SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir / KARACHI, Pakistan

India’s President Droupadi Murmu, on her maiden visit to disputed Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, said the Indian nation would automatically prosper when its youth tread the path of “peace, prosperity and discipline."

Murmu, the second Indian president to visit Kashmir since the region’s autonomous status was scrapped in 2019, addressed students at the University of Kashmir at its 40th convocation. She presented medals and certificates to the meritorious students.

“This university has had the blessings of Hazratbal in the past and will continue to have them,” she said, referring to the nearby shrine, the holiest for Muslims in the region that houses a relic of the Prophet Mohammad, the last of the prophets in Islam.

After landing in Kashmir, she straightway flew to the Indian army’s 15 Corps headquarters in Srinagar to pay tributes to slain soldiers at the war memorial amid heightened security measures in several areas of the city, a routine during the visits by top Indian or foreign dignitaries.

The former chief minister of the region, Mehbooba Mufti, wrote in her post on X: “Shocked to know that I can’t even step out of the house to my party office only because the Hon’ble President is visiting Srinagar today. The right of movement is snapped at a whim anytime.”

The president's visit comes at a time when most of the pro-freedom leadership is imprisoned and pro-India politicians have been calling for elections in the region, which has been without an elected government since the scrapping of the autonomous status in 2019.

Recently, the local administration released religious and pro-freedom leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq from house detention after being held for more than four years. It also banned a pro-freedom party named Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party led by Shabir Ahmad Shah, who has spent most of the past 30 years in jail.

The Ministry of Home Affairs stated in a notification that the outfit has links to “Pakistan and is involved in fundraising for unlawful and... terrorist activities" in Jammu and Kashmir that "are prejudicial to the integrity, sovereignty, security, and communal harmony of the country."

The Supreme Court of India has reserved judgment on a string of petitions challenging the repeal of Article 370, which allowed Jammu and Kashmir to have its own constitution and flag, and Article 35A, which empowered the region to define its permanent residents and prevented outsiders from buying property or taking government jobs.

On Tuesday, Lt Governor of Delhi, V K Saxena, sanctioned the prosecution of author Arundhati Roy and former Kashmiri law professor Sheikh Showkat Hussain in a 2010 case.

On Oct. 21, 2010, Roy and Hussain spoke at a conference in New Delhi organized by a group advocating the release of political prisoners. Following a complaint from an activist, the police filed a case of sedition against Roy, Hussain, and pro-freedom leader Syed Ali Geelani and Delhi University academic Syed Abdul Rahman Geelani, both dead now.

OIC reiterates support for Kashmiris

Condemning New Delhi's 2019 move, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's (OIC) Secretary General's Special Envoy on Jammu and Kashmir, Yousef Aldobeay, called for the controversial step to be reversed.

He reiterated the OIC's commitment and support for securing the rights of the Kashmiri people during a press conference in Islamabad with Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Syrus Sajjad Qazi.

"We are with you ... support every activity which is your right," said Aldobeay added.