SRINAGAR: The woes of oppressed Kashmiris under the Indian Occupation have further been exacerbated after now they have to fight with two-pronged assault – the Indian atrocities which they had already been enduring and the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The Indian authorities held eight million Kashmiris hostage on August 5 last year with a blatant act of withdrawing the valley’s Special Status as earlier enshrined in the Indian Constitution and turned the Jammu and Kashmir into a prison for an indefinite period.
The besieged Kashmiris have yet been suffering the Indian brutalities but now entire India has itself been plunged into a lockdown in an attempt to ward off the likely huge catastrophes if the COVID-19 doesn’t perish.
The New Delhi regime had to adopt the extreme approach and put the entire 1.3 billion population under a siege for 21 days but yet more than 3,000 people have already been infected by the virus in India and even 86 of them have lost their lives.
The Indian government headed by the Hindu hardliner Narendra Modi had already enraged the International Community especially the Muslims World for its Hindutva policies and mistreating the Muslims not only in Jammu and Kashmir but throughout the Country. But the ill-planned and hasty lockdown, which triggered unemployment and starvation among millions of downtrodden Indians, also exposed the New Delhi authorities’ incompetence and India’s economic fragility.
However, as having forcefully been converted into one of India’s Union Territories and blanketed by unlimited restrictions, the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K) was likely to suffer even more.
The Occupied Kashmir has so far witnessed 92 Coronavirus Cases, and 17 of them were detected today (April 4) which were also the highest till date.
17 fresh cases in J&K today. Highest single day spike of #COVID19 positive cases. I wonder how our number of cases compares to other states/UTs as a % of population.
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) April 4, 2020
The growing number of COVID-19 Cases in IOJ&K is of grave concern as Kashmiris under a persistent siege since August 5 had already been deprived of the medical facilities and an access to the telecom services; therefore, the assault of the Coronavirus on beleaguered Kashmiris is likely to inflict irreparable casualties in the valley.
