A Kashmir girl rides her bike past Indian security personnel standing guard in front of closed shops in Srinagar, Oct. 30.
On Wednesday, Kashmiris began disappearing from WhatsApp — and no one initially knew why. Citizens of the disputed geographical territory, whose autonomy the Indian government revoked in August, abruptly and inexplicably began departing WhatsApp groups in which they had long participated, leaving behind only a “[Phone number] left” message.
It’s been four months since India’s government shut down Kashmir’s internet services, cutting off the region from the rest of the world. Because of this, some observers suspected that the Kashmiris who disappeared from their WhatsApp groups this week did not do so on their own and may not even know anything has changed.
In a comment provided after this story’s publication, a spokesperson for Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, said the disappearances were the result of the messaging app’s policy on inactive accounts.
After 4 months of total communication blackout, @WhatsApp is automatically deleting Kashmiris from groups. #Kashmir
“To maintain security and limit data retention, WhatsApp accounts generally expire after 120 days of inactivity,” they wrote. “When that happens, those accounts automatically exit their WhatsApp groups. People will need to be re-added to groups upon regaining access to the Internet and joining WhatsApp again.”
The spokesperson did not respond to questions from BuzzFeed News about how many Kashmiris were affected. Those whose profiles have expired will have to re-register on WhatsApp and recreate their profiles on the platform.
WhatsApp is used by some 400 million Indians, making the country the app’s largest market in the world. WhatsApp groups dominate online conversations in India, and most Indians with access to a smartphone participate in at least a few. So when Kashmiri people began disappearing en masse from groups, a lot of people noticed.
4 months of inactivity, WhatsApp accounts from Kashmir are getting deleted. Weird to see individuals you haven’t spoken for all these months ‘leave’ WA groups whereas in reality an important part of their digital imprint – images, videos, texts & memories attached – vanishing.
“I initially thought that internet services had been restored in Kashmir and maybe these people were just removing themselves from WhatsApp groups on their own,” Mudasir Firdosi, a London-based Kashmiri doctor who is in half a dozen WhatsApp groups with friends and family in Kashmir, told BuzzFeed News. “But I quickly realized that’s not the case.”
Kashmir contacts automatically “exiting” from my WhatsApp groups today. I know they would not have been able to see my messages anyway, but this is heartbreakingly symbolic.
Shahnawaz Kaloo, a Kashmiri doctor who lives in New Delhi and is part of half a dozen WhatsApp groups with friends and family who live in Kashmir, told BuzzFeed News that Kashmiris who were entirely cut off from the internet were automatically evicted from every WhatsApp group that he was in with them. “It didn’t happen with people that used the internet [because they traveled out of Kashmir or briefly got internet access somehow].”
Suhail Lyser, a Kashmiri student who lives in Dehradun, a city in northern India, told BuzzFeed News that he saw more than 150 Kashmiris in a WhatsApp group that shared news and updates about the region that he was part of suddenly get kicked out of the group.
Suddenly all my contacts from Kashmir are ‘leaving’ the #Whatsapp groups, and their WhatsApp accounts are getting lost. Remember there is NO internet in #Kashmir from the last 4 months. What kind of sinister moves are these? @facebook @WhatsApp @UNGeneva @UNHumanRights
“When I first saw what was happening, I thought it was the government of India that was doing this,” he said.
In February, Nasir Khuehmi, a 21-year-old student, set up a WhatsApp support group for Kashmiri students around the country who faced violence and backlash in the wake of an attack by a suicide bomber in Kashmir’s Pulwama district, in which 40 Indian paramilitary personnel were killed. On Wednesday, the group, which had hundreds of young Kashmiris, emptied out instantly.
“I was shocked and disappointed,” said Khuehmi. “It was heartbreaking.”