J&K Administration releases full page ads in Kashmir dailies asking people to end self-imposed curfew

The full-page ad in the English dailies of Kashmir goes with a headline asking them who benefits out of closed shops and no public transport?

New Delhi| The newspapers in Kashmir carried a full front page advertisement today issued by the Jammu ad Kashmir administration. The advertisement appealed the people to not to succumb to the threat by militants. It also urged them to end the self-imposed shutdown started by the locals after the government started lifting curfews. On August 5 ahead of the abrogation of Article 370, that gave Jammu and Kashmir a special status, the administration had imposed a curfew in the state. Landlines, Internet services were blocked too.

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While the government says it is the threat by militants that has kept people indoors, some local media reports suggest that the people have started observing a self-imposed curfew.

The full-page ad in the English dailies of Kashmir goes with a headline asking them who benefits out of closed shops and no public transport? “Are we going to succumb to militants? Think!” the advertisement read.

“For over 70 years now, the people of J&K have been misled. They have been victims of a vicious campaign and motivated propaganda that has trapped them in an endless cycle of terrorism, violence, destruction and poverty,” read the lines from the advertisement. It also added that while separatists send their children to “exotic lands” for education, they push children of the common man into violence. “Today, militants are using the same tactic of threats and coercion. Are we going to tolerate this?” it asked.

The advertisement comes at a time when the government claims that normalcy has returned to the valley. However, despite the administration lifting the curfew, shops and schools remained closed.