NEW DELHI: In a major administrative reshuffle following the first anniversary of Kashmir’s loss of autonomy, India on Thursday appointed a loyalist of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party as the region’s new lieutenant governor.
Manoj Sinha, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former minister, replaces Girish Chandra Murmu, who abruptly resigned on Wednesday night.
“The president is pleased to appoint Manoj Sinha as lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir,” Indian President Ram Nath Kovind announced early on Thursday.
After the announcement, Sinha immediately left for Kashmir’s capital Srinagar, telling reporters: “It’s a big responsibility.”
On Aug. 5 last year, New Delhi annulled Article 370 of India’s constitution, which had guaranteed Kashmir’s autonomy, and bifurcated the state into the Union Territory of Ladakh and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
A union territory’s legislative assembly is subservient to the lieutenant governor, who holds both administrative and political responsibility.
Sinha’s appointment came after authorities imposed a curfew in the Muslim-majority region on Wednesday to prevent street protests on the first anniversary of the revoking of its special status.
“The removal of the (previous) lieutenant governor is an acknowledgment of New Delhi’s policy failure in the past year,” Prof. Sheikh Showkat Hussain, who teaches human rights and international law at the University of Kashmir in Srinagar, told Arab News.
“Murmu is just a scapegoat,” he said.
Hussain described the new regional leader as “a hardcore Hindu leader belonging to the BJP.”
“Let’s see what’s the design behind sending such a political activist to Srinagar.”
Zaffar Choudhary, a Srinagar-based political analyst and editor of online news magazine the Dispatch, said New Delhi’s move may be a sign that political activity will be restored in the region.
The government’s representative is a “political man,” he said, unlike the previous lieutenant governor.
“By sending a full-time politician as the head of Jammu and Kashmir, New Delhi is perhaps preparing to restore the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir and start the political process,” Choudhary said.
However, Hussain argues the situation in the valley cannot be redeemed merely by changing the face of the government representative.
“Ordinary Kashmiris are more alienated and hostile than before the fateful day of Aug. 5,” he said.
“A sense of insecurity looms — it has overtaken even local Hindus in the Jammu region. Kashmir is more volatile than before. Its communication blockade and media censorship surpass global records, and there is a complete exclusion of local people from decision-making at every level.”
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India puts Modi loyalist in charge of Kashmir
India puts Modi loyalist in charge of Kashmir
- Manoj Sinha is a leader in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party
- Last August, Modi’s government removed special privileges accorded to Jammu and Kashmir
ICE agents can’t make warrantless arrests in Oregon unless there’s a risk of escape, US judge rules
- US District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai issued a preliminary injunction in a proposed class-action lawsuit
- Case targets Department of Homeland Security’s practice of arresting immigrants they happen to come across
PORTLAND, Oregon: US immigration agents in Oregon must stop arresting people without warrants unless there’s a likelihood of escape, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
US District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai issued a preliminary injunction in a proposed class-action lawsuit targeting the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of arresting immigrants they happen to come across while conducting ramped-up enforcement operations — which critics have described as “arrest first, justify later.”
The department, which is named as a defendant in the suit, did not immediately comment in response to a request from The Associated Press.
Similar actions, including immigration agents entering private property without a warrant issued by a court, have drawn concern from civil rights groups across the country amid President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
Courts in Colorado and Washington, D.C., have issued rulings like Kasubhai’s, and the government has appealed them.
In a memo last week, Todd Lyons, the acting head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, emphasized that agents should not make an arrest without an administrative arrest warrant issued by a supervisor unless they develop probable cause to believe that the person is in the US illegally and likely to escape from the scene before a warrant can be obtained.
But the judge heard evidence that agents in Oregon have arrested people in immigration sweeps without such warrants or determining escape was likely.
The daylong hearing included testimony from one plaintiff, Victor Cruz Gamez, a 56-year-old grandfather who has been in the US since 1999. He told the court he was arrested and held in an immigration detention facility for three weeks even though he has a valid work permit and a pending visa application.
Cruz Gamez testified that he was driving home from work in October when he was pulled over by immigration agents. Despite showing his driver’s license and work permit, he was detained and taken to the ICE building in Portland before being sent to an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington. After three weeks there, he was set to be deported until a lawyer secured his release, he said.
He teared up as he recounted how the arrest impacted his family, especially his wife. Once he was home they did not open the door for three weeks out of fear and one of his grandchildren did not want to go to school, he said through a Spanish interpreter.
Afterward a lawyer for the federal government told Cruz Gamez he was sorry about what he went through and the effect it had on them.
Kasubhai said the actions of agents in Oregon — including drawing guns on people while detaining them for civil immigration violations — have been “violent and brutal,” and he was concerned about the administration denying due process to those swept up in immigration raids.
“Due process calls for those who have great power to exercise great restraint,” he said. “That is the bedrock of a democratic republic founded on this great constitution. I think we’re losing that.”
The lawsuit was brought by the nonprofit law firm Innovation Law Lab, whose executive director, Stephen Manning, said he was confident the case will be a “catalyst for change here in Oregon.”
“That is fundamentally what this case is about: asking the government to follow the law,” he said during the hearing.
The preliminary injunction will remain in effect while the lawsuit proceeds.
US District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai issued a preliminary injunction in a proposed class-action lawsuit targeting the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of arresting immigrants they happen to come across while conducting ramped-up enforcement operations — which critics have described as “arrest first, justify later.”
The department, which is named as a defendant in the suit, did not immediately comment in response to a request from The Associated Press.
Similar actions, including immigration agents entering private property without a warrant issued by a court, have drawn concern from civil rights groups across the country amid President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
Courts in Colorado and Washington, D.C., have issued rulings like Kasubhai’s, and the government has appealed them.
In a memo last week, Todd Lyons, the acting head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, emphasized that agents should not make an arrest without an administrative arrest warrant issued by a supervisor unless they develop probable cause to believe that the person is in the US illegally and likely to escape from the scene before a warrant can be obtained.
But the judge heard evidence that agents in Oregon have arrested people in immigration sweeps without such warrants or determining escape was likely.
The daylong hearing included testimony from one plaintiff, Victor Cruz Gamez, a 56-year-old grandfather who has been in the US since 1999. He told the court he was arrested and held in an immigration detention facility for three weeks even though he has a valid work permit and a pending visa application.
Cruz Gamez testified that he was driving home from work in October when he was pulled over by immigration agents. Despite showing his driver’s license and work permit, he was detained and taken to the ICE building in Portland before being sent to an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington. After three weeks there, he was set to be deported until a lawyer secured his release, he said.
He teared up as he recounted how the arrest impacted his family, especially his wife. Once he was home they did not open the door for three weeks out of fear and one of his grandchildren did not want to go to school, he said through a Spanish interpreter.
Afterward a lawyer for the federal government told Cruz Gamez he was sorry about what he went through and the effect it had on them.
Kasubhai said the actions of agents in Oregon — including drawing guns on people while detaining them for civil immigration violations — have been “violent and brutal,” and he was concerned about the administration denying due process to those swept up in immigration raids.
“Due process calls for those who have great power to exercise great restraint,” he said. “That is the bedrock of a democratic republic founded on this great constitution. I think we’re losing that.”
The lawsuit was brought by the nonprofit law firm Innovation Law Lab, whose executive director, Stephen Manning, said he was confident the case will be a “catalyst for change here in Oregon.”
“That is fundamentally what this case is about: asking the government to follow the law,” he said during the hearing.
The preliminary injunction will remain in effect while the lawsuit proceeds.
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