No medicine, baby food, cash after India shuts down Kashmir's Internet access

MUMBAI - Mr Masroor Nazir, a pharmacist in Kashmir's biggest city, Srinagar, has some advice for people in the region: Do not get sick, because he may not have any medicine left to help.

Shopkeepers said that vital supplies like insulin and baby food, which they typically ordered online, were running out. Cash was scarce, as metal shutters covered the doors and windows of banks and ATMs, which relied on the Internet for every transaction. Doctors said they could not communicate with their patients.

The country has increasingly deployed communications and Internet stoppages to suppress potential protests, prevent rumours from spreading on WhatsApp, conduct elections, and even to stop students from cheating on exams. Last year, India blocked the Internet 134 times, compared with 12 shutdowns in Pakistan, the No. 2 country, according to Access Now, a global digital rights group, which said its data understates the number of occurrences.

Mr Muheet Mehraj, founder and chief executive of Kashmir Box, a startup that buys traditional handicrafts like pashmina shawls and pottery from local artisans and sells them online, said he could not check incoming orders or communicate with his suppliers. His 25 employees are idle. If the shutdown lingers, they will soon be out of work.No one knows how long the blackout will last. In 2016, the Internet was blocked in Kashmir for more than four months.

But that has not deterred India from routinely using the tool. Under India's laws, authorities at even the local level can easily shut down Internet access in the name of ensuring"peace and tranquility". The Darjeeling shutdown, one of the longest in the country, occurred after the state government decided it needed to quash a separatist movement that had clashed violently with security forces.

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