Army on Wednesday staged flag marches in curfew-bound Baramulla and was at standby in Anantnag, which with capital Srinagar and some other towns, witnessed widespread protests and violence in the aftermath of killing of 11 youth in police firings past fortnight.
Riot police and CRPF in large numbers have been deployed in these areas to hold back pro-freedom protests and violence. In spite of their presence and strict security restrictions in place, clashes between irate mobs and policemen were reported from some places in Srinagar, Baramulla, Kupwama and Anantnag districts although their intensity was not as high as seen during such face offs earlier. Station house officer Mattan Raof Ahmed is among more than thirty people injured in fresh violence, police and hospital sources said.
Curfew imposed on Anantnag, 55-km south of Srinagar, on Tuesday afternoon was extended to neighbouring towns of Bijbehara, Kulgam, Mattan, Dooru, Achabal, Kokernag, Shopian, Pahalgam and Pulwama overnight and thousands of CRPF and local policemen fanned out to enforce the security restrictions.
While it continued without any relaxation for the fifth day in northwest Sopore town and neighbouring Baramulla, areas falling under seven police stations in central Srinagar continued to reel under similar restrictions although the authorities insisted that only prohibitory orders are in force under Section 144 CrPC, debarring assembly of five or more persons.
Reports received here said that police fired teargas canisters and swung bamboo sticks to quell stone-pelting mobs at a few places in Srinagar including at Batamallo, Bemina and Natipora and also in Baramulla, Kupwara, Mattan and on the peripheries of curfew-bound Anantnag and Bijbehara towns. At Handwara in frontier district of Kupwara, a mob attacked the ancestral house of ruling National Conference Rajya Sabha member Shariefuddin Shariq and made repeated attempts to overrun it but the security guards foiled these after using mild force.
Unruly mobs overnight also damaged about two dozen oil tankers carrying supplies to the Kashmir Valley at Qazigund.