Shawdesh Desk:

Tension between India and Pakistan deepened as India on Thursday hit back at nuclear rival Pakistan’s downgrading of diplomatic ties over its clampdown on Kashmir, saying its decision to strip the restive region of its autonomy was an ‘internal affair’.

India stripped Kashmir of its special status in the constitution on August 6 and brought the region under its direct rule, angering Pakistan which has a competing claim to the Muslim-majority state.

India’s Kashmir region has been stripped of its autonomy to free it from ‘terrorism and separatism’, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said in a televised speech to the nation Thursday.

‘Friends, I have full belief that we will be able to free Jammu and Kashmir from terrorism and separatism under this system,’ Modi said, in his first comments on Monday’s decision by his Hindu nationalist government to remove the region’s special status.

Elections would be held soon in the state for the local assembly, he said.

Pakistan responded to the Indian move by downgrading its diplomatic ties with India Wednesday, announcing that it would expel the Indian envoy and suspend trade as the row between the neighbours deepened.

The countries have fought two wars over Kashmir.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called Thursday on India and Pakistan ‘to refrain from taking steps that could affect the status of Jammu and Kashmir’ while Indian prime minister Naredra Modi said elections would be held soon in the state for the local assembly.

‘The Secretary-General has been following the situation in Jammu and Kashmir with concern and makes an appeal for maximum restraint,’ his spokesperson said, reports Agence France-Presse.

‘The Secretary-General is also concerned over reports of restrictions on the Indian-side of Kashmir, which could exacerbate the human rights situation in the region,’ Guterres’s spokesperson added.

‘The recent developments pertaining to Article 370 are entirely the internal affair of India,’ the ministry of external affairs said in a statement.

‘Seeking to interfere in that jurisdiction by invoking an alarmist vision of the region will never succeed.’

New Delhi slammed Pakistan’s actions as ‘alarmist’, adding that its move would boost economic development in the Himalayan region.

The diplomatic spat came as media reports said more than 500 people were rounded up in the latest crackdown in Indian Kashmir, which is under a strict curfew to suppress any unrest in response to the loss of autonomy.

University professors, business leaders and activists were among the 560 people taken to makeshift detention centres — some during midnight raids — in the cities of Srinagar, Baramulla and Gurez, the Press Trust of India and the Indian Express reported.

Tens of thousands of Indian troops are enforcing the lockdown which includes no internet or phone services, and are allowing only limited movement on streets usually bustling with tourists flocking to the picturesque valley.

Late Wednesday India’s aviation security agency advised airports across the country to step up security as ‘civil security has emerged as a soft target for terrorist attacks’ on the back of the Kashmir move.

Meanwhile, Pakistan will not resort to military action in a row with India over Kashmir, its foreign minister said, as tensions soared over New Delhi’s decision to tighten its grip on the disputed region.

‘Pakistan is not looking at the military option. We are rather looking at political, diplomatic, and legal options to deal with the prevailing situation,’ said Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi during a press conference in Islamabad.

Pakistan said it would ban the screening of Indian movies in the country’s cinemas. The two nations have previously banned each other’s artistic content, or artists, when tensions have escalated, reports Reuters.

.India’s Bollywood industry has banned Pakistani artists since 2016, when militants attacked an army camp in Kashmir and killed several soldiers. India blames Pakistan-backed militant groups for the attack, an allegation that Pakistan has denied.

‘No Bollywood movie has released in Pakistan this year, and I don’t think producers are even looking at it as a market,’ film distributor and industry tracker Girish Johar said.

Tensions remained high, however, with Qureshi’s comments coming on the heels of a decision by Islamabad to downgrade its diplomatic ties with India, suspend bilateral trade, and expel the country’s envoy.

Pakistan announced Wednesday that it is expelling the Indian High Commissioner and suspending bilateral trade with its nuclear-armed.

‘We will call back our ambassador from Delhi and send back their’ envoy, Qureshi announced in televised comments.

Pakistan has also promised to take the matter to the United Nations Security Council, while its military says it ‘firmly stands’ with Kashmiris.

The diplomatic clash came as a petition was filed with the Supreme Court by an activist challenging the curfew in Kashmir, which was imposed to suppress any unrest in response to the loss of autonomy.

Activist Tahseen Poonawala and lawyer ML Sharma asked the Supreme Court to lift the lockdown and release people who have been detained as part of the crackdown.

Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012, on Thursday tweeted that she was ‘worried about the safety of the Kashmiri children and women, the most vulnerable to violence and the most likely to suffer losses in conflict’.

‘I believe we all can live in peace,’ she added, in comments that were supported and criticised by Twitter users from India and Pakistan.

ANI news agency also reported that the leader of the opposition in the upper house, Ghulam Nabi Azad from the Congress party, was stopped at Srinagar airport when he flew to the city and sent back.

Tens of thousands of Indian troops are enforcing the lockdown which includes no internet or phone services, and are allowing only limited movement on streets usually bustling with tourists flocking to the picturesque valley.

Experts warn that the valley is likely to erupt in anger at the government’s shock unilateral move once the restrictions are lifted, which could come on the Muslim festival of Eid on Monday.

Late Wednesday India’s aviation security agency advised airports across the country to step up security as ‘civil security has emerged as a soft target for terrorist attacks’ on the back of the Kashmir move.