The Army staged a flag march in uptown Srinagar on Wednesday as the city, and some other towns in Kashmir Valley, remained under strict curfew with thousands of police and paramilitary personnel out on the streets to enforce the restrictions.
An uneasy calm prevailed and no fresh incidents of violence or protests were reported from any part of Srinagar, except for a small crowd reportedly taking to the street briefly deep inside Batamaloo, a Srinagar suburb that witnessed widespread disturbances on Tuesday, leaving three persons, including a woman, dead in police and CRPF firing and beatings.
Official sources here said chief minister Omar Abdullah apprised the PM on the phone about the steps being taken by the state government to restore normalcy, includiing taking strict action under the law against those believed to be involved in encouraging people to come out on to the streets and other “mischief-makers and miscreants”. The CM also spoke twice to home minister P. Chidambaram and also to defence minister A.K. Antony.
Overnight, the police arrested Kashmir High Court Bar Association president Mian Abdul Qayyum from his residence here and quickly shifted him to a jail at Hira Nagar near Jammu after detaining him under the state’s tough Public Safety Act.
The lawyer community has announced a boycott of the courts till Mr Qayyum is released.
The police is also on the lookout for other separatist leaders and supporting activists, particularly Massarat Aaalam Butt, a close confidant of the jailed Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who has been issuing commands to people on how to execute a “Quit Jammu and Kashmir” campaign being spearheaded by their faction of the Hurriyat Conference.
Mr Abdullah’s telephonic talk with the Prime Minister and home and defence ministers came around an emergency meeting of the CCS in New Delhi with Dr Singh in the chair to review the situation in the Valley.
Soon after the meeting, Union home secretary G.K. Pillai flew to Srinagar to hold a series of meetings with the CM and senior government functionaries and Army and security force officials.
There was some initial confusion about the role the Army was playing in maintaining law and order in Srinagar. An Army column was seen patrolling Indira Gandhi Road leading to Srinagar airport but a defence spokesperson sought to clarify that it was a routine Army convoy on the move. He added that though the Army has been placed in a state of readiness and, in fact, some columns of it have been put at the disposal of the state government to assist the local police and CRPF when asked, there has been no deployment on the streets as such.
State DGP Kuldeep Khoda had on Tuesday night said the government has sought Army help and that it would be deployed in “very sensitive” areas by first light Wednesday.
Apparently, there was some communication gap between the state authorities and the officers at 15 Corps HQ here.
Later on Wednesday, the Army could be seen staging a flag march along the road from Batamaloo to Dal Lake (gate) in the civil lines. Soldiers in machine gun-mounted vehicles also drove through various other localities of Srinagar, including the city centre Lal Chowk, Bemina and Qamarwari.
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‘Army help necessary’
Age Correspondent
New Delhi
July 7: While there was no official word on Wednesday’s Cabinet Committee for Security meeting, minister of state for defence M.M. Pallam Raju said the J&K government had requested Army assistance and that “it became necessary for the Army presence to be there and to do a flag march”. The minister said, “The Army steps in only when things go out of control” of the state administration.
He said the Army would have to step in “as long as it is necessary”, but the government would “like to make it as short as possible”. Mr Raju was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a seminar in New Delhi on Wednesday. The CCS felt a “maximum crackdo-wn” be carried out against miscreants, sources said.