Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – Shakeela remembers being upbeat and hopeful that evening.
As officials in Indian-administered Kashmir counted votes cast in the regional assembly election in October last year, a quiet optimism settled over the 50-year-old mother, who had been waiting for more than three years for her only son, 24-year-old Faizyaab, to be freed from an Indian jail.
Faizyaab is among thousands of Kashmiris who were thrown into prisons after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government unilaterally scrapped the region’s special status in 2019 and brought it under New Delhi’s direct control. Most of the people behind bars are widely regarded as political prisoners – in other words, people charged under “anti-terror” laws for allegedly working with armed Kashmiri rebels, or detained over other “antinational” activities such as speaking out or writing against the Indian rule.
However, the hopes many Kashmiri families held that the formation of a regional government would lead to the release of their loved ones have been crushed since the killing of 26 people in the scenic meadows of Pahalgam town by suspected rebels last month.
The April 22 attack – the worst in the disputed region in nearly 25 years – has triggered a significant crackdown by Indian security forces, who have arrested dozens of suspects as part of their hunt for Pahalgam killers. The incident has also led to an escalation in military tensions with neighbouring Pakistan, which New Delhi accuses of backing the attack. Islamabad rejects the charge.
Shakeela told Al Jazeera she has been overwhelmed with anxiety since she heard of the Pahalgam attack, fearing a new wave of detentions and an even harsher crackdown by the Indian forces. She thinks that chances of her son’s release have been further diminished, especially since he is already booked under charges reserved for the rebels.
“The little hope I had after the elections for my son’s release is quickly fading because of the Pahalgam attack. I fear things will only get worse and my son won’t be released anytime soon,” said Shakeela.
The Himalayan region of Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan who control parts of it, has been a flashpoint between the South Asian nuclear powers since their independence from the British rule in 1947.
The two nations have fought three of their four wars over the region. The conflict intensified after an armed rebellion against New Delhi’s rule began on the Indian side in 1989. Since then, more than 40,000 people have been killed there, including nearly 14,000 civilians, 5,000 Indian security personnel and 22,000 rebels.
The assembly elections held last year in Indian-administered Kashmir were the first in a decade – and the first since New Delhi’s controversial 2019 move.
Most parties opposed to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) campaigned on a pledge to secure the release or transfer of political detainees to prisons within Kashmir – an issue that resonates deeply in a region where mass arrests have shaped daily lives for decades. Hundreds of Kashmiri prisoners have been sent to prisons outside the region, with the authorities citing overcrowded jails as the reason.
Many in Kashmir saw last year’s elections as a means to reclaim the democratic rights they felt were eroded after the revocation of Article 370 in 2019. Voter turnout surged at about 64 percent, higher than the 58.5 percent turnout during the 2024 general elections.
The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (NC), a pro-India political party that also promised the release of political prisoners, won 42 of the 90 assembly seats and formed government with the help of allies in early November.
But there has been no clarity since on whether the Kashmiri political prisoners will be freed.
‘Playing with emotions for votes’
Shakeela heard from her relatives that most political parties in Kashmir had pledged in their election manifestos to prioritise the release of political prisoners and young people who had been “unjustly detained” in jails in and outside the region.
She voted for the NC, hoping a regional government after a decade would bring her son home. But she has spent the past six months in a state of limbo, caught between fleeting optimism and relentless despair as the NC government has taken no action on the matter.
“It seems they were just playing with our emotions for their vote bank,” she said.
Every night, her eyes linger on the house’s wooden door, a knock on which on the night of November 7, 2022, disrupted their lives.
It was past 10pm. Shakeela and Faizyaab were about to go to sleep when a loud knock shattered the silence around their house in downtown Srinagar, the region’s main city. They had been living there with three other members of the family of Shakeela’s brother since she separated from her husband a decade ago.
As soon as Shakeela opened the door, a large contingent of policemen stormed inside, barely offering any explanation before detaining her son for allegedly associating with a rebel outfit – a charge the family has contested in a court of law.
“They [police] told me he would be back in a few days, but days turned into months and months into years,” Shakeela told Al Jazeera as she struggled to hold back her tears.
Arrested under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), an anti-terror law that effectively allows people to be held without trial indefinitely, Faizyaab was first sent to a Srinagar jail before being transferred last year to another facility in Jammu, nearly 300km (186 miles) away from home.
While Shakeela had her brother’s house to stay, she depended on her college-going son’s part-time job with a private company for financial support. She has been unable to see her son for the past eight months and does not have the money to travel to Jammu.
“I have no source of income. My son was my only support, and even that was cruelly taken away,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Another Eid [al-Fitr] came and went without my son, a time meant for joy and celebration, but for me, it felt like just another ordinary day. My son wasn’t there to greet me. My Eid will only come the day he walks free,” she said.
‘Government has forgotten us’
Like Shakeela, many families with relatives imprisoned outside the Kashmir Valley struggle to visit them, mainly due to financial constraints.
In southern Kashmir’s Pulwama district, Ishrat, 29, waits for her 25-year-old brother to come home. She requested that Al Jazeera not disclose her brother’s name – worried that media attention might affect his chances of securing freedom.
Ishrat’s brother was booked under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) in June 2023 for allegedly being an “overground” associate of the rebels. The PSA is an administrative law that allows the arrest and detention without trial of any individual, with no warrant or specific charge, for a period of up to two years.
Since 2018, more than 1,100 people jailed under the PSA have been relocated to prisons outside Kashmir, marking a significant shift in the region’s detention practices. That trend picked up particularly after 2019, with the government citing overcrowding in local jails as the reason behind the shift.
Ishrat’s brother was initially jailed in Jammu and was soon transferred to a prison in Uttar Pradesh state, more than 1,000km (620 miles) away from home. Since then, his family has been unable to visit him due to the high travel costs involved.
Ishrat told Al Jazeera her brother faces several hardships in prison, such as poor sanitation. During the month of Ramadan, she said her brother and other prisoners had to save the food provided at lunch for iftar (meal to break the fast) and conserve their dinner for suhoor (predawn meal). She said the only ceiling fan in his cell is mounted nearly 25 feet (7.6 metres) high, offering little relief during north India’s brutal summer.
“Every day in that prison cell feels like a day in the fires of hell,” she said, describing her brother’s condition.
Meanwhile, the health of their mother, who is in her late 40s, has been deteriorating, Ishrat said. Consumed by grief, she longs for her son’s return and spends most of her days in tears. Their only solace comes twice a week when Ishrat’s brother is allowed a brief five-minute phone call from jail – barely enough to bridge the distance that separates them.
Ishrat recalled that during the assembly elections last year, candidates from various political parties campaigned in her village, pledging in their speeches to secure the release of the detainees, or at least have them transferred to Kashmir.
Ishrat said that every member of her family voted, assured that a new government would take decisive action in the matter. But nothing of the sort has yet happened.
“It feels like the government has forgotten us after the elections, failing to fulfil its promises and leaving families like ours deeply disappointed,” Ishrat said.
She said if her brother had committed a crime, he should be punished as per the law, but held in a jail in Kashmir. “Holding my brother in a prison far from home is a form of collective punishment for us.”
Al Jazeera reached out to officials in Kashmir’s prison department for their comments on detentions and shifting of prisoners, but has not received a response.
‘Challenging times for Kashmir’
NC spokesman Imran Nabi Dar defended the regional government, saying the removal of Kashmir’s statehood and a New Delhi-appointed lieutenant governor’s control over security matters were impediments to the fulfilment of their promises.
“Only a few months have passed [since the regional government was formed] and the party has a full five-year term to serve the people,” he told Al Jazeera. He said that the party remained committed to fulfilling every pledge made during the elections, and urged people “to have faith and patience”.
“We have consistently stated that individuals detained since 2019 who do not face serious charges and those held unjustly deserve to be released. We remain firm in our commitment to that promise,” he said.
“I understand the pain and frustration these families are going through. We have not forgotten them, and we assure them that this issue will be resolved soon,” said Dar, adding that the situation in Kashmir has changed after the Pahalgam attack, which has “worsened the already fragile conditions”.
“These are challenging times for Kashmir,” he told Al Jazeera on Monday, highlighting a significant spike in security measures and a looming threat of war with Pakistan.
Meanwhile, authorities in Kashmir have detained or questioned thousands of people in the wake of the Pahalgam attack. Local media reports, citing the police, say at least 90 people have been booked under PSA. Several homes of suspected rebels and their alleged associates have been demolished, deepening the anxiety among residents.
Kashmiri academic and political analyst Sheikh Showkat Hussain told Al Jazeera that “arrests have consistently been used to deprive individuals of their personal liberty in Kashmir, especially since the rise of mass uprisings and militancy [rebellion]”.
