NEW DELHI, Aug 19, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Some Kashmir schools re-opened on
Monday but were largely empty following weekend clashes in Srinagar, two-
weeks after India removed the restive region’s autonomy and imposed a
lockdown.
The authorities said that they were re-opening 190 primary schools in the
city yet few children could be seen at half a dozen places visited by AFP.
Pakistan meanwhile said Indian fire across their de-facto border on Sunday
killed two civilians and seriously injured a child, a day after New Delhi
said Pakistani fire killed an Indian soldier.
India on August 5 ended the special constitutional status of Muslim-
majority Kashmir, where a 30-year-old uprising against Indian rule has killed
tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians.
Hours before its move, India severely curtailed movement and shut down
phones and the internet, bringing in tens of thousands of troops to turn the
main city of Srinagar into a fortress.
Some 120,000 extra soldiers have been deployed, a security source told
AFP, joining around 500,000 already in the northern Himalayan region divided
with Pakistan since 1947.
At least 4,000 people have also been detained under the Public Safety Act
(PSA), which allows imprisonment for up to two years without charge or trial,
government sources said.
“Most of them were flown out of Kashmir because prisons here have run out
of capacity,” a local magistrate told AFP, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
Authorities have declined to comment on the numbers of people behind bars.
Those picked up include local politicians, activists, business leaders and
lawyers.
Officials said only that the “few preventive detentions” were made to
avoid a “breach of the peace”, and that there was “no centralised figure” for
the total number.
– ‘No signs of injury’ –
On Sunday family members held a wake for timber trader Sidiq Khan, 62, who
relatives said had died after suffocating from tear gas fired by security
forces in Srinagar. A senior government official told AFP that a man in his
mid-60s had died, and that a post-mortem “has not revealed any external or
internal marks of injury”.
After some easing in previous days, authorities on Sunday reinforced heavy
restrictions after eight people were injured during protests.
The Press Trust of India news agency cited unnamed officials saying there
had been clashes in a dozen locations around Srinagar on Saturday.
Around 20 percent of landlines were working on Monday, an AFP reporter
said. But mobile phones and the internet were still cut off.
– No kids –
In Srinagar on Monday most main streets and markets were deserted,
although some roads looked busier than in recent days.
Some teachers and administrative staff made it to schools but many others
didn’t. PTI also reported that only a handful of children had come.
“We didn’t receive an official notification for re-opening the school from
the local government but opened it after watching the news yesterday,” a
senior official at Srinagar’s Burn Hall School told AFP.
Many schools stayed shut, with guards at the gate turning away any
teachers or administrative staff who turned up.
“I don’t think parents will send their children to school if they can’t
communicate and check on them whenever required,” a resident of the Rajbagh
area of Srinagar told AFP outside the Presentation Convent School.
“I came here after watching the news yesterday but it doesn’t look like
any students have come to school today. There are many other teachers who
stay farther away and haven’t made it here,” one of the teachers at a local
school told AFP.