"Will world silently witness another Srebrenica-type massacre & ethnic cleansing of Muslims in IOK [India Occupied Kashmir]? I want to warn international community if it allows this to happen, it will have severe repercussions & reactions in the Muslim world setting off radicalisation & cycles of violence," Pakistan’s prime minister tweeted.
On 5 August, India announced its decision to amend Article 370 and 35A of the Constitution, repealing the special status, and splitting the territory into two federally administered enclaves Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
The government also imposed prohibitory orders, snapped internet and mobile communications and closed schools and educational institutions. Educational institutions have since reopened, and curfews have been relaxed on a selective basis.
Explaining the move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, Article 370 and 35A have given "nothing but secessionism, terrorism, nepotism and widespread corruption on a large scale to Jammu and Kashmir."
In an address to the nation last week, Modi claimed, these articles were used as a weapon by Pakistan to flare up people's emotions. "Due to this 42,000 people lost their lives in the last three decades," said Modi.
Kashmir has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan since the countries gained freedom from British colonial rule in 1947. Both states govern part of the region but have claims to it in its entirety. The rivals have also fought two wars over Kashmir.
Islamabad and New Delhi have held several rounds of summit-level talks on Kashmir, but a resolution has failed to emerge each time.
The massacre in Srebrenica, a town in western Bosnia that lies close to the Serbian border, was staged by the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska in July 1995 and left over 8,000 Bosniaks dead. The tragedy is one of the episodes of the Yugoslav Wars, which raged on the territory of the dissolved Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
