Curfew continues after India removes Kashmir special status

Indian-administered Kashmir remained virtually cut off from the outside world for a second day on Tuesday, with phone and internet links shut down and thousands of troops enforcing a curfew.

The lockdown came as the Indian government revoked a constitutional provision that guaranteed special rights to the Muslim-majority state.

New Delhi has shut down mobile and internet services in Kashmir in times of turmoil before, but this time the blackout has included landlines and cable television networks.

As additional forces were deployed in towns and cities, barbed wire was laid on the streets to thwart any protests during the lockdown.

Educational institutions and shops in residential neighbourhoods remained shut.

Rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for the Indian-administered portion to become independent or merge with Pakistan. Monitoring groups say more than 70,000 people in Indian-administered Kashmir, most of them civilians, have died since then.

India and Pakistan, partitioned when the Indian subcontinent gained independence from the British in 1947, have fought two of their three wars over the disputed region of Kashmir, which both claim in full but administer separate portions.