Curfew Lifts in Some Areas of Kashmir

Mukhtar Khan/Associated Press A soldier checking the identity of a civilian, during a curfew in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on Wednesday.

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir â€" Authorities eased the curfew in the Kashmir Valley on Wednesday, its fifth day, lifting restrictions in several areas of the summer capital of Srinagar as well as the districts of Budgam, Pulwama and Kupwara.

“Movement of people and vehicles is allowed” in the areas where the curfew has been relaxed, said a Kashmir police oficial, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak with the media.

Newspapers were distributed in Srinagar on Wednesday for the first time since Saturday, although restrictions on the movement of vehicles in many parts of the city and elsewhere in the valley prevented distribution in the entire region. Editors of local papers, who said they lost advertisement revenue over the past four days, are printing about half their regular circulation.

Shujaat Bukhari, editor of the English-language newspaper Rising Kashmir and the Urdu-language newspaper Buland Kashmir, said he expected that restrictions would continue to be lifted in the coming days, and that the government would not go back to imposing the shutdown of the previous days. “I hope things are going to improve,” he said.

There was no official ban on publishing by the government, but ! editors said they had received “friendly advice” that no movement of their delivery trucks and newspapers would be allowed.

“On the face of it there is no gag, but circumstances around it become so difficult, you decide not to publish,” said Shameem Meraj, editor of the English-language paper Kashmir Monitor.

Mr. Bukhari recalled that they had previously not been able to publish for several days during mass demonstrations in 2008 and 2010. However, he said that during the curfews imposed at the time of the militancy in the 1990s, newspaper hawkers were issued passes that allowed them to sell papers.

During the latest crackdown, the media were still able to publish their reports online. Mr. Bukhari said that he had not received any kind of pressure from the government not to run news about the curfew.

Cellphone Internet services remained blocked on Wednesday, though broadband Internet was available through computers.

Residents said that they suspected the government woul reinforce restrictions on Friday, because the separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has called for a mass march to the Eidgah graveyard in Srinagar to offer prayers for Muhammad Afzal, who was executed secretly in Tihar Jail in Delhi on Saturday.

On Tuesday, Mr. Afzal’s family rejected the government’s invitation to allow them to pray at his grave at the Delhi jail, saying they would settle for nothing less than a proper burial for him at his hometown of Sopore in Baramulla district.

Ahmed, a 16-year-old student from Lal Bazar, who requested that his first name not be used to avoid attention from the authorities, said 80 percent of the shops were still shuttered in his area after the curfew had been relaxed. He noted t! hat many ! Central Reserve Police Force officers were roaming the streets.

“I haven’t seen much difference. People who live close to their shops have opened them,” he said. “I can still see C.R.P.F. personnel on the ground, but they are letting people pass to get food and medicines.”