India's sinister moves

In an obvious attempt to deflect international attention from its bloody repression in Occupied Kashmir, India has repeatedly been violating the ceasefire agreement, indiscriminately shelling civilian populations across the Line of Control and the Working Boundary. In the latest violence on Tuesday in Neelum and Leepa valleys and Nauseri sector of Muzaffarabad district, three persons, including a minor boy, were killed and at least 37 others were injured. Meanwhile, New Delhi has announced its decision to deploy 10,000 troops in Occupied Kashmir, which is an addition to 40,000 paramilitary personnel recently brought in on the pretext of protecting participants of the Amarnath Yatra. India has also asked all foreigners and tourists to leave the Occupied State.
There is a sinister motive behind further troop mobilisation. Merger of Jammu and Kashmir with India has been on the Narendra Modi-led BJP government's agenda since it rode to power in 2014. Reports emanating from New Delhi suggest plans of abrogating Article 370 of the Indian constitution that gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) as well as Article 35-A which empowers the state legislature to protect the demographic status of the state by defining its permanent residents, and bars non-native Kashmiris from settling in the state, buying property, or apply for jobs. The Modi government has already been trying to dilute the demographic makeup of the disputed region. Also on the anvil is a plan for trifurcation of J&K, and delimitation of legislative constituencies in a way that would weaken even those Kashmiri leaders who have been participating in elections, such as former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah. They have reacted angrily to reports - or 'rumours' as some have preferred to call them - about scrapping of the two constitutional provisions as well as deployment of additional troops. While the latter described the two proposals as "bullying of the people" the former took to Twitter to point out that "there is no dearth of security forces in Kashmir. J&k is a political problem which won't be solved by military means."
Deployment of fresh troops clearly is aimed at controlling the firestorm that New Delhi knows will erupt if and when it translates its plan of complete merger into action. It also shows desperation to suppress the ongoing struggle against Indian rule. However, as Mufti said, there is no dearth of security forces in the occupied J&K. As many as 700,000 troops have been there for a long time. If they have failed to smother the Kashmiri people's urge for freedom despite hundreds of thousands lives lost and gross human rights violations, 50,000 more soldiers are unlikely to make any difference. But the danger is that in order to cover up its crimes New Delhi might accuse Pakistan of creating trouble in the Valley, as it has been doing, and resort to some "strategic strike", leading to serious consequences. Before anything untoward happens, Pakistan needs to ask the relevant UN forums to do something more than expressing mere concern over the rights situation in Occupied Kashmir.