Broadband internet services restored in Kashmir, Election Commission announces repolling in 38 stations on April 13

SRINAGAR: Broadband internet services resumed after two days in the restive Kashmir Valley on Tuesday, though the region remained shut in response to a separatist strike over the killing of eight people in this weekend’s Srinagar bypoll violence.

But mobile internet services were yet to be restored. Businesses and educational institutions were closed for the second consecutive day in Kashmir. Roads were deserted; security checkpoints and pickets dotted every neighbourhood, and only a handful of people ventured out in the curfew-like nervous calm.

The Election Commission announced repolling in 38 polling stations in the parliamentary constituency straddling Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal districts on April 13. Jammu and Kashmir chief electoral officer Shantmanu said these stations are in Budgam district, where most of the violent clashes were reported. Mobs disrupted Sunday’s vote, throwing stones and petrol bombs at security forces, in reaction to a separatist call to boycott the by-elections in Srinagar and Anantnag. The violence prompted authorities to suspend internet services in the region. The poll panel postponed the Anantnag bypoll from April 12 to May 25 because of the rough situation. Besides, chief minister Mehbooba Mufti’s brother and the ruling PDP’s candidate for Anantnag, Tasaduq Mufti, told reporters that the state government had written to the poll panel that elections couldn’t be held in the current climate of unrest. Jailed separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah said in a statement that “people’s rejection of so-called parliamentary polls” was a referendum against India. “The people of Jammu Kashmir by rejecting the sham polls have sent a clear message to the world that they won’t accept anything less than freedom.” The Srinagar bypoll recorded a 7.14% voter turnout, the lowest in three decades. The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), another separatist group, said its chairman Yasin Malik has been remanded in jail for five more days. He was arrested on March 18.