SRINAGAR, India: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Himalayan Kashmir for his first public event on Sunday since New Delhi stripped the disputed region’s semi-autonomy and took direct control in 2019.
Modi arrived amid massive security and is scheduled to speak in a public event and review development work. His speech will be part of a function to commemorate the annual Panchayati Raj, or grassroots democracy, Day.
Tens of thousands of people and elected officials from local councils across the region assembled in Palli village near Jammu city for the speech. The area visited by Modi generally welcomed the Indian government’s unprecedented changes three years ago.
Officials say the councils represent grassroots governance but its members have no legislative powers. The region has been without an elected government since 2018.
Government forces fanned out across Kashmir to thwart any violence. On Friday, two suspected militants and a paramilitary officer were killed in a gunfight some 15 kilometers from Palli.
Police chief Dilbag Singh said the slain militants were a “suicide squad from Pakistan” likely sent to sabotage Modi’s visit. He did not offer any evidence to back up his claim.
Modi’s two previous visits after Kashmir’s status was changed were to military camps to celebrate a Hindu festival with soldiers. In 2019, Modi’s government revoked the region’s semi-autonomous status, annulled its separate constitution, split the area into two federal territories — Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir — and removed inherited protections on land and jobs amid unprecedented lockdown.
The region has remained on edge since, as authorities put in place a slew of new laws that critics and many residents fear could change majority-Muslim Kashmir’s demographics.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both rivals claim the region in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
Narendra Modi visits Indian-controlled Kashmir amid tight security
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Narendra Modi visits Indian-controlled Kashmir amid tight security
- His speech will be part of a function to commemorate the annual Panchayati Raj Day
- Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both rivals claim the region in its entirety
Coast Guard rescue 52 migrants off Greece, boy missing
- They found 13 migrants who had arrived on the small, uninhabited island
- Another 39 migrants were found on board an inflatable boat off the southern island of Crete
ATHENS: Greek coast guard were searching Thursday for a missing child off the island of Farmakonisi after rescuing 52 migrants in two separate incidents in the Aegean Sea, local media reported.
They found 13 migrants who had arrived on the small, uninhabited island, but one boy was reported missing from the group, said the ANA news agency.
Another 39 migrants were found on board an inflatable boat off the southern island of Crete, according to the same source. They were taken to the village of Kaloi Limenes in Crete. No details about their nationality were provided.
Two coast guard vessels and an airforce helicopter were deployed for the operation off Farmakonisi, opposite the Turkish coast.
Many migrants try to reach the Greek islands from Turkiye or Libya as a way of entering the European Union. But both crossings are perilous.
Earlier this month, 17 people were found dead in a migrant boat drifting off Crete. Another 15 people were reported missing. The vessel had set off from the Libyan port of Tobruk and most of those who died were from Sudan or Egypt.
The UN refugee agency said more than 16,770 asylum seekers in the EU have arrived on Crete since the start of the year — more than any other island in the Aegean Sea.
