Rajya Sabha on Monday approved a resolution abrogating Article 370 for Jammu and Kashmir and a bill to bifurcate the state into two union territories with Home Minister Amit Shah saying the controversial provisions were responsible for poverty and lack of development in the state.

The Centre's decision to abrogate Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, polarised opinion among legal experts on Monday with one section saying it is a legal, historic step and another of the view that it is a complicated move fraught with serious political consequences. 

Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday moved a resolution in the Lok Sabha for bringing a bill to reorganise the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

The Rajasthan legislative assembly on Monday passed a bill providing for life imprisonment and a fine up to Rs 5 lakh to convicts in cases of mob lynching involving the victim's death.

Kashmiri students in the national capital on Monday termed the Centre's move of revoking Article 370 as "dictatorial" and expressed concern about the safety of their family members back home. 

Some opposition parties termed the scrapping of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and its bifurcation into two union territories as a "black blot", with Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad Monday charging the state's head, considered as India's crown, has been "chopped off" and its identity removed.

Describing the revoking of Article 370 as a "black day" in the country's constitutional history, the Congress on Monday alleged that the government "dismembered" Jammu and Kashmir by "mischievously misinterpreting" articles in the Constitution, and cautioned that the idea of India as a union of states is in "grave danger".

 Terming the government's move on Article 370 "unilateral and shocking", former chief minister and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said it was a total "betrayal of trust" of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.