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A Kashmiri pistillate crosses a barricade acceptable up by information forces successful Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Friday, Sept. 3, 2021. Indian authorities cracked down connected nationalist question and imposed a near-total communications blackout successful disputed Kashmir connected Thursday aft the decease of Syed Ali Geelani, a apical separatist person who became the emblem of the regions defiance against New Delhi. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin)

SRINAGAR – Indian authorities enforced a information lockdown and a near-total communications blackout for a 2nd consecutive time successful disputed Kashmir connected Friday aft the death of Syed Ali Geelani, a apical absorption person who became the emblem of the region’s defiance against New Delhi.

Geelani's decease astatine property 91 connected precocious Wednesday and the ensuing crackdown connected nationalist question and communications by Indian authorities highlighted the turmoil seething conscionable beneath the aboveground successful the Himalayan portion of achingly stunning beauty.

Wearing flak jackets and riot gear, equipped constabulary and paramilitary soldiers patrolled streets successful Srinagar, the region’s main city, and ordered residents to enactment indoors.

Razor wire, alloy barricades and perpendicularly parked armored vehicles blocked immoderate streets and roads successful the metropolis arsenic officials anticipated anti-India protests aft play congregational Friday prayers.

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With aggregate ailments and nether location apprehension for years, Geelani was softly buried by Indian authorities without immoderate household members contiguous aft police snatched his assemblage aboriginal Thursday, his son, Naseem Geelani, said.

Police successful a connection denied Geelani’s forcible burial and called it “baseless rumors” by “some vested interests.”

Pakistan, India’s archrival, which administers a portion of Himalayan Kashmir, observed a time of mourning connected Thursday and condemned Geelani’s non-public burial.

Geelani spearheaded Kashmir’s question for the close to self-determination and was a staunch proponent of merging Kashmir with Pakistan. For galore successful Kashmir and beyond, helium was an enduring icon of defiance against India. Successive Indian governments often dubbed him a hard-line politician.

Kashmir has agelong been a flashpoint betwixt India and Pakistan, which some assertion the portion successful afloat but regularisation lone parts.

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Rebels person been warring against Indian regularisation since 1989.

India describes the equipped rebellion arsenic Islamabad’s proxy warfare and state-sponsored terrorism. Most Muslim Kashmiris see it a morganatic state conflict and enactment the rebel extremity that the territory beryllium united, either nether Pakistani regularisation oregon arsenic an autarkic country.

The portion is 1 of the astir heavy militarized successful the world. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and authorities forces person been killed successful the raging conflict.

Tensions flared successful the portion successful 2019 aft New Delhi stripped Kashmir’s semi-autonomy, scrapped its statehood and removed inherited protections connected onshore and jobs. Authorities person since brought a slew of caller laws, which critics and galore Kashmiris fearfulness could alteration the region's demographics.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.