Fortress Srinagar awaits Modi

“Rashid was detained by a police party at Watergam while he was on way to Srinagar from the frontier district”, AIP spokesman Inam Un Nabi said.

The Mufti Mohammed Sayeed government has virtually turned the city into a fortress, with police detaining hundreds of separatists to prevent them from protesting or holding marches during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s November 7 rally. However, a senior police official wishing anonymity confided, “The raids are meant to detain potential trouble makers across Kashmir to ensure Modi’s rally passes off peacefully”.

“We are trying to identify the pages on Facebook and Twitter, which have been created to promote the “Million March” rally called by separatists”. “That’s disappointing as we want things to move on the political front as well”.

Assuring the people that the government would not allow anyone to take the law into his own hands, the Chief Minister made a reference to the State Cabinet’s resolution which unanimously condemned the killing of Zahid Rasool Bhat, a trucker who succumbed to burn injuries after a mob set his truck on fire in Udhampur last month.

The PDP leaders have billed his visit as a “turning point” in the history of Kashmir.

He invited all other prominent separatist leaders, including the Mirwaiz and JKLF chief Muhammad Yasin Malik, to the proposed rally in a display of unity and said the “Million March” would be aimed also at showing the outside world that “Kashmiris are against Indian occupation”.

“The Prime Minister’s visit is being given hype for nothing, as funding and allocations for any state in a federal structure is mandatory”, he said and castigated the Centre for delaying relief to the flood affected people of the state.

India has stationed thousands of troops in Kashmir as part of a decades-old confrontation with Pakistan, which also claims the region.

However, after consultations between all stakeholders, the PDP-BJP government in Srinagar felt and the Sangh agreed that an atmosphere suitable for the return of Kashmiri Pandit families should first be created in Kashmir Valley before the members of the community can return. An estimated 68,000 people have died in the fighting and the ensuing crackdown by Indian forces.