Outside a guarded government office in Indian-occupied Kashmir's main city, an interminable queue forms every day for a near-priceless opportunity: a two-minute phone call to the outside world.
Residents of Srinagar and the Kashmir Valley have been starved of phone and internet use for a week as India snuffs out opposition to its military lockdown in the Himalayan region.
No phone calls, no groceries: occupied Kashmir on edge under lockdown
Only two mobile phones with an outside line are on offer in the deputy commissioner's office, but so desperate are people to contact families in the rest of India and overseas that they come from across Srinagar and beyond to wait in line.
Under the watchful eye of Indian paramilitaries, the calls and conversations are tightly controlled, and simmering frustrations often boil over.
One 56-year-old woman, who had walked miles and was stopped at dozens of checkpoints along the way, became embroiled in an argument with security forces outside the office after she was turned away.
“They stopped me from entering because they don't have a female police officer to frisk me,” the dejected woman, who was hoping to call her two children studying abroad, told
AFP.
“I am worried about my daughters but they would definitely be more worried about us,” she said, declining to be named.
In the end, she was left with no choice but to give her children's numbers to a stranger in the queue and plead with him to try and contact them.
You guys have imposed a two week curfew (not sure how long it will last) and a media blackout and are shooting at everyone protesting.
