Srinagar has been turned into a gated city today with dozens of massive iron barricades, spools of barbed wire and thousands of paramilitary and policemen encircling neighbourhoods and blocking roads to impose the curfew and halt the "Azadi" procession and a public sit-in at city centre Lal Chowk.

The government had put the entire Kashmir valley under strict curfew, laid an unprecedented security cordon and even blocked the Srinagar-Jammu national highway. In fact, the multi-coloured curfew passes – issued to select groups like doctors, paramedics, journalists and employees of essential services yesterday – were withdrawn this morning thus making sure that the curfew is absolute.

Lal Chowk and especially the clock tower have become a symbol of the latest wave of separatist protests in Kashmir and the official response too suggests that the government has made it a point of prestige to prevent an “Azadi” rally in this historic city centre of Srinagar.

The government had specially requisitioned dozens of iron barricades for today's operation. A senior police officer said that they have erected 30 such barricades across Srinagar city. In fact, several bridges over river Jhelum had been blocked with double iron barricades and barbed wire. Then there were blockades erected over most of the lanes leading to colonies and neighbourhoods across the city. The deployment of the paramilitary and policemen too was unprecedented. There were around 300 police and CRPF men standing in the narrow lane inside Maisuma neighborhood which had been sealed off from every side by massive iron blockades and barbed wire. Home to JKLF Chief Yasin Malik, Maisuma is neighbouring Lal Chowk and the police apprehended strife. “We have orders to shoot at anybody who tries to violate the curfew restrictions,” Inspector Raghubir Singh of CRPF told The Indian Express. “It has worked. The people spent the entire day inside their homes. It is all peaceful.” He said that they were ordered not to entertain any curfew passes as they were cancelled by the government.

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