Kashmir placed on lockdown as India revokes region's special status

New Delhi sends 10,000 troops to block roads and cut communications in the region's main city.

Image: Motorists are questioned in Jammu after authorities placed large parts of the disputed region under lockdown

The Indian government has placed the volatile region of Kashmir on lockdown after deciding to remove its special status.
New Delhi has deployed at least 10,000 extra soldiers to block roads in Srinagar, the region's main city, and enforce a newly invoked public order which bans the congregation of more than four people.

In a bid to limit the spread of news, soldiers have also cut communication lines - leaving millions without TV channels, internet, mobile services and working landline phones.
It comes as Home Minister Amit Shah told India's upper house of parliament that Article 370, which gives Jammu and Kashmir more autonomy than any other Indian state, will be revoked.

Image: A cluster bomb shell is seen along a roadside in Noseri, near the line of control in Kashmir

It also follows the deployment of 35,000 paramilitary troops over the last week to support counter-intelligence agencies and provide law and order in Kashmir.

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Thousands of tourists and Hindu pilgrims have been told to leave the region - many have already done so amid claims of a terror threat in the area.

Article 370 of the Indian constitution is the basis on which the state of Kashmir joined India in 1947. It gives special status to the Himalayan region by presidential order.
It forbids Indians outside the state from permanently settling, buying land, holding local government jobs and winning education scholarships.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim the region in its entirety.
Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi rejected the move to revoke Article 370, saying it violates a UN resolution.
Mr Shah said the government has also decided to split the state into two union territories - Jammu and Kashmir, which will have a legislature, and Ladakh, which will be ruled directly by the central government.
The former chief minister of the state, Mehbooba Mufti, said the revocation of Article 370 effectively made India an occupying force there.
Tensions have soared along the Line of Control, the volatile, highly militarised frontier that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan and India routinely blame each other for initiating border skirmishes.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were re-elected earlier this year on a platform that included promises to do away with special rights for Kashmiris under India's constitution.
Rebels in Indian-controlled Kashmir have been fighting Indian control since 1989.
Many Kashmiris support the rebels' demand - that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country - while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control.

India's move is guaranteed to cause significant tremors

Analysis by Deborah Haynes, foreign affairs editor

One of the most militarised parts of the planet just became more unstable.
India's government will have known its decision to revoke a special status afforded to Kashmir would cause an outcry within the territory and neighbouring Pakistan.
But Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to be seizing upon his recent re-election triumph, with control of the lower house of parliament, to move swiftly. This radical step has been a long-held manifesto pledge and will be welcomed by Hindu nationalists.
The order revoked Article 370 of India's constitution, which gives the India-ruled state of Jammu and Kashmir its own decision-making rights in all areas other than defence, communications and foreign affairs.
The article also prevents Indians outside the state from relocating permanently into the territory and buying property.
Any loosening of this prohibition will fuel fears that the Modi government is trying to dilute the demographics of Muslim majority Kashmir by enabling Hindu settlers to move in.
The announcement on Monday came with the deployment of thousands of additional Indian troops to Kashmir, where the majority of people oppose Indian rule, and the suspension of Internet and phone services amid a security crackdown.
Pakistan's foreign minister accused the authorities of "playing a very dangerous game".
For now the response from Islamabad appears limited to diplomatic channels, with calls for the United Nations to intervene.
However the nuclear-armed neighbours have gone to war over Kashmir twice since British rule over the Indian subcontinent ended in 1947.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan but both countries claim total control, making it a point of bitter and often violent dispute.
Even the slightest tweak to the region's status will exasperate this friction so a change on the scale of the one announced by India is guaranteed to cause significant tremors.