"Kashmir Was In A Mess Before August 5": S Jaishankar On Article 370 Move

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday said Kashmir was “in a mess” before the government decided to end special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370. The security restrictions since that move was announced on August 5 was to prevent the loss of lives, he said at an interaction in New York, where world leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi are gathered for the UN General Assembly session.
“We had the experience of 2016 when a self-advertised terrorist cult figure called Burhan Wani was killed and after that, there was a spike in violence. Our intention was to manage the situation (after the Article 370 decision) without the loss of life and restrictions were intended to do that,” he said at the interactive session with Frank G. Wisner, a former US Ambassador to India.

“As many as 42,000 people were killed in the last 30 years. The level of intimidation had reached a height, where senior police officers were lynched on the streets of Srinagar. Journalists who wrote against separatism were assassinated, military personnel returning home for Eid were kidnapped and killed. So, pre-August 5 Kashmir was in a mess. Difficulties in Kashmir did not start on August 5. It is supposed to be a way of dealing with those difficulties,” the minister emphasised.