Kashmiri Pandits in India's capital hail decision to scrap special status while critics call it a 'constitutional coup'.

New Delhi, India - Sanjay Bhan began distributing sweets outside his house on Monday, shortly after India's government announced its decision to abolish a constitutional provision that guaranteed special rights to India-administered Kashmir.
"I feel a rebirth today, I feel like an honoured Indian today," said Bhan, beaming with joy.
"It is a kind of happiness that I cannot explain," added Bhan, a member of the Kashmiri Hindu community known as Pandits.
An estimated 100,000 Kashmiri Pandits left the Kashmir valley after an armed rebellion against Indian rule began in 1989.
While most of them settled in Jammu city in the southern part of Jammu and Kashmir state, a large number, including Bhan, came to India's capital, New Delhi.
Nearly 30 kilometres away from Bhan's house in West Delhi's Pitampura area, in the Noida suburb of the capital, another Kashmiri who belongs to a different community said he felt "a sort of pain" in his heart.
"It is like something has been amputated from my body," said Malik Altaf, a Muslim, who works in a software company.
"I feel helpless and deceived. Today, this country decided my future without letting me express my feelings."

'Constitutional coup'

On Monday, India stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status by revoking Article 370. 
The constitutional provision was the basis of the Muslim-majority state's accession to the Indian union in 1947, when erstwhile princely states had the choice to join either newly-independent India or Pakistan.
The article allowed the state to have "limited autonomy" in certain areas, giving the India-administered region jurisdiction to make its own laws in all matters except finance, defence, foreign affairs and communications.
The scrapping of Article 370 is a "constitutional coup" carried out by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which could have serious implications for Kashmir, said Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation politburo member Kavita Krishnan.
"We understand the gravity of the situation and have apprehensions that Kashmiris will be harassed through an organised set up by right-wing groups," Krishnan told Al Jazeera.
Kashmiri Muslims said they had felt the brunt of the Kashmir conflict since 1989 and were now feeling "deceived" over the "constitutionally promised" status.
"We are in a devil and deep sea situation. If we express our resentment against the revocation of Article 370, we will be labelled anti-national. If we remain silent, history will label us cowards," Syed Muntazir, a Kashmiri student at New Delhi-based Jamia Millia university, said on Tuesday.
"Since yesterday, my friends from different parts of India and in the university have called to ask about the land rates in Srinagar, Anantnag and other parts of the region. They want me to tell them which is the best place to buy land."
Since the announcement of the revocation of Article 370 by India's Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah, social media has been flooded with purported advertisements offering plots of lands for sale in India-administered Kashmir.
So far, Article 370 had prevented non-residents from buying any property in the disputed region.