Kashmir calm;Pakistan edgy

Jammu : There will be some restrictions in Kashmir Valley on Independence Day even as the situation has been calm, a senior official said on Wednesday. "There have been no major report of any untoward incident. All civil supplies continue to be normal. Any detention or arrest is based on local assessment," Jammu and Kashmir Principal Secretary Rohit Kansal said.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi repeated his demand to visit Jammu and Kashmir and asked governor Satya Pal Malik when he could come. He said he had accepted Malik's invitation to visit J&K and meet people without any conditions and termed the governor's reply "feeble". "Dear Maalik (sic) ji, I saw your feeble reply to my tweet.

"I accept your invitation to visit Jammu & Kashmir and meet the people, with no conditions attached. When can I come?" he said. Former IAS officer-turned-politician Shah Faesal was stopped from leaving the country on Wednesday. He was detained from Delhi airport and was sent back to Srinagar, where he was taken into 'preventive custody,' a top officer said.

According to the sources, Faesal was scheduled to fly to Istanbul on a Turkish Airlines flight on Wednesday. He was detained at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International airport at 5:30 am based on a lookout notice issued by the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

But Faesal's friends said he was flying to Boston, Massachussetts. Faesal had earlier completed a course in public policy from the Harvard University.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday vowed to become the voice of Kashmir and raise the issue at every global forum, including the United Nations, as he questioned the silence of the international community on the situation in the region.

Addressing a special session of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir's legislative assembly in Muzaffarabad, Khan said that if war breaks out between Pakistan and India, the world community will be responsible.

Khan, who was in Muzaffarabad to observe Pakistan's Independence Day, said Prime Minister Modi has "committed a strategic blunder, he has played his last card. It will cost a lot to Modi and the BJP. Because they have internationalised the issue of Kashmir."

"Whatever was done during the curfew by India, we will tell the international community that you are responsible. Whichever forum we get, I will be the ambassador and bring up Kashmir at every forum," Khan said. Khan also said that Pakistan will respond with full force if India launches any aggression against his country.

"The Pakistan Army has full knowledge...India has made a plan to take action" in PoK, he said. "You take action and this is my message: every brick will be countered with a stone," Khan said.

Pakistan President Arif Alviy said "Kashmiris and Pakistanis are one" people and the country will continue to stand with the people of Kashmir. Dismissing concerns about Jammu and Kashmir becoming two union territories, former PDP leader Farooq Ahmed Dar says there is no harm if people benefit from it.

He cited the example of New Delhi, asserting that the national capital has continued to develop even though its chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is frequently locked in confrontations with the Union government.

The leader of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir Raja Farooq Haider said that his government will no longer recognise the Line of Control (LoC) and instead rename it as "Ceasefire Line" after India recently revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan summoned India's Deputy High Commissioner Gaurav Ahluwalia and condemned the alleged 'unprovoked ceasefire violations' by Indian troops across the Line of Control which killed a civilian.