[The statement on Wednesday from the committee headed by Mr. Khan said that India’s stripping of Kashmiri autonomy would also be raised by Pakistan with the United Nations Security Council, which recognizes the region as disputed.]
By
Kai Schultz, Suhasini Raj and Salman Masood
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Security
forces at a checkpoint in Jammu, Kashmir, on Wednesday. Credit Rakesh
Bakshi/ Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images
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NEW
DELHI — Pakistan announced
on Wednesday that it would halt trade with India and expel the country’s top
diplomat in Islamabad in retaliation for India’s decision to unilaterally
eliminate the autonomy of Kashmir.
The Pakistani government, which also claims
the restive region of Kashmir, said it would recall its own chief diplomat
based in New Delhi.
A statement from a national security
committee headed by the Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, said the changes
would be put in place because of “illegal actions” by the Indian government
regarding Kashmir, which has a Muslim majority.
Mr. Khan denounced Prime Minister Narendra
Modi of India, accusing his government of promoting “an ideology that puts
Hindus above all other religions and seeks to establish a state that represses
all other religious groups.”
The statement on Wednesday from the committee
headed by Mr. Khan said that India’s stripping of Kashmiri autonomy would also
be raised by Pakistan with the United Nations Security Council, which
recognizes the region as disputed.
In addition to ending bilateral trade, which
has been valued at several billion dollars annually, and downgrading diplomatic
ties, Pakistani officials threatened to close the country’s airspace to Indian
aircraft. The statement said all bilateral agreements would also be reviewed.
It remained unclear Wednesday when Pakistan
would begin enforcing the promised retaliatory measures.
Alyssa Ayres, a senior fellow for South Asia
at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said that suspending trade
was an unusual, perhaps unprecedented, move by Pakistan, even though its effect
would most likely be muted.
“This will not frankly have any economic
impact on either country,” she said, noting that trade volume was still
relatively low between India and Pakistan. “But under any circumstances, I’d
rather see diplomatic and symbolic steps like these than terrorism.”
In a speech in the Pakistani Parliament
before the measures were announced, Fawad Chaudhry, the science and technology
minister, called India a “fascist regime” and said another war over Kashmir,
where decades of fighting has killed tens of thousands of people, was not off
the table.
“Pakistan should not let Kashmir become
another Palestine,” Mr. Chaudhry said. “We have to choose between dishonor and
war.”
The call for action comes after Amit Shah,
the Indian home minister, announced on Monday that the Indian government was
revoking Kashmir’s special status, which served as a foundation for most of the
contested region’s joining India as an autonomous area more than 70 years ago.
The Indian Parliament overwhelmingly approved
a bill this week that split the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir into two
federal territories. The move puts Kashmir under tighter control of the central
government.
India and Pakistan, both of which have
nuclear arms, have fought several bitter wars over Kashmir, a mountainous,
predominantly Muslim territory claimed by both countries.
Low-intensity conflict has become a fact of
life in the region, stunting development, leaving its people deeply alienated
and providing the backdrop to a stubborn battle for independence by a few
hundred militants against tens of thousands of Indian troops.
Mr. Shah said removing the region’s
semiautonomous status, which included a provision barring non-Kashmiris from
owning land, would spur investment and encourage peace building. The government
framed its plans as “purely administrative.”
But for decades, Hindu nationalists from the
Bharatiya Janata Party, now led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have vowed to
curtail special freedoms enjoyed by Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian
Constitution. Defanging the provision was central to their broader agenda of
moving India closer to a Hindu nation.
Many analysts said Pakistan cannot afford to
go to war and has limited latitude on Kashmir. The country has a history of
providing support to militant groups in the region, despite repeated calls from
allies to stop such assistance.
But some Pakistani opposition leaders called
for an even broader review of the country’s foreign policy dealings, including
with the United States, which has increasingly cozied up to India, seeing it as
a check on China.
Though President Trump has recently offered
to mediate the Kashmir dispute, Raza Rabbani, a former chairman of the Senate
and a senior opposition politician, urged Mr. Khan’s government to move away
from dependency on Washington, saying the United States had formed a “nexus”
with India and Israel.
“Have we forgotten that when Trump mediated
he gave Golan Heights to Israel?” Mr. Rabbani said, warning that India could
make settlements along the Line of Control and push Kashmiris into Pakistan.
“Pakistan would be under pressure and a
constant threat of war,” he said.
Indian lawyers were split about the
constitutionality of diluting Article 370, and many said the government’s plan
was likely to face court challenges. On Tuesday, a veteran public interest
lawyer filed the first legal challenge to the government’s actions in the
Supreme Court.
Over the past few days, stunned opposition
members argued in India’s Parliament that change was needed in Kashmir, but
that the government’s move was undemocratic and a disturbing attempt to undermine
India’s secular identity. Some likened it to a coup.
Before the government announced the end of
the special status, Kashmiri voices were almost completely silenced. Internet
connections, mobile service and landlines were cut. Thousands of additional Indian
troops were deployed in the region, and tourists were evacuated.
Asrar Sultanpuri, a Kashmiri writer who lives
in New Delhi, said he could not reach his wife and son, who recently went to
Kashmir to meet relatives. He sobbed in a telephone interview.
“I am angry and sad and worried,” he said.
“We should at least have been allowed to communicate with our families.”
An official in the Ministry of Home Affairs,
who was not authorized to speak publicly, said on Wednesday that Section 144, a
part of India’s criminal code that allows bans on gatherings of more than four
people, was in place. She said that people in Jammu and Kashmir were free to
move around.
Many top Indian politicians, including Mr.
Modi and Mr. Shah, were focused on attending funeral ceremonies on Wednesday
for a former foreign minister.
But in Srinagar, Kashmir’s biggest city, the
few people who were able to transmit messages said that they were still
terrified and that stores were closed and streets empty. Indian soldiers were
patrolling barricaded intersections, and curfew passes were required. One
Kashmiri resident said that there had been sporadic incidents of stone pelting
in south Kashmir, though there were no confirmed reports of serious injuries.
Iltija Javed, the daughter of a prominent
Kashmiri politician and one of the few people who has managed to send updates,
said the city was under a “complete information blackout” and expressed concern
that the situation would only get worse.
“The way we are being treated is absolutely
appalling,” she said in a voice mail message on Wednesday. “We don’t even know
if everyone has enough food supplies, enough medicinal supplies to last them
for this indefinite curfew.”
Kai Schultz and Suhasini Raj reported from
New Delhi, and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan.
