‘But Leave We Will’: Kashmiris Plan to Leave Valley Forever

The owners of Al Barq Sanitation, a bustling warehouse in the heart of Srinagar city’s main market, have started “exploring options”. This is code for making their plans to pack their bags and leave the dread-filled Kashmir valley behind forever. After New Delhi’s “historic” decision on August 5, to demote a full-fledged state to a Union Territory and bifurcate it, ordinary Kashmiris are living in abject fear. That includes the family that started Al Barq in 1963.

Riyaz Hakeem’s grandfather launched the company and it is a flourishing establishment. Yet, since August 5, the day a clampdown was tightened around Kashmir, the family has not opened the warehouse-showroom even once. “We have run into losses of hundreds of thousands of rupees,”