Ban on Internet: Jammu & Kashmir Government resumes internet services after 3 days

“The PDP-BJP regime is pushing the people of the state to the wall”.

“The ban on Internet has been revoked in the state and all service providers have been asked to resume their data services”, a police officer said.

The state had never seen a blanket ban on internet services before.

Nasir Ahmad, a doctor who was in the valley for Eid, said he was forced to pay extra for an air ticket. “Such a ban is unthinkable in this age of communication and information technology”.

Apart from blocking internet services, authorities detained or put under house arrest many of these leaders and their cadre.

Traders claimed that online businesses, mainly tourism and the banking sector, were disrupted. It is a shame that due to fear of a few people uploading cow slaughtering videos, the authorities held entire Kashmir hostage and the business community consequently suffered losses worth millions of rupees.

“The ban on internet was supposed to end on 26.09.2015 (10 pm) according to official order and still no sign on the internet in Kashmir”.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi took his “Digital India” initiative to the Silicon Valley with much fanfare, netizens used the occasion to mock at his government for curtailing internet services in Kashmir Valley on Eid.

The decision was taken in the backdrop of the Jammu High Court ruling criminalising bovine slaughtering in the state, which was protested widely by Muslims. A few of the users uploaded videos and photographs of cows and other bovine animals being publicly slaughtered at places in the predominantly Muslim Kashmir Valley during a separatist-called shutdown against the court order and such pastime hurt religious sentiments of Hindus and, in fact, added to already existing tensions over the issue within and outside the state.

During a widespread street agitation in 2001, mobile internet was restricted but that did not affect landline broadband services.

Not surprisingly, when the ban was removed, many on social media wished each other “Internet Mubarak”.

“Misuse of mobile phone SMS and Internet messaging service to spread malicious rumours with an intention to stoke communal tension and violent activity constitutes commission of offences under the various provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prev) Act 1967, the Information Technology Act and Ranbir Penal Code”, police spokesperson said.