Over the past few years, Kashmiri scholars have been making the argument that India-administered Kashmir ought to be recognized as an occupied territory.
With more than 700,000 Indian soldiers, paramilitary and police in the region, the most militarized region on earth, they argued that Kashmiris were living under client leaders held firm by the might of the Indian military establishment. Since the late 1980s, more than 70-thousand people have been killed, a further seven thousand have disappeared, thousands have been blinded and maimed by pellets and live ammunition.