Tarun Upadhyay

Anxiety engulfs Rohingyas in Jammu after India sends back seven ‘illegal’ refugees to Myanmar

Jammu’s border villages grapple with death and ruination as Pakistan hurls across a rain of fire

A section of Hindus in Jammu always nursed a feeling for separate statehood to get out of the Kashmiri ‘hegemony’. But why did the BJP government decide otherwise?

There were celebrations in parts of Jammu as the government scrapped Article 370.

The other side of the result is that BJP remains a dominant force in the Jammu region and in Ladakh too. These two regions have consistently nursed a feeling of being “subjugated” by Kashmir centric political narrative.

It was the only trade in India carried out on barter system, which many believe had an inbuilt mechanism of loose threads which could be tweaked and used by Pakistan for its 'nefarious' designs.

“To gain control of the areas through which Chenab flows in Jammu region, Pakistan has systematically backed terrorism and selective killings of Hindus. The purpose is to drive out all Hindus and then stake claim to them, saying they are Muslim-majority areas,” Sant Kumar Sharma, a senior journalist, said.

PM Narendra Modi will kick-start Lok Sabha election campaign from Jammu on Thursday where the pro-India sentiment, which can be construed as nationalism runs counter to the pro-Azaadi, pro-Pakistan, pro-jihad sentiment in Kashmir.

In 1977, 1996 and 2014, the two polls were held in the same year but after a gap of few months.

In some areas, residents started moving to safer places. Educational institutions in both the districts were closed and people were advised to stay indoors.

With separatism and terrorism now the major concern in India, Shah's speech will be watched for how it takes on their sympathisers and what message he intends to give the separatists’ constituency in the valley.

A perception is being manufactured that Muslims, especially Kashmiri Muslims, are settling down in Jammu city under an ‘Islamist’ plan to change the demography of the region and "encircle" the city. Some groups have been consistently fanning such perception.