Click to play videoNew Delhi: A dispute over whether land should be given or not to the Amarnath Shrine Board has now become a full fledged crisis about the future of Kashmir in India.
For the first time in over a decade, separatist slogans are being openly shouted out in Srinagar. The Government looks helpless and Kashmir is drifting dangerously away from India.
Mainstream political parties too are divided on how to address the issue.
National Conference leader, Farooq Abdullah has said Jammu and Kashmir cannot be two separate entities and that the integrity of the state is crucial.
"It is a question of survival. How do you survive? And therefore, I don't think it is very good to think that we can remain free. The question is, can we survive free? It is not about survival as a destroyed state, but survival as a state which is viable, where people can exist happily. Under the present circumstances, freedom is not easy to sustain," he said.
After weeks of massive separatist protests in Kashmir that virtually shut down the region, separatist leaders called for three days of calm, allowing schools and businesses to reopen.
Huge crowds thronged to markets to buy food and cooking gas after two months of sustained protests in Srinagar, the biggest city in India's only Muslim-majority state.
Separatist leader Masarat Aalam said the public needed a break to sustain the intensity of the protests, and the leaders needed time to map out future action. The unrest had crippled life in the city, with most schools and businesses complying with protest leaders' call for them to close.
On Wednesday , National Security Advisor M K Narayanan will lead a high-level Central team to Srinagar to take stock of the situation in the state. The Union Home and Defence Secretaries too are expected to accompany him.
They are expected to meet the state's civil and security officials to assess the situation.
Though Kashmir is peaceful after the Hurriyat called for a three-day relaxation of protests, the Centre is worried the situation may go out of hand especially since the co-ordination committee of protestors in Kashmir is also meeting on Wednesday.
The meeting will not just chalk out its future strategy. The leaders are also expected to address rising differences between Hurriyat leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Geelani.
The Crisis
The crisis began in June with a dispute over transfer of forestland to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board for use by pilgrims.
Muslims held protests complaining that a state government plan to transfer 99 acres (40 hectares) to the board to build facilities for pilgrims was actually a settlement plan meant to alter the religious balance in the region.
A subsequent decision by the state government to scrap the plan angered the region's Hindus, sparking tit-for-tat demonstrations.
On August 11, at least five people, including a senior leader of Jammu and Kashmir's moderate Hurriyat faction, were killed in clashes with security forces as they marched towards the Line of Control (LoC) in Baramulla district against the economic blockade in the region.
Since then, tensions have escalated leading to people defying curfew and the police firing at protesters in several places.
The death toll in the entire state in the waves of protests and counter-protests now stands at around 40.
"There have been debates and disputes as to who has the right to represent Kashmiri people, but I think today the people have represented themselves. India needs azadi from Kashmir as much as Kashmir needs azadi from India" |
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter and Google+)
displayed with permission. Use of the CNN name and/or logo on or as part of CNN-IBN does not derogate from the intellectual property rights of Cable News Network in respect of them.