SRI NAGAR (DNA) – Seeking to tighten its grip on the region, Modi-led Indian regime blatantly continued its clampdown on the tenth consecutive day in the occupied Jammu and Kashmir with all public mobile, landline telephone and internet connections suspended and people suffering through severe shortage of food, medicines and other essential facilities have been confined in their homes.

Sources familiar with the matter told the media that Indian forces have been deploying more troops in the region for ‘security’. Thousands of Indian soldiers have been patrolling in Kishtwar, Pulwama and Poonch and conducting security checks at various places while a ban on public gatherings of more than four people stayed in force.

Amid strict travel restrictions and intensified clampdown, dwellers who stepped out were forced to walk for several kilometres as facilities were not available to them.

Streets in Srinagar city in the Kashmir Valley were deserted on Wednesday as restrictions on the gathering of people continued to be in place in the area, days after India’s revocation of Articles 370 and 35A which had secured special status for Jammu and Kashmir as the Muslim-majority state.

Many people were still struggling to make contact with relatives in the Eid holidays while India has cut off all communications after detaining more than 500 political leaders and activists, and enforcing a curfew with tens of thousands of troops and policemen stopping movement of all residents.

Regional leaders have warned of a backlash in the region, where already tens of thousands of Kashmiris have lost their lives in decades of oppression by India.

Instead of resolving the dispute under United Nations Security Council resolutions, New Delhi scrapped the state’s right to frame its own laws and allowed non-residents to buy property there.