At least, two protesters were killed and five others wounded on Friday when the CRPF opened fire on a mob which attacked one of its bunker (armoured) vehicles in the town of Sopore, 48-km northwest of here, during the disturbances set off by the slaying of two Lashkar-e-Tayyaba militants in gunfight with the troops earlier during the day.
Those killed in the CRPF firing have been identified as 15-year-old old Shakeel Ahmed Ganai and another youth Firdous Ahmed. CRPF spokesman Prabhakar Tripathy said that the jawans opened fire when the mob torched a bunker vehicle of the force. But locals refuted the claim and said that it was only after the CRPF opened fired that the vehicle was set to fire.
Meanwhile, in a significant development governor N.N. Vohra called senior CRPF officers to Raj Bhavan here and reportedly asked for exercising restraint while dealing with the stone-throwing crowds.
A Raj Bhavan spokesperson said that director general, CRPF, Mr Vikram Srivastava who was accompanied by special director general, CRPF, J&K Zone, Mr N. K. Tripathi; IG, CRPF, Srinagar, Mr P.V.K. Reddy and IG, CRPF, operations, Kashmir, Dr N.C. Asthana briefed the governor about various aspects of the obtaining security situation in the state. “The governor discussed with Mr Srivastava some of his concerns about the arising security scenario in the state, taking into account both the internal and external influences and factors,” the spokesperson said.
The gunfight at Sopore had erupted late on Thursday night when the troops from Army’s 22 Rashtriya Rifles, 179 CRPF and local police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) laid siege to the town’s Bagh-e-Islam locality to flush out dead or alive a group of militants hiding in a private house.