Pakistan has announced plans to expel India's top diplomat and suspend trade with its neighbour, deepening a row between the countries over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Indian-administered Kashmir has been on lockdown since the Indian government decided on Monday to strip the region of its special constitutional status.
Phone networks and the internet have been cut off since Sunday evening.
Tens of thousands of troops have been patrolling the streets.
Instances of protest and stone-throwing have been reported, despite the communications blackout and a curfew.
Kashmiris in other parts of the country said that they were unable to get through to their families. Local leaders have also been detained.
India and Pakistan - both nuclear-armed states - have fought two wars over Kashmir, most recently clashing in a series of aerial attacks over the territory in February.
Why is Kashmir so contentious?
The Himalayan region of Kashmir is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, but they each control only parts of it.
There is a long-running separatist insurgency on the Indian side, which has led to thousands of deaths over three decades. India accuses Pakistan of supporting insurgents but its neighbour denies this, saying it only gives moral and diplomatic support to Kashmiris who want self-determination.
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Under Article 370 of the Indian constitution, the state of Jammu and Kashmir had special dispensation to make its own laws - the basis for its complex relationship with India for some 70 years.
However, the Indian government is now revoking most of Article 370.
What is Pakistan doing?
Pakistan is suspending all trade between the two countries.
It also recalling its high commissioner (the equivalent of an ambassador) from the Indian capital Delhi and expelling his Indian counterpart from Islamabad.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has "directed that all diplomatic channels be activated to expose [the] brutal Indian racist regime, design and human rights violations", a Pakistani government statement said.
He also directed the armed forces to remain vigilant.
In addition, Pakistan is asking the UN Security Council to consider the dispute.
Neighbouring China has also voiced opposition to the Indian move, describing it as "unacceptable".
How serious is this?
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir since independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Many people in Indian-administered Kashmir do not want it to be governed by India, preferring instead either independence or union with Pakistan.
The population of the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir is more than 60% Muslim, making it the only state within India where Muslims are in the majority.
Many Kashmiris think revoking Article 370 is an attempt to change the territory's demographic character, by allowing non-Kashmiris to buy land there. Before now, Indians from outside the state could be barred from settling or buying property.
While the current insurgency began in 1989, violence surged again in 2016, with the death of a young militant leader, Burhan Wani. Last year, more than 500 people were killed - including civilians, security forces and militants - the highest such toll in a decade.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have for a long time wanted to scrap Article 370 - a promise included in their manifesto for elections earlier this year.
They argued that Kashmir needed to be put on the same footing as the rest of India.
Once returned to power with an increased majority in May, the government lost no time in acting on its pledge.
BEIJING—A senior Chinese official in charge of Hong Kong affairs warned that Beijing would intervene if the local government proved unable to contain the violent protests, the most explicit threat of intervention to date from the central government.
At a meeting with Hong Kong representatives in the nearby city of Shenzhen on Wednesday, the official, Zhang Xiaoming, issued a dire assessment of the situation in the territory after more than two months of protests. He called the situation the most severe since China resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997.
“If the situation worsens further, and there is turmoil that the Hong Kong government is unable to control, the central government absolutely will not just watch without doing anything,” Mr. Zhang, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of China’s State Council, said in remarks carried by official state media.
Though Mr. Zhang didn’t lay out options for intervention, he said the central government had “enough methods and enough strength” to quickly quell the unrest.
Adam Ni, a China researcher at Macquarie University in Sydney, said the meeting was likely held to discuss methods for resolving the crisis with Hong Kong’s elite, and to show that Beijing will back up Hong Kong’s government.
“The one big thing that I think Beijing fears is if the pro-establishment camp breaks down and really loses the will to confront the protesters,” he said. “It’s really about reinforcing the notion that the Party center is behind them, with military force if necessary.”
Pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong are becoming increasingly violent. New propaganda videos of Chinese police and soldiers on riot drills evoke memories of Tiananmen Square, although analysts say an armed intervention is unlikely and a last resort. Photo: Dale de la Rey/AFP/Getty Images
Beijing has in recent days expressed its concern that the protests were spiraling out of control and challenging China’s sovereignty over the territory, a former British colony that has limited autonomy under Chinese rule. The demonstrations started as protests against an extradition bill proposed by the local government, but have turned increasingly violent and pointedly critical of Chinese rule, with protesters targeting the national flag and state seal.
Mr. Zhang’s warning of intervention was more direct than in recent days when officials signaled that Beijing’s patience was wearing thin. A day earlier in Shenzhen, where Wednesday’s meeting was held, more than 10,000 mainland police officers ran through anti-riot drills, a video of which was circulated widely online as a show of force.
Still Beijing faces invidious options if it moves to intervene. Use of troops in a military garrison in Hong Kong or of riot police brought in from other parts of China would likely bring international opprobrium, damage confidence in the territory’s role as an international finance center and be seen by many in Hong Kong as undermining its rule of law.
Wednesday’s gathering included more than 500 representatives, including Hong Kong delegates to China’s legislature and leaders of pro-Beijing groups in the city, and others in attendance. A similar meeting had been held in 2014 when a swath of Hong Kong’s central area was occupied by protesters demanding full democratic elections.
Most of the discussions took place behind closed doors, with selected remarks released by Chinese state media.
Wang Zhimin, Beijing’s top official in Hong Kong, called it a “life and death war,” and said the situation had already been pressed to the point where there was no room left to retreat.
Mr. Zhang said the protests had the markings of a “color revolution.” The term refers to democratic movements that have unseated authoritarian governments in countries such as Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine.
The meeting followed a barrage of state media commentaries in recent days that have warned Beijing won’t allow the Hong Kong unrest to continue. A spokesman for Mr. Zhang’s office said at a press conference on Tuesday that those behind the protests wouldn’t escape punishment.
He said that Tuesday's missile test was “an occasion to send an adequate warning to the joint military drill now underway by the U.S. and South Korean authorities” Reuters reported, citing state news agency KCNA.
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Pyongyang said Wednesday that the “new-type tactical guided missiles” launched from the western part of North Korea, flew across its capital and “precisely hit the targeted islet” off the country's east coast, Reuters noted.
KCNA, meanwhile, reported that the event “clearly verified the reliability, security and actual war capacity” of the weapon, according to the news service.
The launch was North Korea's fourth in less than two weeks.
South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Sang-min said on Wednesday that North Korea should halt its tests and work on confidence-building, according to Reuters.
