India’s Amit Shah visits Kashmir amid rising violence

In an apparent attempt to address the disgruntlement of Kashmiri’s youth with New Delhi, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah on his visit to the region said he came to extend a hand of “friendship” to the young people.

Shah is on his first visit to the disputed region after architecting the nullification of Indian-administered Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status under the Indian Constitution on August 5, 2019, which was followed by a crippling communication and military lockdown for months.

The three-day visit of Shah comes in the backdrop of a deteriorating security situation in the region, which has seen an uptick in the violence resulting in 38 killings in 20 days of this month – including 11 civilians, 17 rebels, and 10 security personnel.

While addressing young people during an interaction with the region’s youth clubs, the union home minister sought their cooperation in strengthening “democracy” in Kashmir.

“I have come here to extend friendship,” Shah said. “Come and connect with Modi ji, connect with the Indian government,” he said, indicating Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“I have come here to seek your cooperation. The administration has extended its hand of friendship towards you. Come forward and strengthen the democracy here. No one would be allowed to disrupt the peace in Kashmir. From the perspective of peace, development, and infrastructure, this is the ideal situation and no one would be allowed to stop it.”

While justifying the decision of the internet shutdown two years ago, Shah said the curfew in the valley and ban in the aftermath of abrogation of Jammu Kashmir’s special status and bifurcation into two union territories was done to protect Kashmiri lives.

“For some time that you suffered, it only saved your children,” he said. “When the situation normalized, we opened everything.”

Shah introduced the bill of the government’s unilateral decision to abrogate Article 370 in the parliament two years ago. The law, that provided exclusive citizenship rights to the permanent residents of the region, barred outsiders from buying property or permanent settlement.

The move sparked anger among the seven million residents of the region, who expressed their resentment saying the step is designed to bring demographic changes in the Muslim-majority territory.

While hailing the decision of stripping of the region’s limited autonomy on his Kashmir visit on Saturday, Shah said “the day of August 5, 2019, was historic and would be written in golden letters”.

“It marked the end of fear, terrorism, corruption, and nepotism to start the era of progress, development, and peace … which now the youth of Kashmir have to take forward,” Shah said.

The development in the region that is taking place now was not possible before the scrapping of the special law, he added.

Shah also claimed “terrorism” and stone-throwing protests were witnessing a decline.

“Till now more than 40,000 people including security forces, terrorists and civilians have lost their lives here … Terrorism and progress cannot go together. The first requirement for development is that there has to be peace. And who can do it?… It is the youth who have to work in eliminating terrorism.”

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