Kashmir has now been under siege for a year after it’s annexation. Here are the effects of the August 5th siege. A thread.

These are the records for ban on internet and 4G mobile data in 2019-2020:
2019:

July 5th: Suspended in Shopian (counter-insurgency gunfight)

July 10th: Suspended in Anantnag, Pulwama, Kulgam and Shopian (Burhan Wani death anniversary)

July 27th: Shopian (CASO)(1/n)

August 4: Mobile, landline and internet suspended across state

September 9th:Some landlines restored

2020
January 15th: Broadband and mobile services restored for 1 week

January 25th: PS GOJK order that mobile and internet services be restricted to 2G and only(2/n)

January 27th: Internet restored

January 31st: PS GOJK order of 25th
January extended for 1 week

February 7th: Extended again for 1 week

February 12th: Mobile, internet services suspended

February 15th: PS GOJK order of 25th January extended for 10 days (February 24)(3/n)

February 24th: Extended again till March 4

March 4th: Extended again till March 26

March 24th: COVID lockdown. 2G restrictions continued.

March 26th: PS GOJK order of 25th January extended again, till April 3

April 3rd:Extended again till April 15
Extended till April 28(4/n)

April 28th: Extended till May 11

May 11th: Continued till May 27

May 27th: Continued till June 17

June 17th: Continued to July 17

July 8th: Continued to July 29(5/n)

Detention: According to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), 6,605 people, including “miscreants, stone-pelters, over ground workers (OGWs), separatists”, were taken into preventive custody after August 4, 2019, 444 of them under Jammu and Kashmir’s Public Safety Act (PSA) of(6/n)

1978. All the state’s leading political representatives, including three former Chief Ministers – Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti – were amongst those detained, as were at least 144 minors.(7/n)

Illegal detention of children: Despite initial denials of the detention of children, the Union and Jammu and Kashmir administrations finally admitted in the Supreme Court that 144 children had been detained in August-September 2019. The youngest was 9 years old.(8/n)

According to a report prepared by the Additional Director General of Police, Srinagar, submitted to the Juvenile Justice Committee which comprised four judges of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, 75 of the 144 children were arrested under the PSA.(9/n)

Nine others were arrested under Section 107, Chapter VIII of the CrPC and some of them were kept in observation homes.(10/n)

Child deaths and injuries: According to the UN Secretary-General’s report cited above, over the past ten months the UN has verified the killing of 8 children and maiming of 7 others (13 boys, 2 girls), between the ages of 1 and 17(11/n)

“by or during joint operations of the Central Reserve Police Force, the Indian Army (Rashtriya Rifles) and the Special Operations Group of the Jammu and Kashmir Police (10),unidentified armed elements (2), or during shelling across the line of control (3).(12/n)

The casualties that occurred in Jammu and Kashmir were mainly caused by torture in detention, shootings, including from pellet guns, and cross-border shelling. The Indian and Kashmiri media have substantiated similar allegations. For example(13/n)

The Print documented five cases of minors including a 14-year-old child who suffered from serious pellet injuries at one of the protests in Srinagar in August 2019(14/n)

Impact on children and youth: According to one parent, children felt “mentally drained” and 12- to 15-year-olds, especially, have become “less tolerant and aggressive” (mother, Srinagar). A legal and development practitioner added that children as young as 10 years old(15/n)

had started to ask questions “beyond their age after August 2019”, and that too “in a challenging tone”. The questions, he said, were about issues connected to lockdowns, curfews, troops’ deployment and the religion of armed forces. Children also became aggressive due to(16/n)

“desperation at not being able to access the internet”; denying them access, he concluded, was tantamount to “denying them the right to life in the present digital world”(17/n)

Even high-end private schools have struggled with online classes, according to a student who attends the online classes regularly, although “they have to be cancelled every now and then because of internet snaps.(18/n)

It gets disrupted all of a sudden and never gets reconnected.

Awareness of Covid: After the lockdown, the government still didn’t issue an order for 4G to work again in Kashmir, even though Kashmiris needed that to read about the SOPs and the WHO guidelines(19/n)

Which again, were present on the internet. Doctors needed high speed internet as well, to know about the proper techniques to treat an infected person according to the WHO on the internet, which wasn’t possible on 2G internet(20/n)

And at last we come to the impact on the economic sector: The Kashmir chamber of commerce reported these losses after 120 days of the abrogation of article 370.

1. The tourism sector lost about Rs. 8.8 crore per day, with losses reaching upto Rs 10.5 billion in 120 days(21/n)

And that isn’t all, the unemployment rates in the tourism sector rose as well, with 74,500 jobs being lost.

2. Handicraft industry lost about Rs.6 crore daily, with a loss of Rs.7.8 billion over a period of 120 days. The joblessness went upto 70000 in this sector as well(22/n)

3. General trade reported the biggest loss with about Rs. 26 crore daily and over Rs.31 billion over a period of 120 days. The joblessness went up by 1,20,000 as well(24/n)

And after all the the impact to the economic sector, Kashmir lost about Rs. 142 billion in 120 days. This is all the effects of the colonisation that Kashmir is going through now, this is the #NayaKashmir that they’re advertising (n/n)