Curfew in J&K’s Budgam district
Indefinite curfew was clamped on central Kashmir town of Budgam and more than two dozen neighbouring villages on Saturday following the death of a local woman in a hospital days after she was allegedly beaten by the police.
Several villages in Budgam district witnessed Shia-Sunni clashes past week following an altercation between two truck drivers. Dozens of private houses and other properties belonging to the two Muslim sects were torched or damaged in clashes which also left many injured. The authorities deployed columns of Army to assist local police and CRPF in enforcing security restrictions in their attempt to prevent recurrence of sectarian clashes.
The situation was fast returning to normal in the affected areas even though security restrictions continued to be in force in the affected villages.
Locals alleged that 55-year-old Fatima of Dadina village, on the outskirts of Budgam town, was attacked by the police causing severe injuries to her during a protest on Wednesday. She was admitted to Srinagar’s Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) where she succumbed early on Saturday.
As the word spread, people in Budgam and its neighbourhood took to the streets to mourn and protest the woman’s death.
The authorities imposed curfew “as a precautionary measure” and deployed additional security forces in the area to enforce it, reports said. Meanwhile, the body of the deceased was sent to her village after postmortem was conducted at district hospital Budgam. People are demanding a case of murder should be registered against the cops accused for beating the woman.
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