Delhi turns mosques into surveillance hubs in Kashmir, says Al Jazeera report

Indian authorities in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir have launched a highly intrusive exercise to profile mosques, religious leaders, and seminaries, raising alarm among residents and clerics over new forms of surveillance and control in the disputed territory, Al Jazeera reported.

The report said, the police began distributing a four-page “profiling of mosques” form to religious functionaries in Srinagar earlier this month. The forms seek extensive details about the mosques, including their ideological affiliation, funding sources, monthly expenditure, land ownership, and congregation capacity. Additional pages demand personal information about imams, muezzins, and khatibs, including mobile numbers, emails, bank accounts, passports, social media handles, relatives abroad, and even the model of their phones. Similar forms have also been circulated among madrasas.

Residents described the exercise as highly invasive, saying it feels less like a routine survey and more like a state effort to assert control over religious institutions that have traditionally managed their own affairs. Mohammad Nawaz Khan, a Srinagar resident, told Al Jazeera that the forms are creating fear and uncertainty, warning that such detailed information in a conflict zone could have serious consequences.

Al Jazeera noted that the profiling follows the revocation of Article 370 in 2019, after which India increased its direct control over the territory. Restrictions on religious freedoms, closures of main mosques, and limits on congregations for major festivals have persisted ever since. Residents and analysts say such intrusive measures are part of a broader strategy to monitor and suppress Muslim institutions while tightening control over the daily life of Kashmiris.

“The authorities are attempting to convert places of worship into surveillance points,” a political analyst told Al Jazeera. “This not only violates privacy but also threatens the religious and cultural rights of Kashmiris, raising serious concerns under international law.”