SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Without weapons, riot gear or even clean uniforms, a group of police officers sat on the sidewalk outside a shopfront in Srinagar, the main city in the Himalayan region of Indian-administered Kashmir, weighing their allegiances.

Thirty Kashmiri police officers told The Associated Press that they have been sidelined and in some cases disarmed by New Delhi-based authorities since the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi downgraded Jammu and Kashmir from a state into two federally administered territories, tightening its grip on the restive region.

The state police force was shocked by the sudden presidential order earlier this month that stripped Kashmir's constitutional autonomy, leading officers to feel spiritless, caught between the federal security forces they now report to and the friends and neighbors who question their loyalties like never before.