Reaction from Srinagar as India Supreme Court upholds government decision to remove Kashmir status

(11 Dec 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir - 11 December 2023
1. Various of people walking down a street 
2. Various of soldiers
3. SOUNDBITE (Urdu) Aamir Ahmed, student:
"We had hoped that there would be certain changes in Article 370, and we would witness a different verdict, but nothing of the sort has happened. One hope we hold onto is that the Supreme Court has directed the restoration of statehood and the first election post-abrogation will be held, with a deadline set for September 2024. This is a hopeful development that we welcome."
4. SOUNDBITE (English/Urdu) Mudasir Bashir, Srinagar resident:
"But yes, I cannot say what the collective sentiment could be or what the collective sentiment is. But what I can say is that a sort of balance is needed to be created through institutions and how that balance is created through institutions is yet to see and we hope that some positive outcomes should be there." 
5. Cut away to wide of Sheikh Yasir, political activist
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Sheikh Yasir, political activist:
"As a Kashmiri, I see it that we have been betrayed for so many years and again we have been betrayed and nothing has been given, nothing concrete has been delivered. Rather it has been an affirmation of the action taken by the legislature and no judicial review, I think that no judicial review has been introspected into the matter." 
7. Various of people walking on streets
8. Various of security
STORYLINE:
India’s top court on Monday upheld a 2019 decision by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to strip disputed Jammu and Kashmir’s special status as a semi-autonomous region with a separate constitution and inherited protections on land and jobs.

The five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court ruled that the region’s special status had been a “temporary provision” and that removing it in 2019 was constitutionally valid.

The unprecedented move also divided the region into two federal territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir, both ruled directly by the central government without a legislature of their own. It was the first time in the history of India that a region’s statehood was downgraded to a federally administered territory.

As a result, the Muslim-majority region is now run by unelected government officials and has lost its flag, criminal code and constitution.

"We had hoped that there would be certain changes in Article 370, and we would witness a different verdict, but nothing of the sort has happened," said Aamir Ahmed, a student.

"One hope we hold onto is that the Supreme Court has directed the restoration of statehood and the first election post-abrogation will be held, with a deadline set for September 2024," he added.

Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud said the government has promised to restore Jammu-Kashmir’s statehood and should do so as soon as possible. Ladakh, however, will remain a federal territory.

He also ordered the country’s election commission to hold local legislative polls in the region by September 30.

The ruling is expected to boost the electoral prospects of Modi’s governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in national polls next year. The 2019 move resonated in much of India, where the Modi government was cheered by supporters for fulfilling a long-held Hindu nationalist pledge to scrap the Muslim-majority region’s special status.
New Delhi insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, a charge Islamabad denies. Most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle.
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