Surging crowds protesting the killing of a local teenage student allegedly in police action defied curfew to join his funeral here on Saturday. The police fired scores of teargas canisters and rifle shots in the air to break up the procession but in vain.
In the ensuing clashes during which irate mobs targeted the local police and CRPF contingents with stones and other missiles as many as 37 people, including 17 personnel, were injured. A crowd carrying the coffin of the slain teenager also torched a stationary vehicle and a community centre in Srinagar’s Kathidarwaza locality to vent the ire after police blocked their way.
The police says it could be a case of murder. It is on a lookout for two people who had dropped him at hospital and disappeared.
Witnesses, however, claimed the policemen while quelling anti India protests here on Friday afternoon hit Class 12 student Tufail Ahmed Mattoo by rifle butts, which resulted in his death on the spot. However, he was rushed to hospital where doctors declared him brought dead. The body of the deceased was taken for autopsy, the report of which is awaited. “Once the post-mortem report is received and cause of death ascertained, the department shall order an internal probe through DIG Srinagar and delivery of justice will be visible to the general public,” a statement issued by the police here said. The Kashmir Valley is tense again after the death of the student, the third in a row over the past few months. A major portion of Srinagar, the summer capital, was sealed off at dawn on Saturday with thousands of policemen arriving on the streets to enforce strict security restrictions whereas a spontaneous strike brought life to a standstill elsewhere. The authorities claim Section 144 CrPC prohibiting assembly of five or more persons was being enforced strictly as a “preventive measure”, but residents of the areas falling under the police stations Khanyar, Nowhatta, Rainawari, Safa Kadal, Zaina Kadal and Maisuma said that they were not allowed to venture out of their homes even to fetch eatables. “It is curfew which is being enforced in my neighbourhood and nothing less and, in fact, the police and CRPF tells us it is curfew and that we should not try to come out,” said Manzoor Ahmed Khan of Sokalipora in central Srinagar over the phone. At places, curfew defying crowds clashed with the police and CRPF leaving 15 persons injured, police and hospital sources said.
Meanwhile, thousands of mourners, including Muhammad Yasin Malik and some other separatist leaders, joined the funeral.