Build-up to abrogation of Article 35A begins

Srinagar: Most people in Jammu and Kashmir, especially in the Valley, believe that Article 35A of the Constitution is going.

Top sources said security forces have been told to be in readiness during the next 24 hours for a Valley-wide clampdown.

"We are giving a 72-hour window to Amarnath Yatris and tourists to leave the Valley," a government source said. Nobody seems to know what was going to happen. Yet, nobody has any doubt that something big is going to happen.

Governor Satya Pal Malik and his advisers trashed what they called "wild rumours and fake government orders" doing the rounds on the social media.

"Kashmir has been the breeding ground of rumours. If someone sneezes in Lal Chowk, I am told in the Raj Bhawan there is a blast.

Rest assured everything is all right and normal," Malik told the media two days back.

It was National Security Adviser Ajit Doval's "secret visit" to Kashmir that set the rumour mill rolling.

The NSA, it was said, had come for the Amarnath Yatra. But does the NSA have the time to spend three days in Srinagar?

Officials said he did not take any security meeting during his stay here. But nobody said he was on a holiday. Reports said the NSA met the Army Chief General Bipin Rawat inside an Army tent near the Amarnath cave shrine.

When 10,000 paramilitary troops were brought in the Valley, it was called a routine movement of security forces. News reports that 250 more companies (nearly 100 men in a company) were ordered to reach Srinagar have been denied.

Top sources said 70 companies were ordered to reach Srinagar out of which 34 have arrived here.

Thus, the smokescreen of "routine movement of troops" was finally dropped on Friday.

Reports said mobile phones, cellular and fixed line Internet facility would also be snapped. All cable TV operators have reportedly been told to stop operations.

All sensitive installations have been taken over by the state police and the paramilitary forces including the CRPF, BSF, SSB and the ITBP. Local police guards at shrines have been withdrawn on apprehensions of weapon snatching by militants.

All police stations have received their requirements of reinforcement and communication. Some locals are still using the time available to buy few essentials they might have forgotten to buy.