India's government has revoked the part of the constitution that gives Indian-administered Kashmir special status in an unprecedented move likely to spark unrest.
Article 370 is sensitive because it is what guarantees significant autonomy for the Muslim-majority state.
Home Minister Amit Shah announced the revocation amid an uproar in India's Parliament and while Kashmir was under a security lockdown that kept thousands of people inside their homes.
The order revokes Article 370 of India's Constitution, which gives the state of Jammu and Kashmir its own constitution and decision-making rights for all matters except for defense, communications and foreign affairs. The article also forbids Indians outside the state from permanently settling, buying land, holding local government jobs and securing educational scholarships.
Critics of India's Hindu nationalist-led government see the move as an attempt to dilute the demographics of Muslim-majority Kashmir with Hindu settlers.
The announcement came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi convened a Cabinet meeting and the government's top-decision making body on security matters, the Cabinet Committee on Security, which he heads.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim the region in its entirety. Two of the three wars India and Pakistan have fought since their independence from British rule were over Kashmir.
Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, told a Pakistani TV station on Monday from Saudi Arabia, where he is on a pilgrimage to Mecca, that Pakistan will step up diplomatic efforts to prevent the order from taking effect.
"India is playing a very dangerous game by changing the status of Kashmir through illegal acts," he said.
In Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, hundreds of Kashmiri activists rallied against the change in Kashmir's status near the diplomatic enclave where India's embassy is located. Authorities kept demonstrators away from the building because of security concerns.
The entire region is disputed between India and Pakistan. Each claims it in full, but control only parts of it.
There has been a long-running insurgency on the Indian side.
India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, have fought two wars and a limited conflict over the Himalayan territory since the independence and partition of India in 1947.
Pakistan has condemned India's decision to revoke the special status of its part of Kashmir as illegal, saying it would "exercise all possible options" to counter it.
Source: BBC