Skip to content
Hindi News, हिंदी समाचार, Samachar, Breaking News, Latest Khabar – Pratirodh

Hindi News, हिंदी समाचार, Samachar, Breaking News, Latest Khabar – Pratirodh

Primary Menu Hindi News, हिंदी समाचार, Samachar, Breaking News, Latest Khabar – Pratirodh

Hindi News, हिंदी समाचार, Samachar, Breaking News, Latest Khabar – Pratirodh

  • Home
  • Newswires
  • Politics & Society
  • The New Feudals
  • World View
  • Arts And Aesthetics
  • For The Record
  • About Us
  • Featured
  • Politics & Society

Barricades And Books In Restive Kashmir Neighbourhood

Sep 27, 2019 | Pratirodh Bureau

Kashmiri college students teach children inside a house

Few people step outside Anchar, a neighbourhood ringed by steel barricades and razor wire in Indian Kashmir, where police have imposed a weeks-long regionwide clampdown to stifle protests.

The densely-populated, working class area in the main city, Srinagar, is a pocket of resistance to India’s removal in early August of special status for Jammu and Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority state.

Kashmiris ride past a trench dug by residents to prevent Indian security forces from entering Anchar neighbourhood.

While some normalcy has returned to the region more than seven weeks after the crackdown began, there is little sign of an end to the standoff in Anchar, home to about 15,000 people.

Entrances to the area are guarded by young people manning barricades made of tree trunks, electricity poles and barbed wire to keep the police out.

Laneways have been dug up to block security vehicles.

As night falls, groups of youths, many wearing masks and armed with stones and tree branches, are huddled around bonfires, sipping tea provided by neighbours.

“I am spending the night outdoors so I can protect my family and not let Indians, who have been committing atrocities on us, to enter,” said Fazil, a 16-year-old student.

“There is no fear in me,” he added, holding a thick tree branch as he watched the street from a checkpoint.

Kashmiri men sit in front of pro-independence graffiti sprayed on the shutter of a closed shop.

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said Kashmir’s special status, which allowed only residents to buy property and hold government jobs, restricted its development and encouraged a separatist revolt that has killed 40,000 people since 1989.

Indian authorities have arrested nearly 4,000 people since the decision provoked outrage in the region and inflamed tensions with Pakistan, which also claims the territory.

Kashmiris shout slogans in Anchar neighbourhood after Friday prayers.

 

India cut internet and mobile services and imposed curfew-like restrictions to prevent protests. More than seven weeks later, some normalcy has returned and many of those detained have since been freed.

Telephone landlines are working again, though mobile and internet networks remain suspended.

A Kashmiri woman walks through an empty street in Anchar.

 

Shops open briefly to allow people to restock supplies and traffic is back on Srinagar’s streets. On some evenings, people stroll along the boulevard by Dal lake, framed by the Himalayas.

However, Anchar remains a no-go zone for security forces, and government services like schools are still shut in the area, prompting residents to come up with workarounds.

Four college students have set up a makeshift school in a three-room house to give lessons to 200 children for a few hours each day. They keep streaming in, the girls with their heads covered, books in hand from nursery rhymes to mathematics.

“The education of students in this locality is suffering because of the turmoil. We won’t let our future generations suffer,” said Adil, a college student turned teacher.

Another student teacher, Walid, said: “These children only see bullets and pellets every day”.

A Kashmiri man prays at a graveyard.

 

Other students are providing basic medical care so people need not go into other areas of the city for fear of arrest.

Rubina said her 15-year-old son was injured by pellets fired by security forces while he was returning home from Friday prayers.

Rubina shows her son’s x-ray.

The boy’s head is heavily bandaged and he hasn’t spoken since the incident, but the family would rather treat him at home than take him to a city hospital, fearing he would be detained by police.

“If he has to go out for a change of bandage to the nearby government hospital, he will be accompanied by six or seven women, so they don’t snatch him away,” Rubina said.

Tags: Anchar, Barricades, Jammu and Kashmir, kashmir, pakistan, PM Narendra Modi, Security Vehicles, srinagar

Continue Reading

Previous Anger, Impatience Mount In PoK As Imran Khan Makes Diplomatic Push
Next Disaster Under The Waves: The Race To Save The Coral Of The Caribbean

More Stories

  • Featured

Fact Check: No WHO Nod To Herbal Medicine As Covid-19 Treatment

1 day ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Four Major States To Go To The Polls Amid Raging Farmer Protests

1 day ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Existing Emissions Pledges Barely Scratch Climate Targets

1 day ago Pratirodh Bureau

Recent Posts

  • Fact Check: No WHO Nod To Herbal Medicine As Covid-19 Treatment
  • Four Major States To Go To The Polls Amid Raging Farmer Protests
  • Existing Emissions Pledges Barely Scratch Climate Targets
  • Kashmir Villagers Hopeful But Wary After India & Pak Ceasefire
  • Indian Coast Guard Find 81 Rohingya Refugees Adrift At Sea
  • How A Rare Feb Landslide Left More Than 200 Dead
  • Hinterland To Hollywood: How Farmers Galvanised A Protest Movement
  • Saudi Crown Prince Implicated In Khashoggi Murder: Report
  • Traders Across India To Go On Strike Tomorrow
  • Health Workers Balk At Taking Homegrown Covid Vaccine
  • India Slams Pakistan For ‘Baseless’ Propaganda
  • FB Bans Myanmar Military From Its Platforms With Immediate Effect
  • Farmers’ Union Writes To Prez Demanding End To ‘Repression’
  • Govt Says Virus Variants Not Behind Upsurge In Cases
  • ‘Climate Change A Threat To Global Security, I Don’t Envy You’
  • Paris Raps Pak Over Prez Alvi’s Remarks On French Muslims
  • Disha Ravi Granted Bail In Sedition Case Over Farm Protests
  • Western Countries Step Up Pressure On Myanmar Junta
  • Maha: Covid Resurgence Forces Fresh Containment Measures
  • Elgar Case: Varavara Rao Gets Interim Bail For Six Months

Search

Main Links

  • Home
  • Newswires
  • Politics & Society
  • The New Feudals
  • World View
  • Arts And Aesthetics
  • For The Record
  • About Us

Related Stroy

  • Featured

Fact Check: No WHO Nod To Herbal Medicine As Covid-19 Treatment

1 day ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Four Major States To Go To The Polls Amid Raging Farmer Protests

1 day ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Existing Emissions Pledges Barely Scratch Climate Targets

1 day ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Kashmir Villagers Hopeful But Wary After India & Pak Ceasefire

1 day ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Indian Coast Guard Find 81 Rohingya Refugees Adrift At Sea

2 days ago Pratirodh Bureau

Recent Posts

  • Fact Check: No WHO Nod To Herbal Medicine As Covid-19 Treatment
  • Four Major States To Go To The Polls Amid Raging Farmer Protests
  • Existing Emissions Pledges Barely Scratch Climate Targets
  • Kashmir Villagers Hopeful But Wary After India & Pak Ceasefire
  • Indian Coast Guard Find 81 Rohingya Refugees Adrift At Sea
Copyright © All rights reserved. | CoverNews by AF themes.