SRINAGAR – Outside a guarded government office in Indian-occupied Kashmir’smain city, an interminable queue forms every day for a near-pricelessopportunity: a two-minute phone call to the outside world.
Residents of Srinagar and the Kashmir Valley have been starved of phone andinternet use for a week as India snuffs out opposition to its militarylockdown in the Himalayan region.
Only two mobile phones with an outside line are on offer in the deputycommissioner’s office, but so desperate are people to contact families inthe rest of India and overseas that they come from across Srinagar andbeyond to wait in line.ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER AD
Under the watchful eye of Indian paramilitaries, the calls andconversations are tightly controlled, and simmering frustrations often boilover.
One 56-year-old woman, who had walked miles and was stopped at dozens ofcheckpoints along the way, became embroiled in an argument with securityforces outside the office after she was turned away.
“They stopped me from entering because they don’t have a female policeofficer to frisk me,” the dejected woman, who was hoping to call her twochildren studying abroad, told *AFP*.
“I am worried about my daughters but they would definitely be more worriedabout us,” she said, declining to be named.
In the end, she was left with no choice but to give her children’s numbersto a stranger in the queue and plead with him to try and contact them.Silent punishment
India deployed tens of thousands of additional troops to back its move lastweek to strip Indian-occupied Kashmir of its autonomy, and Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has not indicated how long the communications blackout andlockdown will last.
A crippling curfew has been eased ahead of the Eid al-Adha festival onMonday, but there is still a massive security presence on the streets.
The government has issued a few hundred satellite phones to police and topbureaucrats, while dozens of other officials have mobile and landlinenumbers linked to a private network.
The deputy commissioner’s office began offering its mobile service onThursday.
Each day, the queue builds up early and jostling starts when an officialemerges from a poorly lit corridor to take the names and numbers to becalled in a register.
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“We are trying to help people to connect with relatives abroad,” theofficer said on condition of anonymity.
He reads out names of the lucky callers and hands over the mobile phone toeach one. He also times each call, waving his hands when the 120 secondsare nearly up.
Mubashir Hussain’s excitement turned to frustration when his call to abrother in the United States went unanswered.
“He must be away from his phone or sleeping. There is a time difference,”the 44-year-old businessman said as he handed back the phone.Back to the ‘stone age’
A three-decade insurgency against Indian rule in occupied Kashmir has lefttens of thousands dead, and communication clampdowns are nothing new.
According to the Software Freedom Law Center, a New Delhi monitoring group,there have been dozens of internet shutdowns this year alone.
But the current restrictions — affecting the mobile network, landlines andcable TVs — are on a different scale.
“We are being literally pushed into stone age. Cutting communication is aviolation of basic human rights,” said Hussain.
Shakeel Ahmad Khan said he had to plead with troops at several checkpointsto let him pass so he could try to contact his elderly parents who havebeen on the Haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia since last month.
“I saw my mother in a dream last night and she said they are done,” he saidas he waited. -APP/AFP