India's government has revoked the special status of India-administered Kashmir, in a move that risks fuelling already heightened tensions with neighbouring Pakistan.

Monday's presidential decree revokes Article 370 of India's constitution that guaranteed special rights to the Muslim-majority state, including its right to its own constitution and decision-making process for all matters except defence, communications and foreign affairs.

The legislation introduced alongside the decree still needs the approval of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led parliament.

In the lead-up to its move, India sent thousands of additional troops to the region, imposing a curfew on parts of it, shutting down telecommunications and arresting political leaders.

Both New Delhi and Islamabad claim Kashmir in full, but rule it in part. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two of their three wars over the disputed territory.

The United Nations has urged the two countries to exercise restraint.

Here are all the latest updates:

India warned China that the government's move to strip Kashmir of its autonomy and split the region into two parts was an "internal matter" after Beijing slammed the "unilateral" decision.

 

Beijing was particularly critical of India's decision to turn Kashmir's mostly Buddhist region of Ladakh into an administrative territory directly ruled by New Delhi.

 

"China is always opposed to India's inclusion of the Chinese territory in the western sector of the China-India boundary into its administrative jurisdiction," China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

 

"Recently India has continued to undermine China's territorial sovereignty by unilaterally changing its domestic law. Such practice is unacceptable and will not come into force.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said his government would challenge the Indian move to change the constitutional status of India-administered Kashmir at the United Nations Security Council, urging the international community to intervene in the crisis or risk regional destabilisation.

"We will raise this at every level, at the United Nations Security Council," said Khan, addressing a joint session of Pakistan's parliament in the capital, Islamabad.

"We are thinking of how we can go to the [International Court of Justice] through the UN Security Council ... we will raise this issue at every forum."

Pakistan army will 'go to any extent' to support Kashmir

Pakistan's army chief said the country's military will "go to any extent" to support people in the contested region after India's move,

"Pakistan Army firmly stands by the Kashmiris in their just struggle to the very end," General Qamar Javed Bajwa said following a meeting with top commanders in Rawalpindi.

"We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfil our obligations in this regard," he added, without elaborating further.

The lower house of India's parliament was set to ratify the bill downgrading the governance of the India-administered portion of Kashmir.

Members of the Lok Sabha were debating the "Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill" a day after the legislation was introduced alongside the presidential decree revoking Article 370.

The bill downgrades the region from a state into two federally administered union territories: Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh. Jammu and Kashmir would still have its own legislature, while Ladakh would not.

Kashmir on edge as India tightens grip on disputed region

A communications blackout and a security lockdown in Indian-administered Kashmir prompted anger and fear among residents.

Sheikh Mushtaq, 55, said he has lost contact with his daughter who was forced to leave her university in southern Jammu on Monday because of the lockdown. "We are helpless," he said.

The security measures have also hit businesses hard ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. </s> [NEW DELHI] The Indian government on Monday revoked Kashmir's special status, stripping the significant autonomy it has enjoyed for seven decades in a move expected to further inflame tensions in the Muslim-majority region and infuriate rival Pakistan.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist party rushed through a presidential decree to scrap the disputed region's special status in the constitution, and also moved a bill proposing the territory be divided into two regions directly ruled by New Delhi.

The government imposed a security lockdown and cut all telecommunications in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir in the early hours of Monday after deploying tens of thousands of troops in the past week, claiming there was a terror threat.

Home Minister Amit Shah, a close ally of Mr Modi, told parliament the president had issued a decree abolishing Article 370 of the constitution, which gives special autonomy to the Himalayan region.

The decree said the measure came into force "at once".

Kashmir has been divided between Indian and Pakistan since their independence in 1947. For three decades the Indian-administered part of the territory has been in the grip of an insurgency that has left tens of thousands dead.

Armed Kashmiri rebels and many residents have fought for the region's independence or to join neighbour Pakistan.

There were already growing fears among Kashmiris that the special status would be ditched after Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) obtained a large parliamentary majority in recent elections.

His party had vowed to fulfil a long-held promise to scrap the laws, and many fear New Delhi wants to change the region's demographics by allowing non-Kashmiris, mostly Hindus, to buy land locally.

The move is set to exacerbate the already bloody rebellion in Kashmir and deepen the long-running amorosity with nuclear rival Pakistan which has fought two out of three wars with India over the territory.

"There will a very strong reaction in Kashmir. It's already in a state of unrest and this will only make it worse," Wajahat Habibullah, a former senior bureaucrat in Jammu and Kashmir, told AFP.

The announcement sparked chaotic scenes in the national parliament, with opposition politicians shouting protests.

The main opposition Congress party described the decision as a "catastrophic step".

One lawmaker from the regional Kashmir-based Peoples Democratic Party tore up a copy of Indian constitution before being reportedly removed from the chambers by parliamentary marshals.

Former Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti tweeted that the latest move was the "darkest day in Indian democracy".

"Unilateral decision of GOI (government of India) to scrap Article 370 is illegal & unconstitutional which will make India an occupational force in J&K (Jammu and Kashmir)," she added.

In Pakistan, a representative of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Firdous Ashiq Awan, tweeted that his nation would continue to provide Kashmir with "moral, diplomatic and political support" until it achieves self-determination.

The unprecedented move followed days of uncertainty in the region that began on Friday when New Delhi ordered tourists and Hindu pilgrims to leave "immediately".

All phones, internet services and cable networks in the restive Himalayan region of more than seven million people were cut at midnight, and only residents issued with a curfew pass were allowed on the streets.

Article 370 of the Indian constitution gives special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It limits the power of the Indian parliament to impose laws in the state, apart from matters of defence, foreign affairs and communications. </s> Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has vowed to use "every forum" to force New Delhi to reverse its decision to strip Indian-administered Kashmir of its special status and split the Himalayan state.

Addressing a joint session of parliament on August 6, Khan pledged to raise the matter with heads of state and take the issue to the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court.

He told lawmakers in Islamabad that India's actions, which he called illegal under international law, could lead to an all-out conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, adding, "No one will be the winner in that case."

Earlier, Pakistan's army chief, General Qamar Bajwa, said the military would "go to any extent" to support the people of Kashmir in their "just struggle."

There is a long-running insurgency in Indian-administered part of Kashmir, which is divided between the two neighbors.

The Muslim-majority region is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan.

Two of the three wars the two countries have fought since their 1947 independence from British rule were over Kashmir.

The Indian side of Kashmir remained locked down on August 6 as India's lower house of parliament approved the revocation of Kashmir's special constitutional status that gave it significant autonomy from the rest of the country.

The chamber also cleared a bill to split the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, a day after the upper house backed the measures.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said India's decisions were "unacceptable" and that New Delhi needed to be cautious on border issues, drawing a rebuke from the Indian government that the status of Jammu and Kashmir was an "internal matter."

The U.S. State Department earlier expressed concern "about reports of detentions" and urged "respect for individual rights and discussion with those in affected communities."

It called on "all parties to maintain peace and stability along the Line of Control" that serves as a de facto border between India and Pakistan in Kashmir.

Amid fears of fresh violence in the Indian-ruled part of Kashmir, India's moves were accompanied by a telecoms blackout in the region, restrictions on public movement, and the deployment of thousands of troops.

Despite the measures, sporadic protests were reported.

Protests also continued in Pakistani-administered Kashmir and Pakistan for a second day, with hundreds of people shouting anti-Indian slogans.

Meanwhile, Pakistan and India's fierce cricket rivalry spilled over into politics as former stars from the two countries traded barbs over New Delhi's decision.

"Kashmiris must be given their due rights as per #UN resolution. The rights of Freedom like all of us," Pakistan's Shahid Afridi, who announced his retirement from international cricket last year, tweeted.

"Why was @UN created & why is it sleeping? The unprovoked aggression & crimes being committed in Kashmir against #Humanity must be noted. [U.S. President Donald Trump] must play his role to mediate."

Indian Gautam Gambhir, who quit cricket in December and is now a member of parliament for Prime Minister Narenda Modi's party, later took a swipe at Afridi on Twitter, writing: "There is 'unprovoked aggression,' there r 'crimes against humanity'."

Afridi should be "lauded for bringing this up," he said. "Only thing is he forgot to mention that all this is happening in 'Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.' Don't worry, will sort it out son!!!"

With reporting by Reuters, dpa, the BBC, and AFP </s> ISLAMABAD - Pakistan began a special joint session of its parliament Tuesday to discuss a possible response a day after rival India revoked the special status for Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region both the countries claim in its entirety.

New Delhi added a special provision to its constitution in 1949 providing autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir, allowing the region to have its own constitution, a separate flag and independence over all matters except foreign affairs, defense and communications. India’s Hindu nationalist-led government scrapped the constitutional provision on Monday.

 

 Prime Minister Khan told an emergency session of the Pakistani parliament the Indian action would intensify the ongoing insurgency in the majority-Muslim Kashmir, and the ensuing tensions could trigger another war between the two nuclear-armed nations.

 

 The Pakistani leader said the conflict could eventually lead to an exchange of nuclear weapons, and Khan asked whether the world is prepared for the worst.

 

 “No one will win that war. Everyone will lose that war. It will have implications for the entire world … I am not indulging in a nuclear blackmail. Hope for the best, be prepared for the worst. This is why I am appealing to the world to intervene and stop India from blatantly tearing apart international laws,” said the prime minister.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has long campaigned for ending the special status granted to Kashmir, saying it hampered development and encouraged youth there to join insurgents fighting Indian rule.

Pakistan swiftly condemned and rejected Monday’s announcements by India as “illegal steps.”

“No unilateral step by the government of India can change this disputed status, as enshrined in the United Nations Security Council [UNSC] resolutions. Nor will this ever be acceptable to the people of Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The country’s top military commanders held a special meeting Tuesday to review the security situation in the wake of India’s controversial move.

Following its special meeting Tuesday the Pakistani army said in a statement that Islamabad had never recognized the provisions New Delhi revoked because they were part of what the statement said was India’s “sham” efforts to legalize its "occupation” of Kashmir.

“[The] Pakistan army firmly stands by the Kashmiris in their just struggle to the very end. We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfill our obligations in this regard,” the statement quoted the army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, as saying.

Anti-India protests also erupted Tuesday in cities across the Islamabad-administered one-third of Kashmir and in several major Pakistani cities.

Meanwhile, a senior American diplomat arrived in Islamabad Tuesday for pre-scheduled bilateral meetings. Pakistani officials said the latest developments in Kashmir were likely to figure high in the talks with Alice Wells, the U.S. principal deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of South and Central Asian affairs.

Ahead of Monday's announcements, the Indian government deployed tens of thousands of additional troops in Kashmir, arrested local political leaders, including former chief ministers, imposed a security lockdown and cut off all telecommunications as well as cable television networks to deter agitation.

In its immediate reaction on Monday, the United States said it was “closely" following developments in Kashmir. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Monday urged India and Pakistan to “exercise restraint” following India’s announcement.

"We are concerned about reports of detentions and urge respect for individual rights and discussion with those in affected communities, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. She called on “all parties to maintain peace and stability along the Line of Control [the de facto Kashmir border].”

Critics warn the move will likely exacerbate ongoing bloody rebellion in Kashmir and deteriorate military tensions between India and Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons, who have already fought two wars over the divided region.

The Muslim insurgency and the ensuing Indian security crackdown are estimated to have killed 70,000 people in Kashmir over the past three decades. New Delhi has consistently accused Islamabad, particularly the country’s powerful military, of being behind the militancy.

Pakistan rejects the charges and maintains it only provides diplomatic and moral support to the separatists. End. </s> LAHORE: PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif said on Monday that opposition offered its ‘full cooperation’ to the PTI government to give a befitting response to the Modi government on its decision to revoke the held-Kashmir’s special status but also warned Prime Minister Imran Khan that this gesture should not be called an effort (of the opposition) to secure NRO (deal).

In a significant development, PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz opposed her uncle’s (Shahbaz Sharif) offer to shake hands with Imran Khan on this issue, saying no support from the opposition should be offered to a government that was not only non-representative but had brought Pakistan to its knees in every possible way.

“Any support lent to the Imran Khan government will lead to more disasters and graver ones. All this government can do is to surrender and capitulate,” she demanded.

Ms Nawaz said: “This government is badly and desperately looking for support to cover up the blunders that it has committed which have had serious implications on Pakistan. Do not give them a bailout. They are the ones responsible for plunging Pakistan into this crisis. It will not end here. Opposition, beware.”

Her suggestion to her uncle is seen as divergent policy of the PML-N with opposition leader in the National Assembly seems to be in favour of re-conciliatory politics while Maryam Nawaz does not seem to be ready to let the “incompetent” PTI government go off the hook on any issue be it economic or Kashmir crisis.

Earlier, Ms Nawaz had also opposed Shahbaz Sharif’s offer to Imran Khan to sign a charter of economy. Subsequently, her view prevailed in the party.

Ms Nawaz also raised some questions regarding weaknesses of the PTI government with regard to handling the Kashmir issue in a series of tweets.

“You Mr. Khan failed to anticipate what was coming and you were either completely oblivious to the preparations the Indian government was undertaking or were a part of that. Tell us the truth,” she asked and added the premier was nowhere to be seen in times of crisis.

“At this crucial juncture the foreign minister (Shah Mahmood Qurershi ) has gone for Haj where he must be praying for the Kashmiris.”

“We, the people of Pakistan, must be told what commitments were sought by and given to the US by Imran Khan. Was the offer for mediation a trap that you walked into and gloated over, or you as usual had no clue to what was being planned by the enemy? Pakistan needs exceptional, undisputed and dynamic leadership that has the ability and statesmanship to respond to the aspirations of hundreds of millions of Pakistanis and Kashmiris. Unprecedented situation calls for extraordinary leadership,” she demanded and announced that her rally in Sargodha on Tuesday (today) would be dedicated to Kashmir.

“We shall not only express solidarity with our Kashmiri brethren but will highlight Indian government’s atrocities, human rights violations and dictatorial decree of revoking article 370 and reneging on all international commitments,” she said and asked “does anyone remember what Imran Khan offered India our nuclear programme during his US visit? Just bear that in mind. No one has ever gone to that extent.”

In the press conference, Shahbaz Sharif said the current Kashmir situation demanded that political and military leadership should be on the same page. “Opposition will hold a meeting on Tuesday (today) to discuss the situation arising after the India’s unilateral revoking of Kashmir’s status as a disputed territory. We offer our full support to the government on the Kashmir issue. At this stage a message should be given to the world and Kashmiris that we are united on the Kashmir issue. And we want to be on the same page (with the government) to express solidarity with the Kashmiris and save the country’s prestige. We do not want division among the political class at this crucial time. But let me tell Mr Imran Khan Niazi…do not call this opposition’s offer as an effort to secure NRO (like deal),” Shahbaz Sharif said.

Condemning abrogation of Article 370 by the BJP government, he said it was an open declaration of war against the United Nations and a test of the international community. He said Pakistan must immediately call an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council and should engage all friendly countries like China, the UK, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others for consultation and a strong and decisive strategy.

“I appeal to President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li of China, Saudia Arabia’s King, and Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, the prince of United Arab Emirates and President Turkey Tayyip Erdogan to play a decisive role in stopping India’s brutal belligerence and oppression of the people of Kashmir and force India to reverse the recent steps taken by Narendra Modi’s government,” he said assured the Kashmiris that Pakistan and PML-N would go to every extent to safeguard their right to self-determination.

Shahbaz Sharif also questioned whether US President Donald Trump’s mediation offer on Kashmir was a “trap or an effort to meet personal agenda.” He said Mr Trump needed to prove through his actions that it was his sincere offer and not just a “bait to woo Pakistan in an effort to milk more favours from Islamabad for facilitation in the Afghanistan peace process or a campaign slogan for his upcoming US elections.”

PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said: “Atrocities in Indian Occupied Kashmir continue unabated. Extremist Indian government’s intentions are clear. President must immediately summon joint session of Parliament in the wake of Indian aggression in IOK.” He said by abolishing Article 35-A and 370, which conferred special status on Jammu and Kashmir, India intended to alter the region’s entire demography. “This decision is an open war of Modi against Kashmiri Muslims,” he said.

PPP’s Parliamentary Leader in Senate Sherry Rehman said: “Pakistan will resist any attempt to oppress the Kashmiri people and impose any form of government that is against the wishes of the people of Kashmir.” She said it was embarrassing that Pakistan’s Prime Minister believed that Modi’s government was the only solution to the conflict of Kashmir.

“The so-called world’s biggest democracy has not only belittled but also mocked the 70-year struggle of Kashmiris. The deployment of 100,000 additional troops over the last one week and the house arrest of Kashmiris betray the oppressive and occupational nature of the Indian state. The Indian government’s consistent use of fake news and leaks to blame Pakistan for the evacuation of Indians from Kashmir also proves that the BJP government continues to peddle fake narrative of terrorism threats to support its crackdown against Kashmiris. Pakistan will not let the Indian state deprive Kashmiris of their right to self-determination and will strongly lodge their protest at every international forum available,” Sherry Rehman said. PPP senior leader Khursheed Shah and Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar said revoking the independent status of held Kashmir was a move to ruin the peace of the subcontinent and cause tension between the two nuclear powers in the region. They said the international community had been silent regarding the tyranny of Indian military in Kashmir.

Mr Shah questioned PM Khan for not issuing a policy statement on this issue. He said the National Assembly speaker should issue production orders of all detained parliamentarians so that all parliamentarians should attend the joint session. </s> India scraps special status for Kashmir in move that Pakistan calls illegal

India has revoked the special status of Kashmir, the Himalayan region that has long been a flashpoint in ties with neighbouring Pakistan, moving to grasp its only Muslim-majority region more tightly.

In the most far-reaching political move in one of the world's most militarised regions in nearly seven decades, India said it would scrap a constitutional provision that allows the state of Jammu and Kashmir to make its own laws.

Foreign ministry officials later briefed envoys of several countries on the changes to the state's administrative status, saying they were aimed at promoting good governance, social justice and economic development.

The government also lifted a ban on property purchases by non-residents, opening the way for Indians to invest and settle there, just as they can elsewhere in India.

The measure is likely to provoke a backlash in the region.

Pakistan to use 'all possible options to counter illegal steps'

Pakistan, which also claims Kashmir, said it strongly condemned the decision, which is bound to further strain ties between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said the move "was in clear violation of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions" in the region, according to a statement released after a telephone call with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Monday evening.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, where a nearly 30-year armed revolt has killed tens of thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands of Indian troops have been deployed to quell it.

India blames that rebellion on Pakistan, which denies the accusation, saying that it backs the right to self-determination for Kashmir.

Hours earlier the Indian government launched a security crackdown in the region, arresting local leaders, suspending telephone and internet services and restricting public movement in the main city of Srinagar.

Local TV channels citing Press Trust of India reported that former Kashmiri chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah had been detained at a state guest house.

Regional leaders have previously said stripping Kashmir's special status amounts to aggression against its people.

In Pakistan there was anger at India, with protests extending to the capital, Islamabad and the southern commercial centre of Karachi.

In Muzaffarabad, 45 kilometres from the two countries' contested border, dozens of protesters held black flags and burnt car tyres, chanting "Down with India".

Tension had risen in Kashmir since Friday, when Indian officials issued an alert over possible militant attacks by Pakistan-based groups.

Pakistan rejected those assertions, but thousands of alarmed Indians left the region over the weekend.

On Sunday, Mr Khan said the tension had the potential to become a regional crisis and the time was right for US President Donald Trump to mediate.

In July, Mr Trump said Mr Modi had asked him if he would like to be a mediator on Kashmir, but India, which has been staunch in its position that the issue can only be resolved bilaterally, denied that Mr Modi sought mediation. </s> Supporters of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) light firecrackers and celebrate the government revoking Kashmir’s special status, in Lucknow, India, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019. Indian lawmakers passed a bill Tuesday that strips the statehood from the Indian-administered portion of Muslim-majority Kashmir amid an indefinite security lockdown in the disputed Himalayan territory, actions that neighboring Pakistan warned could lead to war. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

NEW DELHI (AP) — India is redrawing its political map again.

Parliament has approved a proposal by the Hindu nationalist-led government that strips statehood from Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state, splitting the region into two union territories after revoking its special rights under India’s Constitution.

Although India has redrawn its map many times since gaining independence from the British in 1947, the decision is likely to raise tensions in the already-volatile Himalayan region between India and Pakistan. Both nuclear-armed countries claim the territory, and India’s action will further entrench the idea of Hindu majority rule espoused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

The move takes from the region and its people some political autonomy and hereditary rights by revoking Article 370 of India’s Constitution.

The lawmakers’ decision will also lift a ban on property purchases by nonresidents of Kashmir, opening the way for Indians outside the territory to invest and settle there. That is something the local Muslim population has long feared will change its demography, culture and way of life.

India’s move came as an indefinite security lockdown kept most of the region’s 7 million people in their homes and in the dark about the changes.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim the region in its entirety. Two of the three wars they have fought since independence were over Kashmir.

Erasing the autonomy of the region will inflame the sentiments of most Kashmiris who demand that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

More than half a million Indian soldiers are stationed in Kashmir to counter a rebellion that seeks to secede from India, and there are near-daily demonstrations against Indian control. About 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing crackdown since 1989.

Home Minister Amit Shah also introduced a bill which downgrades Jammu and Kashmir from a state to a union territory with an elected legislature. It also carves out the region of Ladakh as a separate union territory, ruled directly by the central government without a legislature of its own. The bill was passed Tuesday by Parliament.

The bill has been applauded by India’s Hindu nationalist parties, which have been seeking to fully integrate Kashmir since the country’s partition into India and Pakistan in 1947. The Modi government’s ideological mentor, the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh organization, praised the decision, describing it as “brave” and “necessary” for the national interest.

Critics have already likened Kashmir’s proposed new arrangement to the West Bank or Tibet, with settlers — armed or civilian — living in guarded compounds among disenfranchised locals.

“The decision (to split the region) will reduce Kashmir to a colony,” said A.G. Noorani, a constitutional expert who has written extensively about Kashmir, including the 2011 book “Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir.”

Noorani said splitting the region into federal territories will “divide Kashmir from the rest of the country and Kashmiris will oppose the Hindu feeling in the region.”

Dibyesh Anand, a social scientist at the University of Westminster, said “the fear of settler colonialism is not a specter but a reality, given the approach of both the government and a large number of Indians.”

Anand said there will a major transformation of the socio-economic landscape in Kashmir, where Hindu Indian settlers will be “presented as patriotic pioneers braving Kashmiri Muslim resentment.”

Human rights activists and residents of the troubled state have long feared such a move could destabilize the region and plunge it into chaos by redrawing sectarian lines.

Still, the main worry for many is that the central government’s actions will set in motion a plan to crush the identity of the people of Kashmir.

Indian census data puts the total population of the Indian-controlled part of Jammu and Kashmir at 12.5 million, about 68% Muslim, 28% Hindu and just under 1% Buddhist. Within the state, Kashmir is about 94% Muslim while Jammu is about 63% Hindu and 33% Muslim.

The remote mountainous Ladakh region has a population of just 274,289 people, with 46% Muslim and about 40% Buddhist.

The immediate implications are that Kashmir will lose its flag, criminal code and constitution.

Before the region’s special rights were revoked, New Delhi needed the regional government’s approval to apply all other laws — except in defense, foreign affairs, finance and communications.

Turning Kashmir into a union territory means the central government will gain much more control over the area’s affairs, including its courts. Electoral constituencies will be reorganized using 2011 census figures. This could further inflame the region if more power is shifted to Jammu, where Modi and his Hindu-nationalist party enjoy strong support.

Some experts questioned whether India’s actions were legal.

“This move is a violation of the procedure in any case and can be challenged by the Supreme Court. Article 370 can only be managed by the government of Jammu and Kashmir. So, this Parliament cannot abrogate it. This is what the law says,” Noorani said.

Many constitutional experts say the provision that allows Article 370 to be altered by presidential order requires the consent of the constituent assembly of Jammu and Kashmir and is therefore void because the assembly was dissolved in 1956.

“This clearly means that it (Article 370) cannot be revoked, because the only body which could have recommended it has ceased to exist,” said Yogendra Yadav, a political analyst.

Meanwhile, India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, voiced strong opposition to the way the government went about repealing the region’s special status.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, defeated by Modi in May elections, criticized the “abuse of executive power” by the ruling party and said the move would have grave implications for national security.

“National integration isn’t furthered by unilaterally tearing apart J&K, imprisoning elected representatives and violating our Constitution. This nation is made by its people, not plots of land,” Gandhi tweeted. </s> NEW DELHI (AP) — India is redrawing its political map again.

Parliament has approved a proposal by the Hindu nationalist-led government that strips statehood from Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state, splitting the region into two union territories after revoking its special rights under India's Constitution.

Although India has redrawn its map many times since gaining independence from the British in 1947, the decision is likely to raise tensions in the already-volatile Himalayan region between India and Pakistan. Both nuclear-armed countries claim the territory, and India's action will further entrench the idea of Hindu majority rule espoused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

The move takes from the region and its people some political autonomy and hereditary rights by revoking Article 370 of India's Constitution.

The lawmakers' decision will also lift a ban on property purchases by nonresidents of Kashmir, opening the way for Indians outside the territory to invest and settle there. That is something the local Muslim population has long feared will change its demography, culture and way of life.

India's move came as an indefinite security lockdown kept most of the region's 7 million people in their homes and in the dark about the changes.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim the region in its entirety. Two of the three wars they have fought since independence were over Kashmir.

Erasing the autonomy of the region will inflame the sentiments of most Kashmiris who demand that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

More than half a million Indian soldiers are stationed in Kashmir to counter a rebellion that seeks to secede from India, and there are near-daily demonstrations against Indian control. About 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing crackdown since 1989.

Home Minister Amit Shah also introduced a bill which downgrades Jammu and Kashmir from a state to a union territory with an elected legislature. It also carves out the region of Ladakh as a separate union territory, ruled directly by the central government without a legislature of its own. The bill was passed Tuesday by Parliament.

The bill has been applauded by India's Hindu nationalist parties, which have been seeking to fully integrate Kashmir since the country's partition into India and Pakistan in 1947. The Modi government's ideological mentor, the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh organization, praised the decision, describing it as "brave" and "necessary" for the national interest.

Critics have already likened Kashmir's proposed new arrangement to the West Bank or Tibet, with settlers — armed or civilian — living in guarded compounds among disenfranchised locals.

"The decision (to split the region) will reduce Kashmir to a colony," said A.G. Noorani, a constitutional expert who has written extensively about Kashmir, including the 2011 book "Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir."

Noorani said splitting the region into federal territories will "divide Kashmir from the rest of the country and Kashmiris will oppose the Hindu feeling in the region."

Dibyesh Anand, a social scientist at the University of Westminster, said "the fear of settler colonialism is not a specter but a reality, given the approach of both the government and a large number of Indians."

Anand said there will a major transformation of the socio-economic landscape in Kashmir, where Hindu Indian settlers will be "presented as patriotic pioneers braving Kashmiri Muslim resentment."

Human rights activists and residents of the troubled state have long feared such a move could destabilize the region and plunge it into chaos by redrawing sectarian lines.

Still, the main worry for many is that the central government's actions will set in motion a plan to crush the identity of the people of Kashmir.

Indian census data puts the total population of the Indian-controlled part of Jammu and Kashmir at 12.5 million, about 68% Muslim, 28% Hindu and just under 1% Buddhist. Within the state, Kashmir is about 94% Muslim while Jammu is about 63% Hindu and 33% Muslim.

The remote mountainous Ladakh region has a population of just 274,289 people, with 46% Muslim and about 40% Buddhist.

The immediate implications are that Kashmir will lose its flag, criminal code and constitution.

Before the region's special rights were revoked, New Delhi needed the regional government's approval to apply all other laws — except in defense, foreign affairs, finance and communications.

Turning Kashmir into a union territory means the central government will gain much more control over the area's affairs, including its courts. Electoral constituencies will be reorganized using 2011 census figures. This could further inflame the region if more power is shifted to Jammu, where Modi and his Hindu-nationalist party enjoy strong support.

Some experts questioned whether India's actions were legal.

"This move is a violation of the procedure in any case and can be challenged by the Supreme Court. Article 370 can only be managed by the government of Jammu and Kashmir. So, this Parliament cannot abrogate it. This is what the law says," Noorani said.

Many constitutional experts say the provision that allows Article 370 to be altered by presidential order requires the consent of the constituent assembly of Jammu and Kashmir and is therefore void because the assembly was dissolved in 1956.

"This clearly means that it (Article 370) cannot be revoked, because the only body which could have recommended it has ceased to exist," said Yogendra Yadav, a political analyst.

Meanwhile, India's main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, voiced strong opposition to the way the government went about repealing the region's special status.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, defeated by Modi in May elections, criticized the "abuse of executive power" by the ruling party and said the move would have grave implications for national security.

"National integration isn't furthered by unilaterally tearing apart J&K, imprisoning elected representatives and violating our Constitution. This nation is made by its people, not plots of land," Gandhi tweeted. </s> China and Pakistan have both issued warnings to India over recent moves to assert control over disputed border regions that have previously led to clashes with its neighbors.

As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for the repeal of Article 370 granting special autonomy to the stretch of Kashmir located on its side of contested borders with China and Pakistan, Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah introduced bills naming both the state of Jammu and Kashmir and its Ladakh region as separate union territories to be governed directly by the central government. The sudden change in a decades-long arrangement was hailed by Shah as a "historic decision" but it elicited negative reactions from both Beijing and Islamabad, which have grown closer in recent years and have separately engaged in heated confrontations with New Delhi.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a press briefing Tuesday that her country was "always opposed to India's inclusion of the Chinese territory in the western sector of the China-India boundary into its administrative jurisdiction," referring to the Aksai Chin area that was claimed by India but was controlled by China in western Xinjiang and Tibet.

"Recently India has continued to undermine China's territorial sovereignty by unilaterally changing its domestic law," she added. "Such practice is unacceptable and will not come into force. We urge India to exercise prudence in words and deeds concerning the boundary question, strictly abide by relevant agreements concluded between the two sides and avoid taking any move that may further complicate the boundary question."

China and India most recently neared a border conflict in summer 2017 at a separate point of contention known as Doklam to India and Donglang to China. The trilateral junction borders India's Sikkim State, China's Tibet region and Bhutan's Ha Valley. New Delhi accused Beijing of disregarding the tiny Himalayan kingdom by building a new highway, leading to hand-to-hand clashes between Indian and Chinese personnel, but no armed skirmishes.

The two managed to de-escalate the situation, but nationalist rhetoric continued to resurface the incident on occasion. China and India have a history of engaging in all-out hostilities over their border feud, especially in the 1960s when the pair fought deadly conflicts over both frontlines.

Much of India's troubled history with borders, however, has focused on rival Pakistan, which was established after the United Kingdom's 1947 partition of India and that quickly led to the first of several wars between the two South Asian states. Two more of these conflicts in 1965 and 1999 were directly borne out of competing claims to the divided territory of Kashmir, while another in 1971 involved India's support for the independence of East Pakistan, now known as Bangladesh.

Bloody clashes have continued between Indian and Pakistani forces at the Kashmir frontier, where Islamist militant groups that New Delhi accuses Islamabad of backing have also established a presence. One such group, the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for a February suicide bombing that killed dozens of Indian personnel in Kashmir's Pulwama. The bombing led India to conduct rare cross-border strikes on suspected insurgent camps, a Pakistani retaliatory attack and a dogfight that led to the loss of an Indian fighter jet whose pilot was later returned as a peace gesture.

In a policy statement delivered Tuesday to a joint session of his country's parliament, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan dismissed Indian allegations that Islamabad was involved in the February suicide attack in Pulwama and argued that Modi had rejected his diplomatic overtures since the Indian leader's reelection in May. With Kashmir's reclassification, he warned "there will be another Pulwama-style incident and India will again accuse Pakistan of having terrorists coming from Pakistan, while we have nothing to do with it."

Khan said he feared such a series of events could escalate into a nuclear war between the two countries of which "no one will be the winner," but argued for a need to defend Kashmiris as he accused Modi's ruling, right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party and the influential Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh organization — of which the Indian leader was once a member — of pursuing a "racist ideology."

The Pakistani premier called for international support in resolving the situation in Kashmir, which has only deteriorated in the two weeks since Khan sat down at the White House with President Donald Trump, who appeared to claim that Modi asked him to mediate in the decades-long dispute. Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar later said that "no such request has been made," though Trump's potential role was welcomed by the Pakistani side, which argued Monday that its rival's recent Kashmir decision did not abide by the United Nations "nor will this ever be acceptable to the people of Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan."

Responding to the apparent rejection of his role by India, Trump said Friday that "it's really up to Prime Minister Modi," calling both him and Khan "fantastic people" who "can get along very well."

He said, "if they wanted me to, I would certainly intervene."
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan vows to fight India's unilateral decision to revoke Indian-administered Kashmir's autonomy, including in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. Mr. Khan stated this move is a breach of international law, adding he feared the possibility of ethnic cleansing in the Muslim-majority region.