With mobile communication and Internet services suspended and public movement restricted, all of the Kashmir Valley was in a state of lockdown from midnight on Sunday, well before the Cabinet met in New Delhi Monday morning and Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced the decision to do away with Article 370 in Rajya Sabha. Former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah have been arrested along with People’s Conference leader Sajad Lone. The only voices of dissent from the Valley came from two PDP MPs in Rajya Sabha - Mir Fayaz and Nazir Ahmed Laway.
The PDP MPs trooped into the Well along with Opposition parties shouting slogans against the Modi government’s move to scrap Article 370 and bring a Bill to bifurcate the state into two Union Territories. The PDP members also took a copy of the Constitution from the table officers and started to tear its pages, when they were marshalled out of the House.
While the Opposition criticised the BJP’s decision, the Valley did not witness violence, the government said, largely since more than 300 companies (30,000 personnel) of paramilitary forces have been pushed into the region over the last two weeks. Union I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar said in the House that he had learnt that there were no protests in the Valley.
On Monday, the Home Ministry dispatched another eight companies of central armed police forces (CAPFs) to Kashmir to maintain law and order and CRPF DG R R Bhatnagar is expected to stay in Kashmir for the next few days as forces brace for prolonged unrest. This takes the total number of personnel engaged in law and order duties in Kashmir to close to 100,000, as 60 battalions of the CRPF are stationed in the Valley around the year.
The Home Ministry also issued an advisory to all states and Union Territories to keep security forces on “maximum alert” to “pre-empt” any attempt to disrupt “peace and public harmony”, and to take “special care” to “ensure safety and security of residents of Jammu and Kashmir, specially students”, living in other parts of the country.
