India's Kashmir Valley sees mass exodus of labourers amid clampdown

India's Kashmir Valley sees mass exodus of labourers amid clampdown
Thousands of labourers working in the Kashmir Valley and nearby regions packed up their belongings and began their journey home on Wednesday (August 07) amid a security clampdown surrounding the scrapping of the region's special status.

Since Sunday (August 4), the government has shut down mobile networks, the internet and banned public gatherings in the largest city Srinagar, in the Kashmir region, after stripping the Muslim majority region of the right to make its own laws and lifting a decades-old ban on people from outside the state from buying property there.

Labourers said on Thursday that the decision had disrupted their work and daily life, forcing some to leave without any money.

In the Jammu area, however, some locals said daily life has returned to normal. Labourers were able to make travel arrangements there, and a vegetable and fruit market was open for business.

Kashmiris see Modi's decision to withdraw the special status as a breach of trust, and opening the way to flooding their region with people from the rest of India, eventually altering the demographics of the disputed territory.

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