SRINAGAR: AliMohammad Rah sat on the pavement outside a police station in Kashmir's maincity of Srinagar on Tuesday, waiting to see his teenage sons, who were swept upin government raids overnight. "Soldiers violently banged windows of ourhome while we were sleeping," Rah told AFP, saying his sons-aged 14 and 16- were taken away before dawn in the Srinagar neighborhood of Mehjoor Nagar.
"They just barged in and dragged my two sons away." Governmentsources say at least 4,000 people have been detained in Kashmir since Indiarevoked the restive Himalayan region's autonomy on August 5 and imposed amassive security lockdown on the restive region. Protests have broken outfrequently, prompting raids by police and paramilitary forces.
In Nowshera, in an old quarter of the city, residents said several young menwere taken away and detained by police on Sunday night. Locals from otherneighborhoods reported similar blitzes. To try and stop the raids, residents inSrinagar's Soura area have erected barricades and dug trenches in roads thatlead to their cluster of homes. Sitting outside the police station alongsideRah on Tuesday were dozens of other locals who said their relatives were alsoin custody-among them 21 boys from the most recent night raid.
They say soldiers used ladders to scale the walls of their compounds. WidowRozi, who only gave one name, said a gun was put to her head and she was toldto "keep quiet" by soldiers as they led her 20-year-old son SuhailMohiuddin from the house. Another woman, Mubeena, said a soldier "sprayedsomething on my face" when her brother was seized. "I fell down inpain and couldn't see for a while. When I gathered myself my brother had alreadybeen taken away," she said.
Nearby, Ulfat cradled her one-month-old son as she waited to find out about herbreadwinner husband Mushtaq Ahmad, who she said was taken away by police."I don't have money to buy medicines for myself and other things for mybaby," she said. Officials at the station did not respond to a request forcomment. Authorities have declined to speak on the numbers of people behindbars. Those picked up include local politicians, activists, business leadersand lawyers.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since independence fromBritain in 1947, and has been the spark for two major wars and countlessclashes between the two nuclear-armed arch-rivals. In justifying the scrappingof Kashmir's autonomy, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said last week that"fresh thinking" was needed after seven decades of failure to ensureharmony in the former Himalayan kingdom, where tens of thousands have died inthe past 30 years.- AFP