The diplomatic situation is tense between India and Pakistan after the revocation of Indian Kashmir's autonomy by New Delhi. However, Islamabad has dismissed, Thursday, August 8, the recourse to the army.

"Pakistan does not consider the military option," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference.

The country announced Wednesday night the expulsion of the Indian ambassador to Islamabad and the recall of his own representative in New Delhi. Islamabad also suspended bilateral trade, a mainly symbolic measure.

Modi's speech expected Thursday evening

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to address the nation on Thursday night to explain his government's decision to forcibly overthrow the constitutional autonomy of Indian Kashmir, a move likely to erode this region claimed by Pakistan and rife with a separatist insurrection. Especially since the Hindu nationalists also made the Parliament vote to dislocate the region, which will now be made up of two separate administrative entities, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

In the region concerned, more than 500 Indians have been arrested and detained in recent days, the Indian press reported on Thursday.

Indian university professors, businessmen, activists and politicians are among the 560 people detained in detention centers after arrest, sometimes in the middle of the night, according to Press Trust of India and The Indian Express.

A legal challenge has been filed in the Indian Supreme Court demanding the lifting of restrictions in Kashmir and the release of those arrested.

Diplomatic break between the two States

India has deployed tens of thousands of paramilitaries since the beginning of this month to Kashmir, one of the most militarized Himalayan regions in the world, where it already has nearly half a million members of the security forces.

For New Dehli, "the recent events related to Article 370 [of the Constitution, which was revoked, ed] are entirely an internal matter to India," said Thursday the Indian Foreign Ministry in a statement, denouncing "unilateral actions" of Pakistan. "The intention behind these measures is clearly to present the world with an alarming picture of our bilateral ties."

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EU and Malala call for diplomatic solution

The head of European diplomacy Federica Mogherini spoke on the phone with her Indian and Pakistani counterparts. "The European Union supports a bilateral political solution between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, which remains the only way to resolve an old dispute that causes instability and insecurity in the region," said his services in a statement.

"I am concerned for the safety of Kashmiri children and women, the most vulnerable to violence and the most likely to suffer from the conflict," tweeted Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

"We represent different cultures, religions, languages, gastronomy and traditions, and I believe we can live in peace," said the young Pakistani who survived a Taliban attack.

The people of Kashmir have lived in conflict since I was a child, since my mother and father were children, since my grandparents were young. pic.twitter.com/Qdq0j2hyN9

Malala (@Malala) August 8, 2019

The people of Indian Kashmir knew Thursday their fourth day of confinement, totally cut off from the rest of the world. All means of communication are blocked since Sunday night, travel and gatherings prohibited. Military and paramilitary forces are deployed in large numbers in otherwise deserted streets.

Kashmir is disputed by India and Pakistan since the partition of the British colonial empire of India in 1947, and is divided in fact between the two enemy brothers of South Asia.

The armed uprising against New Delhi, which peaked in the 1990s before declining, has been on the rise since 2016. The Kashmiris fear that the confinement of the population, largely hostile to India, will exacerbate resentment local.

The Indian Air Safety Agency has asked airports across the country to strengthen their security arrangements following Kashmir-related events, saying that "civil aviation has an easy target for terrorist attacks".

With AFP