
Kashmiris question, especially now that
business leaders have been thrown in jail.
“Who will invest there?” asked Farooq
Kathwari, a prominent Kashmiri and the
chief executive of Ethan Allen, the
American furniture chain.
The way Indian security officials have
handled this, he said, “has taken the
dignity of the people. They have created a
rage, and that rage will get them to do all
kinds of things.”
Among the people who were rounded up
were Mian Qayoom, president of the
Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar
Association; Mohammed Yasin Khan,
chairman of the Kashmir Economic
Alliance; Raja Muzaffar Bhat, an
anticorruption crusader; Fayaz Ahmed
Mir, a tractor driver and Arabic scholar;
and Mehbooba Mufti, the first woman
elected as Kashmir’s chief minister.
Shah Faesal, another politician, was
arrested at New Delhi’s international
airport, bags checked, boarding pass in
hand, heading for a fellowship at Harvard.
Several prominent state politicians have
also been put under house arrest; they
told Indian news outlets they had been
ordered not to engage in any “political
activity.”
“These detentions are totally illegal and
unconstitutional,” said Zaffar Shah, a
Kashmiri lawyer.
In the case of Mr. Shah, 63, the wealthy
merchant, his wife is still stunned about
him being taken away. He was “just a
business guy,” she said, who dealt in
Kashmiri curios and carpets and had tried
to woo foreign investors to build new
electricity plants in Kashmir — exactly
what the Modi government has said it
wants.
She said some of the state police
officers — Kashmiris — seemed reluctant
to arrest him, but that dozens of heavily
armed federal officers were at their back.
All this was carefully set into motion,
analysts said, in three big steps.
Step one came in June 2018, when the
Kashmir branch of Mr. Modi’s Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, known
as the B.J.P., abruptly pulled out of a
coalition government in the state
assembly, leaving the leading Kashmiri
political party without a majority. That
meant the governor — a central
government figure, part of the Modi
administration — took over.
Kashmiri politicians started to get
nervous. They feared that Mr. Modi was
plotting to change Article 370 of India’s
Constitution, which guaranteed Kashmir
special land rights and a fair degree of
autonomy to write its own laws.
Dismantling this article was a goal stated
in Mr. Modi’s campaign manifesto.
Article 370 says that any changes to
Kashmir’s status must be done in
consultation with Kashmiri
representatives. But Kashmiri politicians
knew that if the state continued to be
ruled by a governor, without a state
assembly, there was a risk that Mr. Modi
might make changes without them.
In November 2018, Ms. Mufti, Kashmir’s
former chief minister, sent a fax to the
governor — which she posted on social
media — saying she had found enough
allies and was ready to form a new
government.
But the governor suddenly dissolved the
state assembly. That was step two. The
governor claimed he hadn’t received Ms.
Mufti’s fax. He called for fresh elections.
That led to step three: the blocking of
those elections.
According to an Indian official who said
he would face harassment if his name
were reported, a team of experienced civil
servants appointed by the national
election commission recommended that
Kashmir hold elections around June.
But B.J.P. lawmakers seemed to be
stalling, the official said, and came up
with some curious reasons: They said
that if Kashmir’s elections were held in
June, militants could hide in the tall
summer grass, so November would be
better.
The election commission then postponed
the elections to later in the year, without
setting any date.
That meant there was no functioning
state assembly when Mr. Modi revoked
Kashmir’s autonomy on Aug. 5. His
government claimed that in the absence
of a state assembly, the central
government had the power to do this.
“The government had to engineer some
other method to gain the levers of power,”
said Happymon Jacob, a political
scientist in New Delhi. “They simply
would not be able to do what they did had
there been elections.”
The final step was the lockdown.
Shortly after midnight on Aug. 5, just
hours before Mr. Modi’s government
would announce that Kashmir’s autonomy
was over, the Indian authorities cut
internet and phone service and activated
thousands of federal security officers.
As dozens surrounded Mr. Shah, others
moved house to house, across the valley,
looking for specific people. At least 20
stormed the home of Mr. Bhat, the
anticorruption activist, his family said.
Mr. Bhat’s family said he had never been
arrested before, “not even for one hour.”
When his wife, Fozia Kauser, asked why
this was happening, the Kashmiri police
said they didn’t know. Again, they said
they had orders.
Human rights activists say the Indian
government may be using the Public
Safety Act, which allows the authorities
to hold suspects without charges for up
to two years if they are deemed threats to
the state. But there are still rules,
including an advisory board review.
A few days after Mr. Shah, the rug and
crafts merchant, was arrested, his elder
brother, Niaz, tracked him down at a
Srinagar jail.
Mubeen Shah asked the guards if he
could hug his brother. They said yes.
The next morning, Niaz Shah came back
with some spare clothes.
But guards told him his brother was gone,
on a military plane to Agra.
Indian authorities say life is returning to
normal in Kashmir. But thousands of
people have been detained, and the
military still patrols the streets, firing
pellet guns and tear gas to quell
protests.
Atul Loke for The New York Times
By Jeffrey Gettleman, Kai Schultz,
Sameer Yasir and Suhasini Raj
Aug. 23, 2019
NEW DELHI — On Aug. 5, at 1:15 a.m.,
Asifa Mubeen was woken up by the sound
of barking dogs as police officers began
pouring into her yard.
Her husband, Mubeen Shah, a wealthy
Kashmiri merchant, stepped out onto
their bedroom balcony in the night air.
The officers shouted that he was under
arrest. When he asked to see a warrant,
his wife said, the officers told him there
wouldn’t be one.
“This is different,” they said. “We have
orders.”
It was the start of one of the biggest
mass arrests of civilian leaders in
decades carried out by India, a close
American partner that bills itself as one
of the world’s leading democracies.
Local officials say that at least 2,000
Kashmiris — including business leaders,
human rights defenders, elected
representatives, teachers, and students
as young as 14 — were rounded up by the
federal security forces in the days right
before and after the Indian government
unilaterally stripped away Kashmir's
autonomy.
The detainees have not been able to
communicate with their families or meet
with lawyers. Their whereabouts remain
unknown. Most were taken in the middle
of the night, witnesses said.
Critics say that even under India’s tough
public safety laws this is illegal, and that
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is bending
the Indian legal system to cut off any
possible criticism in Kashmir and go after
anyone with a voice — be that a
successful merchant like Mr. Shah, a
politician or a professor.
“Kashmir is silent as a graveyard,” said
Vrinda Grover, a human rights lawyer.
The Indian government isn’t sharing what
charges the detainees face or how long
they will be held. Some were reported to
have been flown on secret air force
flights to jails in Lucknow, Varanasi and
Agra.
On Thursday, the United Nations Human
Rights Office said it was “gravely
concerned.’’
Political analysts say the mass roundup
was the final piece of a detailed plan that
Mr. Modi’s government set into motion
last year. This included postponing state
elections in Kashmir to create a gap in
local leadership. Indian officials then
changed India’s Constitution and moved
to erase Kashmir’s autonomy and
statehood without any input from
Kashmiris — though many lawyers have
said that might not be legal, either.
Bringing Kashmir to heel has been a
Hindu-nationalist dream. It was India’s
only Muslim-majority state (it is now to
become two federally administered
territories) and a place where Pakistan,
India’s archrival, enjoys some support.
Kashmir was an obvious sore for the
nationalist political movement that has
flourished among India’s Hindu majority,
powering Mr. Modi’s stunning rise.
For decades, Kashmir has been racked by
militancy, oppression and unrest.
Kashmiris are feeling especially
demoralized and cornered now. The fear
is that the area is about to ignite; even
with phone lines cut, leaders in jail and
soldiers on every street, protests are
erupting. Some are peaceful. Others
descend into stone-pelting clashes.
But the fury is there, always.
“There is only one solution!” the crowds
cheer. “Gun solution! Gun solution!”
Mr. Modi’s move instantly raised tensions
with Pakistan, a Muslim-majority nation
that also claims part of Kashmir. Its
prime minister, Imran Khan, harshly
criticized Mr. Modi on Wednesday, saying
he had rebuffed Mr. Khan’s requests to
talk.
Large numbers of troops have been
moving on both sides of the border,
fortifying positions in the Himalayan
mountains, according to Western
intelligence officials.
Both nations are armed with nuclear
weapons, and President Trump has urged
them to reduce tensions and to avoid
tipping the crisis over into war .
But Mr. Modi seems intent on digging in,
and he has the Indian public firmly behind
him. Many Indians see Kashmir as an
integral part of India, and this move has
stirred up jingoist feelings. Indian news
channels have referred to the detainees
being flown out of Kashmir as “Pakistani
terrorists’’ or “separatist leaders,’’ toeing
the government line.
The Indian Home Ministry will not answer
questions about the mass arrests,
including how many people have been
taken into custody. The Foreign Ministry
won’t say why foreign journalists
continue to be blocked from setting foot
in Kashmir, even when government
officials insist the situation is returning
to normal.
Mr. Modi has said that the state of
Jammu and Kashmir, which includes the
war-torn Kashmir Valley, had suffered too
long and needed a change. He promised
that the new arrangement would improve
governance, bring peace and bolster
outside investment, which many
Kashmiris question, especially now that
business leaders have been thrown in jail.
“Who will invest there?” asked Farooq
Kathwari, a prominent Kashmiri and the
chief executive of Ethan Allen, the
American furniture chain.
The way Indian security officials have
handled this, he said, “has taken the
dignity of the people. They have created a
rage, and that rage will get them to do all
kinds of things.”
Among the people who were rounded up
were Mian Qayoom, president of the
Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar
Association; Mohammed Yasin Khan,
chairman of the Kashmir Economic
Alliance; Raja Muzaffar Bhat, an
anticorruption crusader; Fayaz Ahmed
Mir, a tractor driver and Arabic scholar;
and Mehbooba Mufti, the first woman
elected as Kashmir’s chief minister.
Shah Faesal, another politician, was
arrested at New Delhi’s international
airport, bags checked, boarding pass in
hand, heading for a fellowship at Harvard.
Several prominent state politicians have
also been put under house arrest; they
told Indian news outlets they had been
ordered not to engage in any “political
activity.”
“These detentions are totally illegal and
unconstitutional,” said Zaffar Shah, a
Kashmiri lawyer.
In the case of Mr. Shah, 63, the wealthy
merchant, his wife is still stunned about
him being taken away. He was “just a
business guy,” she said, who dealt in
Kashmiri curios and carpets and had tried
to woo foreign investors to build new
electricity plants in Kashmir — exactly
what the Modi government has said it
wants.
She said some of the state police
officers — Kashmiris — seemed reluctant
to arrest him, but that dozens of heavily
armed federal officers were at their back.
All this was carefully set into motion,
analysts said, in three big steps.
Step one came in June 2018, when the
Kashmir branch of Mr. Modi’s Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, known
as the B.J.P., abruptly pulled out of a
coalition government in the state
assembly, leaving the leading Kashmiri
political party without a majority. That
meant the governor — a central
government figure, part of the Modi
administration — took over.
Kashmiri politicians started to get
nervous. They feared that Mr. Modi was
plotting to change Article 370 of India’s
Constitution, which guaranteed Kashmir
special land rights and a fair degree of
autonomy to write its own laws.
Dismantling this article was a goal stated
in Mr. Modi’s campaign manifesto.
Article 370 says that any changes to
Kashmir’s status must be done in
consultation with Kashmiri
representatives. But Kashmiri politicians
knew that if the state continued to be
ruled by a governor, without a state
assembly, there was a risk that Mr. Modi
might make changes without them.
In November 2018, Ms. Mufti, Kashmir’s
former chief minister, sent a fax to the
governor — which she posted on social
media — saying she had found enough
allies and was ready to form a new
government.
But the governor suddenly dissolved the
state assembly. That was step two. The
governor claimed he hadn’t received Ms.
Mufti’s fax. He called for fresh elections.
That led to step three: the blocking of
those elections.
According to an Indian official who said
he would face harassment if his name
were reported, a team of experienced civil
servants appointed by the national
election commission recommended that
Kashmir hold elections around June.
But B.J.P. lawmakers seemed to be
stalling, the official said, and came up
with some curious reasons: They said
that if Kashmir’s elections were held in
June, militants could hide in the tall
summer grass, so November would be
better.
The election commission then postponed
the elections to later in the year, without
setting any date.
That meant there was no functioning
state assembly when Mr. Modi revoked
Kashmir’s autonomy on Aug. 5. His
government claimed that in the absence
of a state assembly, the central
government had the power to do this.
“The government had to engineer some
other method to gain the levers of power,”
said Happymon Jacob, a political
scientist in New Delhi. “They simply
would not be able to do what they did had
there been elections.”
The final step was the lockdown.
Shortly after midnight on Aug. 5, just
hours before Mr. Modi’s government
would announce that Kashmir’s autonomy
was over, the Indian authorities cut
internet and phone service and activated
thousands of federal security officers.
As dozens surrounded Mr. Shah, others
moved house to house, across the valley,
looking for specific people. At least 20
stormed the home of Mr. Bhat, the
anticorruption activist, his family said.
Mr. Bhat’s family said he had never been
arrested before, “not even for one hour.”
When his wife, Fozia Kauser, asked why
this was happening, the Kashmiri police
said they didn’t know. Again, they said
they had orders.
Human rights activists say the Indian
government may be using the Public
Safety Act, which allows the authorities
to hold suspects without charges for up
to two years if they are deemed threats to
the state. But there are still rules,
including an advisory board review.
A few days after Mr. Shah, the rug and
crafts merchant, was arrested, his elder
brother, Niaz, tracked him down at a
Srinagar jail.
Mubeen Shah asked the guards if he
could hug his brother. They said yes.
The next morning, Niaz Shah came back
with some spare clothes.
But guards told him his brother was gone,
on a military plane to Agra.
