The trouble in Srinagar started overnight when residents of Tengpora, in Srinagar’s Batamaloo suburb, took to the streets alleging that 17-year-old Muzaffar Ahmed Butt, along with some other local youth, were beaten up by policemen earlier while chasing a group in a stone-pelting mob in the area and then seized in an injured condition. The authorities, however, pleaded ignorance.
At first light on Tuesday, the youth’s body, reportedly with a deep wound in the head, was found lying on marshy land close to the banks of the Dood Ganga rivulet, triggering violent protests in Batamaloo and its neighbourhood.
The CRPF opened fire to quell the mob, killing one person who was later identified as 28-year-old Fayaz Ahmed Wani, an employee of the Jammu and Kashmir Sericulture Department and father of two, and seriously wounding another. Wani received a single bullet wound in the neck and died on the spot, police sources and witnesses said.
The CRPF firing added fuel to the fire and soon protests broke out almost all over Srinagar and in several localities youth turned violent, attacking policemen with rocks and other missiles and damaging government property.
Amidst the mayhem, Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric and chairman of his faction of the separatist Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, staged a protest sit-in outside his head office, Mirwaiz Manzil, in central Srinagar. Soon joined by surging crowds, he marched along the streets before returning to Mirwaiz Manzil. The pursuit, he said, was to mark the beginning of a civil disobedience movement.
“It is genocide of our youth,” the Mirwaiz charged and said the protests and “civil disobedience” would continue until India withdrew security forces from all populated areas and punished those found guilty. In the mean time, the police and CRPF resorted to use of force against the funeral of the slain youth. Even the pall-bearers were not spared. One of them was severely beaten up as he tried to shield the corpse of a youth while the body of the other victim was abandoned by mourners after they were chased by CRPF and local police personnel who fired in the air and burst teargas canisters to break up the funeral, witnesses said.
Photojournalists and cameramen of various TV news channels were also at the receiving end from the police and CRPF.
The police briefly took the bodies.