Kashmir is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompasses a larger area that includes the Indian-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.
Srinagar, is the largest city and the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, a region of the disputed Kashmir region administered by India as a union territory. It lies in the Kashmir Valley on the banks of the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus, and Dal and Anchar lakes. The city is known for its natural environment, gardens, waterfronts and houseboats. It is also known for traditional Kashmiri handicrafts like Kashmir shawls and also dried fruits. It has over one million people.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani is a pro-Pakistani Kashmiri separatist leader in the Indian administrated Jammu and Kashmir. He was previously a member of Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir but later on founded Tehreek-e-Hurriyat. He has served as the chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of pro separatist parties in Jammu and Kashmir. He was an MLA from the Sopore constituency of Jammu and Kashmir in 1972, 1977 and in 1987. He quit the Hurriyat in June 2020.
All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), or Tehreek e Hurriyat, is an alliance of 26 political, social and religious organizations formed on 9 March 1993, as a united political front to raise the cause of Kashmiri separatism in the Kashmir conflict. Mehmood Ahmed Saghar was the first convener of the APHC-PAK chapter when the alliance was established in 1993. The alliance has historically been viewed positively by Pakistan as it contests the claim of the Indian government over the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is its chairman and in 2009 Mehmood Ahmed Saghar was unanimously elected as convener of APHC in Pakistan, and Ghulam Muhammad Safi was elected as its convener in Pakistan in January 2010.
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen is an Islamist militant group operating in Indian-administered Kashmir. Its goal is to separate Kashmir from India and merge it with Pakistan. The group has claimed responsibility for multiple terror attacks in India. It has been designated as a terrorist group by the European Union, India, Canada, and the United States. It remains a lawfully-operating organisation in Pakistan; the group professes a radical right-wing Islamic ideology.
The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) is a political organization active in both the Indian-administered and Pakistani-administered territories of Kashmir. It was founded by Amanullah Khan, with Maqbool Bhat also credited as a co-founder. Originally a militant wing of the Azad Kashmir Plebiscite Front, the organization officially changed its name to the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front in Birmingham, England on 29 May 1977; from then until 1994 it was an active Kashmiri militant organization. The JKLF first established branches in several cities and towns of the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe, as well as in the United States and across the Middle East. In 1982, it established a branch in the Pakistani-administered territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and by 1987, it had established a branch in the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley.
The Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict over the Kashmir region, primarily between India and Pakistan, with China playing a third-party role. The conflict started after the partition of India in 1947 as both India and Pakistan claimed the entirety of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is a dispute over the region that escalated into three wars between India and Pakistan and several other armed skirmishes. India controls approximately 55% of the land area of the region that includes Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, most of Ladakh, the Siachen Glacier, and 70% of its population; Pakistan controls approximately 35% of the land area that includes Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; and China controls the remaining 20% of the land area that includes the Aksai Chin region, the mostly uninhabited Trans-Karakoram Tract, and part of the Demchok sector. After the partition of India and a rebellion in the western districts of the state, Pakistani tribal militias invaded Kashmir, leading the Hindu ruler of Jammu and Kashmir to join India. The resulting Indo-Pakistani War ended with a UN-mediated ceasefire along a line that was eventually named the Line of Control. After further fighting in the wars of 1965 and 1971, the Simla Agreement formally established the Line of Control between the two nations' controlled territories. In 1999, an armed conflict between India and Pakistan broke out again in Kargil with no effect on the status quo.
Asiya Andrabi is a Kashmiri and founding leader of Dukhtaran-e-Millat. This group is part of the separatist organisation 'All Parties Hurriyat Conference' in the Kashmir valley and the Government of India has declared it as a "banned terrorist organization". The main aim of the organisation is to work for the separation of Kashmir from India.
The Gawkadal massacre was named after the Gawkadal bridge in Srinagar, Kashmir, where, on 21 January 1990, the Indian paramilitary troops of the Central Reserve Police Force opened fire on a group of Kashmiri protesters in what has been described by some authors as "the worst massacre in Kashmiri history". At least 50 people were killed The massacre happened two days after the Government of India appointed Jagmohan as the Governor for a second time in a bid to control the mass protests by Kashmiris.
The 2010 Kashmir unrest was a series of violent protests and riots in the Kashmir Valley which started in June 2010 after the Indian Army claimed to have killed three "Pakistani infiltrators" in which a soldier of the Territorial Army, a counter-insurgent and a former special police officer had found three young men from their Nadihal village in Baramulla district and killed them in a staged encounter at Sona Pindi. The protests occurred in a movement launched by Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir in June 2010, who called for the complete demilitarisation of Jammu and Kashmir. The All Parties Hurriyat Conference made this call to a strike, citing human rights abuses by security forces. Rioters shouting pro-independence slogans, defied curfew, attacked riot police with stones and burnt vehicles and buildings. The protests started out as anti India protests but later were also targeted against the United States following the 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy. The riot police consisting of Jammu and Kashmir Police and Indian Para-military forces fired teargas shells rubber bullets and also live ammunition on the protesters, resulting in 112 deaths, including many teenagers and an 11-year-old boy. The protests subsided after the Indian government announced a package of measures aimed at defusing the tensions in September 2010.
Pro-Pakistan sentiment is fondness and love of aspects of Pakistani culture, Pakistani history, Pakistani cuisine, Pakistani traditions and the people of Pakistan.
The Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, also sometimes known as the Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, refers to the series of anti-Hindu pogroms and attacks that took place shortly after the inception of the Muslim-dominated insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir in 1989, which eventually forced Kashmiri Hindu Pandits out of the Kashmir Valley. The peak phase of the exodus was in the early 1990s, when Kashmiri Hindus, as a result of being targeted by the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front and other pro-Pakistan Islamist insurgents, fled from the Kashmir Valley to seek refuge elsewhere in India. As of 2016, only 2,000–3,000 Kashmiri Hindus remain in the Kashmir Valley compared to approximately 300,000–600,000 in 1990. Consequently, 19 January 1990 is widely known by Kashmiri Hindus as "Exodus Day", in memory of the Kashmiri Hindus who were either killed or forced out of Kashmir.
Masarat Alam Bhat is a Kashmiri separatist leader currently General Secretary of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani. He is also the Chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Muslim League. He played a significant role in the 2010 Kashmir stone pelting rallies which broke out against the Machil encounter carried out by the Indian army in Kashmir. To stop such incidences Masrat Alam has been detained by the Government numerous times later. Government has booked Masrat Alam in 27 criminal cases but in most of these he has either been exonerated or bailed out by the courts and was released after Mufti Muhammad Sayeed took over as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir on 1 March 2015. He was detained under the Jammu & Kashmir's Public Safety Act and was in March 2015 released which caused a major political controversy and dominated Indian Parliament Proceedings. Amid speculations over his release Masrat Aalam said that no deal was made between him and the Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, saying "I spent more than four years in prison and during all these years I challenged the grounds of my 'illegal' detention". He has been Jailed for 17 years and has around 27 cases against him.
Kashmiri cinema is the Kashmiri language-based film industry in the Kashmir Valley of India. The first Kashmiri feature film, Mainz Raat, was released in 1964.
The 2016–2017 unrest in Kashmir, also known as the Burhan aftermath, refers to a series of violent protests in the Kashmir Valley and subsequently Chenab valley and Poonch district of Jammu division in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It started with the killing of Burhan Wani, a commander of the Kashmir-based Islamic militant organisation Hizbul Mujahideen, by Indian security forces on 8 July 2016. After his killing, anti-Indian protests started in all 10 districts of the Kashmir Valley. Protesters defied curfew with attacks on security forces and public properties.
A widespread agitation throughout the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in British Raj occurred in 1931 against the Maharaja's government. The Maharaja was forced to appoint the Glancy Commission to investigate the people's concerns. Various political reforms were adopted including the introduction of the Jammu and Kashmir Praja Sabha. The movement also saw the rise of Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah as the leader of Kashmiris.
The 2017 Nowhatta mob lynching, was the lynch mob murder and mutilation of on-duty undercover Indian security official in J&K, Muhammad Ayub Pandith on the Muslim holy night of Laylat al-Qadr on Thursday 22 June 2017 by a mob in Nowhatta after a crowd shouted slogans in favor of Pakistan as well as al-Qaida jihadist Zakir Musa. Sajjad Ahmad Gilkar, a Hizbul Mujahideen member, had played a key role in the lynching according to the state police.
Popular sports in Jammu and Kashmir include cricket, football and winter sports along with sports like golf, water sports and adventure sports. The National Winter Games have been held in Gulmarg in 1996, 2004 and 2008. The first Khelo India Winter Games were held in February and March 2020 in Leh and Gulmarg. Jammu and Kashmir won the most gold medals while the Indian Army team came second with 8 gold medals. The second edition of the winter games were also held successfully in Gulmarg in 2020 with Jammu and Kashmir coming first and Karnataka second.
Media in Jammu and Kashmir (JK) consists of media houses such as Kashmir Times, Greater Kashmir, Rising Kashmir and Daily Excelsior and radio stations such as AIR Srinagar, AIR Jammu, Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM, Red FM 93.5 and Radio Sharda. DD Kashir is state television broadcaster. Major private channels are News18 Urdu and Gulistan News. Digital media sphere is also growing in Jammu and Kashmir with news portals like The Straight Line
On 5 August 2019, the Government of India revoked the special status, or limited autonomy, granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir—a region administered by India as a state which consists of the larger part of Kashmir which has been the subject of dispute among India, Pakistan, and China since 1947.
