Srinagar: Dozens of women hit street of Lal Chowk on Tuesday, staging a protest against the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A.
The protestors, which included women hailing from political elite of Kashmir like sister and daughter of Farooq Abdullah and wife of a former chief justice, described the Government of India’s unilateral decision to revoke special status of J&K as “a marriage by compulsion”.
The women were rounded up by police and several of them detained at police station Kothi Bagh.
Carrying placards, the protesters said they felt betrayed, humiliated and violated as people after the abrogation of special status of Jammu and Kashmir and splitting state into two union territory.
Abdullah’s sister Suraiya Abdullah Mattoo told media persons that they were also locked inside their homes on August 5, hours before the Government of India announced the abrogation of article 370.
“This is a marriage by compulsion which won’t work,” Suraiya told reporters.
The women had gathered at the Pratap Park near Srinagar’s Lal Chowk and were carrying placards. One of the placard read: We feel Betrayed, humiliated and violated as people.
As they started protesting, contingents of women police and paramilitary swooped in on them and took women into preventive custody. They were taken to a nearby police station.
The detained include Abdullah’s sister Suraiya Abdullah Mattoo, his daughter Safia Abdullah Khan, Hawa Bashir, wife of former Acting Chief Justice Bashir Ahmed Khan, academic Muslim Jan and Qurat-ul-Ain.
“We demand restoration of civil liberties and fundamental rights of citizens and restoration of rural, and urban areas,” the protesters earlier shouted.
They demanded immediate release of detained political leaders, social activists and trade union leaders.
“We could gather only after the government restored the postpaid mobile services on all networks in Kashmir on Monday, 72 days after mobile and internet communications were blocked in the Kashmir,” they said.
The women also lambasted national media for their false/misleading coverage of ground realities in Kashmir.
“We express our outrage against the national media for their false/misleading coverage of ground realities in Kashmir,” they said.
The protest comes at a time, when most of mainstream, separatists and civil society leaders and activists in Kashmir are under detention following the abrogation of J&K’s special status on Aug 5. An unspecified number of youth and men have also been round up across Kashmir.
The government has resorted to a communications lockdown besides curbs on movement to prevent people from assembling for protests.
Government forces remain deployed in large numbers across the streets and crossings on Valley.

Mir Iqbal