This Article is From Nov 16, 2016

Notes Ban Hit Kashmir Protests, Says Centre. Opposition Disagrees.

Notes Ban Hit Kashmir Protests, Says Centre. Opposition Disagrees.

Srinagar is slowly slipping into normalcy protesters throwing stones have gone off the road.

The scrapping of high value currency notes has had an immediate, positive fallout in Kashmir, the Central government has indicated. Srinagar is slowly slipping into normalcy. The separatist sponsored strike call loses steam as the protesters throwing stones have gone off the road.

Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar and Minister in Prime Minister's Office, Jitender Singh, claim the protesters were being paid - in currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.

"Earlier, there were rates. Rs. 500 for stone pelting (on security forces in Kashmir) and Rs. 1,000 for doing something else. PM Modi has brought terror funding to zero," said Mr Parrikar said at a BJP event.

Dr Jitender Singh agrees.

"This is evidence that the decision taken by the Narendra Modi government is in the right direction to check terrorism... the very fact that incidences of stone pelting and terror related transactions have gone down," he said. Besides Kashmir, this is also been witnessed in the northeast, he added.

Stoppage of terror funding had been one of the aims of scrapping the high denomination currency notes. In his address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said how counterfeiting of these notes fund terror and bring down the economy in a single stroke.

The opposition in Jammu and Kashmir, however, says the claims by the central Ministers are ridiculous.

"I don't think we should trivialise it the way this statement has come. Having said that, we have seen stone pelting incidents going down much before demonetisation took place," said Nasir Aslam Wani, a senior leader of National Conference.

Officials agree that the change in the situation has not been overnight. On the ground, the situation has been showing signs of improvement since the first week of October, despite the weekly strike calendars issued by the separatists.

In September, there were 535 incidents of stone throwing. In October, that figure had shrunk to 179, say police records. Over the last 15 days of November, only 49 such incidents were reported.

Officials attribute the gradual drop to a massive clampdown. More than 10,000 people allegedly involved in stone pelting and protests have been arrested. About 600 have been jailed under the Public Safety Act.

During the four-month-long unrest, more than 90 people have been killed and Over 12,000 have been injured. Among the injured, over 1000 sustained pellet injuries in their eyes, blinding them partially or permanently.
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