Police and CRPF personnel in large numbers were fanned out in Srinagar overnight to enforce a security clampdown, a somewhat time-tested manoeuvre by the local authorities aimed at steering clear of a face-off in open with the separatist leadership and its supporters.
While most parts of central Srinagar were sealed by laying Concertina barbed wire and placing “bunker” vehicles across the roads leading into the area, a shutdown called by various separatist parties brought live to a standstill in rest of the summer capital and elsewhere in the Kashmir Valley on Saturday.
The urgency was Kashmir Martyrs’ Day and the separatist leaders’ public pledge to walk at the head of processions up to the martyrs’ cemetery at Khawaja Bazaar in the heart of central Srinagar to pay homage to the martyrs of 1931. Apart from strict security restrictions enforced in some quarters of Srinagar, almost all key separatist leaders were placed under house arrest or were taken into preventive custody by the police ahead of the occasion. Some others were on Saturday arrested as they, along with small groups of supporters, attempted to march towards the Mazaar-e-Shohda, or martyrs’ cemetery.
Some local watchers said forcing residents to stay indoors could be also a ploy to facilitate a hassle-free visit to Mazaar-e-Shohda by chief minister Omar Abdullah and various other mainstream leaders, including Opposition PDP patron Mufti Muhammad Sayeed. They offered floral tributes and said fateha prayer to the martyrs of 1931 while a contingent of the Jammu and Kashmir police presented the “guard of honour”.
However, the authorities said restrictions under Section 144 of the CrPC were enforced in a few Old Srinagar areas in order to avoid breach of peace and ensure safety of citizens’ lives and property.
On July 13, 1931, as many as 22 Kashmiri Muslims were killed when the autocratic Dogra Maharaja Hari Singh’s troops opened fire on a group of people which had gathered outside the Srinagar central prison where an in-camera trial of Abdul Qadeer Khan, a non-local chef with an English visitor, was underway. Khan had been charged with sedition.
and instigating people for violence after he made fiery speeches against the Maharaja’s “oppressive” rule at a Friday congregation and while pointing towards his palace, asked people to raze it “brick by brick”. The bloody incident heralded the Kashmiris’ struggle against autocracy and denial of civil liberties and since July 13, is observed as Martyrs’ Day in both parts of the divided state as well as by Kashmiri expatriates elsewhere. July 13 is an official holiday in Jammu and Kashmir as well as PoK.