Overview
- Authorities closed roads and sealed a one‑kilometre zone around the Naqshband Sahib Martyrs’ Graveyard, erecting concertina wire, metal sheets and layered barricades and deploying police and paramilitary forces to block entry.
- Officials said the restrictions — put in place on Sunday and enforced on Monday — were aimed at preventing a repeat of last year’s incident when the chief minister scaled the graveyard gate to offer tributes.
- Regional leaders who tried to reach the site were stopped; several paid homage at their party offices instead, with National Conference figures Omar and Farooq Abdullah and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti holding alternative tributes.
- Party members and clerics reported house arrests or movement curbs before the day, claims that police acknowledged as area restrictions but disputed as formal detentions.
- The clampdown highlights a longer shift since 2019 when July 13 lost its official holiday status, and it raises questions about contested memory, political tensions, and the use of security measures in Srinagar going forward.