Protest Against 370 Revocation: Police Foil Women Sit-In

Police on Tuesday foiled a women’s sit-in dharna in civil lines area of Pratap Park and detained over a dozen women activists who planned to hold protest against the revocation of Article 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution that guaranteed a special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier a group of women wearing black armbands and holding placards succeeded in sneaking inside Pratap Park. A group of police personnel accompanied by women police later entered the Park asking the protesters to disperse. As they offered resistance, they were escorted by women CRPF personnel to a waiting police vehicle outside and taken to police station Kothibagh.

The police also tried to stop the protesting women from distributing a statement to the media covering the protest. Later in the day, the detained females, as per sources, were lodged in Srinagar Central Jail after undergoing a medical examination. It was the first-ever public protest after the center revoked the two contentious articles and divided the state into union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. The protesters, who included academicians, teachers, social activists, and civil society members, said that they “feel betrayed, humiliated and violated as people of Kashmir” and demanded the restoration of civil liberties and fundamental rights of the citizens. The group also demanded the immediate release of all the political detainees and demilitarisation of rural and urban areas. They also expressed their “outrage against the national media for its false and misleading coverage of ground realities in Kashmir”.