Hundreds of women took to the streets in Pakistan's biggest city Karachi on Thursday to express solidarity with the people of Kashmir after India scrapped special status of the disputed territory.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government this week withdrew Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir's right to frame its own laws and allowed people from outside the region to buy property there in a bid to tighten its grip over the contested region.
Young girls wearing headbands reading "Kashmir is ours". Source: Reuters
Kashmiris see Mr Modi's decision to withdraw the special status as a breach of trust and opening the way to flooding their region with people from the rest of India, eventually altering the demographics of the territory.
Holding banners and raising their hands up in solidarity with Kashmiri people, more than five hundred women stood on one of the main streets in the city in a rally organised by an Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami.
Groups of women hold banners in solidarity with the Kashmiri people. Source: Reuters
Thousands of paramilitary police have been deployed in Kashmir's largest city, Srinagar, schools shut and roads and neighbourhoods barricaded.
Kashmir's leaders have warned of a backlash and Pakistan, which also lays claims to the Himalayan territory, vowed to fight for the rights of people living there.
