Once Upon a Time in … Kashmir

We journey to Indian-occupied Kashmir, where the cinemas have been turned into torture chambers.

A half-broken red swivel chair left behind by CRPF men in one of the rooms at Firdous Cinema. The chair, and the walls, have turned black with dirt and grease.

Friday is the most pious day of the week for Muslims. On August 18, 1989, a Friday, Allah Tigers chief air marshal Noor Khan was hell-bent on doing something in the service of Allah. The small radical outfit effectively shut down cinemas, bars, and beauty parlors — all deemed to be “un-Islamic” — in the Kashmir Valley. […]

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