Kashmir Flights Suspended in Curfew

NEW DELHI – A curfew was clamped in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and all air services put on hold Tuesday after incidents of stone-pelting and violent clashes in major towns killed at least 15 people and injured hundreds in the last two days, according to state police officials.



A vehicle was set ablaze by protesters on the
oskirts of Srinagar.

S.M. Sahai, inspector general of police in the state, said air services to and from the state's summer capital of Srinagar had been suspended for the next three days due to renovation work at the airport. All flight operations had been diverted to nearby Awantipura airbase since the first week of September since the Srinagar airport was not operative, he said. But the services were canceled when it was deemed too difficult to transfer passengers.

"All air operations have been shut since the movement of passengers and staff from Awantipura airbase was becoming untenable for the local police," Mr. Sahai said, adding "the curfew has been imposed keeping in mind the security of the people and to prevent miscreants and protestors from pouring out on roads."

The deaths are the latest in a series of clashes since June as the valley—an area of disputed territory between India and Pakistan—has erupted in a new bout of separatist sentiment that security forces have been unable to quell despite a curfew. In response, a committee of the Indian cabinet was meeting Monday to consider proposed amendments to curb the power of the country's armed forces in certain parts of Jammu and Kashmir state.

At issue before the Committee on Security, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The law, deeply unpopular in the region, gives security forces broad powers to carry out operations against insurgents and shields the army from liability. Currently, 14 of the state's 22 districts are covered by the act and the committee was considering a recommendation to remove it from four districts in the Kashmir valley in an effort to show the government's willingness to compromise to stem the rioting.

No decision was made on the withdrawal of the special-powers act at the end of the cabinet meeting. According to a statement released by India's home ministry, the government reiterated its "intention to restart the process of dialogue with different sections of the people of Jammu and Kashmir" and called for a meeting of all political parties in New Delhi on Wednesday to "elicit their views on the way forward."

Earlier Monday, Mr. Singh expressed concern about the violence in Kashmir over the past few weeks. "The youth of Kashmir are our citizens and their grievances have to be addressed," Mr. Singh said at a conference of combined commanders Monday. "We are willing to talk to every person or group which abjures violence."

The U.S. Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, held a news conference to say the U.S. was dismayed to hear reports of an attack on a Kashmiri school.

The demand to lift the special-powers act was brought up by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who met Home Minister P. Chidambaram in New Delhi before Monday's cabinet meeting to discuss confidence-building measures to end the cycle of violence in the state.

The army is opposed to any lifting of the law, army officers have said, as is the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP criticized Mr. Abdullah in a statement Sunday as "a complete failure" and warned that any dilution of the armed forces law would allow separatists to "call the shots."

There also are differences of opinion on the merits of a withdrawing the law within the cabinet.

Separatist leaders said over the weekend that a partial lifting wouldn't stop the protests. "There should be full withdrawal of AFSPA," Mirwaiz Umer Farooq of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference—an umbrella organization of separatist groups which wants India to end its presence in Kashmir—said at a conference in Srinagar, Kashmir's capital, on Sunday.

"We want New Delhi to take concrete steps to resolve the lingering dispute of Kashmir forever," Yasin Malik, chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front—another separatist group—told television news channels on Monday.

India's parliament enacted the special-powers act in 1958 and extended it to the state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1990. It originally applied to the eight districts within 20 kilometers, or about 12 miles, of the Line of Control that separates India from Pakistan, but later extended the law to six other areas declared disturbed.

Some defense experts agree that lifting the AFSPA from some districts is unreasonable and won't help fight terrorism. "Sidelining the armed forces in the region would only strengthen the hands of Pakistan—the real perpetrator of violence," said Anil Bhat, a retired army officer and defense analyst based in Delhi. "Can these killings be avoided if the act is not in force in Kashmir?"

Others say a repeal could provide an opening for more government action and an end to the current violent stalemate. "The revocation of AFSPA would be simply a start-up strategy by the government to reach a consensus with different groups for a dialogue in the violence-stricken region," said Suba Chandran, deputy director at the New Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.