Mon 07 October 2019:
Hundreds of marchers protesting against the Indian decision to revoke Article 370 camped out on Sunday night in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir town of Chinari, about 10km (six miles) from the Line of Control (LoC), after Pakistani police stopped them from crossing the de facto border into Indian-administered Kashmir.
The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) organised the People’s Freedom March over the weekend to lead protesters through the length of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, culminating in their desire to cross the LoC and march onwards to Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.
“Instead of confrontation [with Pakistani police], we stopped the crowd about 300 metres before the barricades,” Rafiq Dar, a JKLF spokesperson, told Al Jazeera on Monday morning. “We do not want any kind of confrontation or fight.”
Negotiations with the government are ongoing, Dar said, with two senior ministers requesting the JKLF to call off the protest late on Sunday. Dar said demonstrators would stage a sit-in at the current protest site if they were not allowed to move forward.
A presidential decree issued on August 5 revoked Article 370 of India’s constitution that guaranteed special rights to the Muslim-majority state, including the right to its own constitution and autonomy to make laws on all matters except defence, communications and foreign affairs.
India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full but rule it in part. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two of their three wars over the disputed territory. A rebellion in Indian-administered Kashmir has been ongoing for 30 years.
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