India’s government on Monday revoked the special status of occupied Kashmir and rushed through a presidential decree in a bid to fully integrate its only Muslim-majority region with the rest of the country, hours after imposing a major security clampdown in the region.

Occupied Kashmir and Ladakh will now be Union Territory with a legislature, said Indian media.

“The entire constitution will be applicable to Jammu and Kashmir state,” Shah said, ending the occupied territory’s rights to make its own laws.

The step would also mean revocation of a bar on property purchases by people from outside the state. Such plans have in the past provoked warnings of a backlash in Kashmir.

Following the revocation of Article 370, the Indian Army and Indian Air Force have been put on high alert.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing ruling party had pushed for an end to Kashmir’s special constitutional status, arguing that such laws had hindered its integration with the rest of India.

Earlier during the parliament session, Shah had urged members of parliament to discuss the legislation that seeks to end the autonomous status for Muslim-majority Kashmir..

Shah, who is also the president of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), made the announcement during an address at the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Indian parliament) which caused a ruckus. Indian Prime Minister Modi was also in attendance.

Unprecedented lockdown

Earlier, Modi held a security cabinet meeting, hours after his government ordered a lockdown in occupied Kashmir, cutting phone and internet links and putting local politicians under house arrest.

All phones, internet services and cable networks were snapped at midnight in the region of more than seven million people following days of soaring tensions.

Only residents with a “curfew pass” were allowed on the streets.

NDTV, one of the rare broadcasters able to transmit from the main city Srinagar, showed empty streets dominated by security forces.

Ahead of the clampdown, India ordered thousands of tourists out of occupied Kashmir saying there was a threat of militant attacks.

Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has said that changes to the constitutionally guaranteed job and property privileges for Kashmiris were needed to end the conflict.

It put Kashmir under direct rule from New Delhi last year after Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party ended a coalition with a local party in the state assembly.

Nearly 80,000 paramilitary forces have been flown into Kashmir in past 10 days, already the world’s most militarised region where India has roughly 500,000 troops.

The security measures have sparked panic among residents, who formed long queues outside petrol stations, food stores and cash machines.

Source: https://tribune.com.pk/story/2028388/1-indian-home-minister-proposes-scrap-iok-special-status/