By Mehr un Nisa
A day after the blast near Delhi’s Red Fort, Haryana police ordered all residential societies in Gurugram to submit lists of Kashmiri residents. It was a bureaucratic act dressed as security, but its intent was clear: profiling. Yet the truth runs deeper. This was not a sudden response to an attack. The crackdown was already well underway long before the blast. What we are seeing now is not a reaction. It is an escalation of a policy years in the making.
For years, property confiscations in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) have functioned as silent punishment. Long before the Red Fort incident, homes, orchards and offices were being seized under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The law is supposed to counter terrorism. In reality, it criminalizes dissent. It allows the government to declare property “proceeds of unlawful activity” without proving anything in court.
The targets are not armed actors. They are teachers, lawyers, traders and ordinary families. By September 2025, this policy had evolved into a coordinated state project, stripping Kashmiris of property, dignity and history. The pattern is unmistakable: accusations first, evidence never.
In just two months, September and October 2025, authorities have seized over a dozen properties across Jammu and Kashmir. Every case follows the same script: police raids, UAPA references and accusations of “links” to pro-freedom sentiment. The pattern is unmistakable. Yet none have shown proof of wrongdoing. What links them all is the collective punishment of an entire people.
Let’s look at what happened before the Delhi blast. Earlier, on 11 September, authorities in Tantraypora, Baramulla, took properties belonging to Mohammad Maqbool Sheikh and Mohammad Rafiq Tantray. No court orders were shown. No witnesses were called. The homes were simply marked and taken.
On 27 September, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) seized the land and house of Tariq Ahmad Mir in Maldeera, Shopian. Within days, on 30 September, it froze his orchard and another house. The same person. Two seizures. Two different excuses. No hearing.
And then came October. on 1 October 2025, the government sealed the central office of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir in Hyderpora, Srinagar. It stood on valuable land, worth several crores. Officials called it a “hub of unlawful activity.” In truth, it was a political landmark, a space of dialogue, now erased from the city’s map.
After one day, on 2 October, officials seized the home of Nazir Ahmad Ganie in Palpora, Kralgund. His “crime”? Living in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. His ancestral home was attached under UAPA because of his address.
On 4 October 2025, authorities confiscated a three-storey house worth Rs 2 crore in the HMT area of Srinagar, belonging to Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh. His only fault? His son was accused of spreading online “propaganda.” It was punishment by bloodline, not justice.
On 8 October 2025, the administration in Budgam seized the property of Fayaz Ahmad in Dasan, Beerwah. Officials claimed he might sell it for “anti-national” purposes. No sale. No transaction. Just suspicion.
The only major seizure after the blast came on 12 November 2025, the two-storey residence of Mian Abdul Qayoom, former President of the High Court Bar Association. The order cited a 2009 case. The timing was political; the file was ancient. This is how old papers are recycled to justify new punishment.
It shows that the crackdown didn’t begin after the blast, it only gained speed and narrative cover. When the government needed a distraction or justification, the “security threat” language was ready to use. So the question is not what will happen after the blast. The question is, if this was the state of affairs before, what happens now that India has a new excuse?
The logic is cruel but effective. Property is personal. It carries identity, history and belonging. To seize it is to erase more than a house, it erases roots. That is why property confiscations cut deeper than arrests. They send a message: your life, your work, your home, all of it can be declared “unlawful.”
The confiscation of homes is paired with another pattern, the arrests of doctors, students and young professionals. When hospitals, schools and homes become the new battlegrounds, you are not fighting terrorism. You are manufacturing obedience.
That is the central argument. If the situation was this dire before the blast, imagine what comes next. When a state already confiscating homes gains a fresh justification, repression becomes policy, not exception. Every file will move faster. Every accusation will stick longer. Every Kashmiri will live under deeper scrutiny.
The Red Fort blast, regardless of its truth, will be politicized. It will be used to frame a wider narrative, that Kashmiris are “suspect citizens.” Under that label, any act of dissent, any social link, even a family abroad, can become grounds for seizure or arrest.
This is how state power expands, not through evidence, but through emotion. Fear justifies everything. The law becomes theatre. The press echoes official lines. And the real casualties, families evicted, doctors jailed, students silenced, fade from national view.
By November 2025, the administration had already issued dozens of seizure notices. Each one wrapped in legal language. Each one justified by “public safety.” But ask any lawyer and they will tell you, the right to property under Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is absolute. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of property. What is happening in Kashmir is the textbook definition of arbitrary deprivation.
If this is how India acted before the blast, the coming months should alarm everyone watching. Each Kashmiri property seized without trial is a blow to international law. Each doctor arrested under flimsy charges is a message that education and professionalism offer no shield. Each administrative order signed in secrecy erodes what remains of justice.
The Red Fort blast will now be turned into a permanent reason, a justification for deeper profiling, faster confiscations and harsher detentions.
The author is the head of the research and human rights department of Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR). She can be contacted at the following email address: mehr_dua@yahoo.com