Following India’s move to revoke occupied Kashmir’s special status and weeks of intense curfew, young men sit beside a pile of rocks and a bonfire, protecting the only entrance to a besieged neighbourhood they call “Kashmir’s Gaza” as a mosque loudspeaker broadcasts slogans of liberation.
According to AFP, In an act of defiance against New Delhi’s controversial move, Soura neighbourhood on the outskirts of Indian occupied Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar has sealed itself off from security forces.
Since the start of August, locals have erected ramshackle barricades of tin sheets, wooden logs, oil tanks and concrete pillars, and dug trenches to keep soldiers at bay amid daily protests against India.
Mufeed, a resident of Soura who volunteers to guard the neighbourhood at night, told the French News agency, “They can only enter Soura over our bodies. We won’t give even an inch of land to India.”
He added: “Just like Gaza is resisting Israel, we will fight for our motherland with all our might.”
Kashmir has waged a three-decade-long struggle for freedom against Indian rule with tens of thousands of lives, mostly civilians, lost in the conflict.
Ahead of Article 370 move, India deployed tens of thousands of extra troops in the occupied valley to join 500,000 already in the territory and imposed a strict clampdown fearing further unrest.
But protests have broken out, with the lower-middle-class Soura leading the way. At least 15,000 people rallied on August 9 — the biggest demonstration in occupied Kashmir so far.
