In the run-up to India’s Republic Day on Jan. 26, the Jammu Kashmir region has become dotted with makeshift bunkers, checkpoints and barricades. Thousands of Indian soldiers have been deployed on the roads, where they carry out exhaustive searches of vehicles and their passengers. Regional capital Srinagar, meanwhile, now looks like an army garrison. “It’s always like this in Kashmir ahead of India’s Independence Day or Republic Day, or when their prime minister visits. And we have to suffer this harassment,” Shahnawaz Rashid, a 34-year-old employee of a pharmaceutical company,…
Read MoreKashmir Valley locked down at Republic Day eve
