Jammu residents celebrate the Amarnath deal; (below) a soldier frisks a woman’s bag in Srinagar, still under curfew, on Monday. (Reuters, AP)

New Delhi, Sept. 1: Jammu’s joyous outburst over the “exclusive” Amarnath land use agreement has become a fresh spur to the “azaadi” cry in the Valley.

All political forces, barring the National Conference, have rejected the agreement out of hand for a variety of reasons. But that is merely the beginning of renewed Kashmiri indignation; they are smarting under amplified government boasts that with the agreement, the Amarnath row stands “settled” and there are no pending issues.

“Jammu is celebrating an untimely Holi but should we just forget that 45 people were killed in Kashmir over the last few weeks, hundreds have been beaten and bruised, that thousands have been arrested, that we are living under the most restrictive curfew?” asked G.M Ganai, spokesman for the hardline Hurriyat faction led by the interned S.A.S. Geelani. “Who says there is any resolution of crisis? We are still under a security siege.”

It isn’t the hardliners alone who are seething. Senior Kashmiri journalist and a political moderate, Zafar Meraj, told The Telegraph today: “This is like salt in the Kashmiris’ fresh wounds, Jammu gets a favourable agreement and you announce that the problem has been solved! People are outraged, and justly so.”

Although neither the Hurriyat nor Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party has articulated reasons for its rejection of the “settlement”, the chief objections to the new terms are apparent:

Although the title of the land will remain with the forest department, the 800 kanals in Baltal and Domail have been given over for the “exclusive” use of the Amarnath shrine board;

No time period has been specified for such “exclusive” use;

The shrine board has been handed charge of all administrative and economic activity related to the Amarnath yatra. This includes the modalities of transport, healthcare, food and setting up shops and stores and;

The shrine board has been exempted all fees (in excess of Rs 200 crore) it earlier used to pay to the government for the use of the land.

“The attention of the Valley is currently focused on issues that go beyond the Amarnath land dispute,” said Nazir Ahmed of the Kashmir Bar Association. “But this settlement is a huge betrayal, it virtually authorises the shrine board to establish exclusive and all-encompassing rights over the land. The use of the word ‘exclusive’ is very clear, government departments have been deprived of any rights even though the title belongs to them on paper. Besides, the board will not be in a position to charge local Kashmiris rent for the use of their own land. That has been happening, but such malpractice has now been officially sanctioned. It is a preposterous settlement, the basic rights of Kashmiris have been sold off.”

Wherever they could, crowds erupted in the mohallas of Srinagar and smaller Valley townships today, protesting the “Amarnath settlement” and demanding “azaadi”. In Batmaloo in uptown Srinagar, in Habba Kadal downtown, in Baramulla, in pockets of Bijbehara and Anantnag. Curfew had to be suddenly re-imposed.

And while national security adviser M.K. Narayanan has claimed Kashmir will “return to normal within a week”, security forces in the Valley have been mounting preparations for a showdown in the coming days.

Key areas of Srinagar, including the Clock Tower hub of Lal Chowk, were sealed off last week; now, police and paramilitary forces have ordered enormous iron barriers to block off the state capital’s arterial roads.

“These are mobile metallic barriers capable of entirely sealing a four-lane road,” a police official said. “The agitators have become adept at breaking through smaller barriers, we need these new ones that cannot be moved or broken.”

Additional security forces have been pouring into the Valley and digging in at various locations; at some places, like Habba Kadal in downtown Srinagar, fresh deployment has provoked protests from residents demanding that existing security bunkers be removed and no new ones positioned.

Tuned to inflamed tempers on the street, the Hurriyat Co-ordination Committee today announced a new agitation plan that envisages a three-day strike from tomorrow; it will be in force after 4 in the afternoon and will ensure another stifling freeze on the Valley — government-imposed curfew during the day, a separatist “hartal” by night.

“The struggle is on in Kashmir, never mind what is happening in Jammu,” said Ghulam Nabi Sumji, acting head of the hardline Hurriyat. “Our people are being suppressed, they are being arrested in thousands all over the Valley, this will only make us more determined to seek freedom.”

Sumji said nobody in the Valley was or is against the Amarnath yatra and alleged there was a “hidden agenda” behind the land row. “The yatra has been going on for more than a hundred years, why this ownership issue suddenly? There is clearly a devious design. In any case, our agitation is about self-determination, what happens with the Amarnath row is not central at the moment.”