As India marked the 77th anniversary of its independence, Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) protested the atrocities unleashed by New Dehli in the occupied region amid an increase in the intensity of “search and cordon operations” by the Indian forces in Srinagar and its surroundings. In Muzaffarabad, a rally was taken out under the aegis of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir government and Pasban-i-Hurriyat Jammu Kashmir (PHJK), an organisation of post-1989 migrants from held Kashmir, to remind the international community that there was no place for India in the hearts of the Kashmiris. Participants of the rally were wearing black armbands and walked from Burhan Wani Chowk to Garhi Pan Chowk, holding black flags. “India’s Independence Day is Black Day for people of Jammu and Kashmir,” read a banner carried by protesters. “India’s Independence Day has always been a ‘black day’ for the Kashmiris because they celebrate their freedom in brazen denial of the same privilege to the Kashmiris in occupied region. They also subject them to war crimes. Altaf Ahmed Butt, an AJK-based pro-freedom leader whose elder brother Zaffar Akbar Butt has been in jail since 2018, told Dawn that even though India had put numerous curbs on the oppressed Kashmiris to keep them disconnected from the rest of the world, reports suggested that a shutter down strike was observed in the region to denounce India’s Independence Day.
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