On yet another bloody Friday, at least four persons were killed and over a dozen others injured when the CRPF and state police opened fire on rock-throwing separatist mobs across the Kashmir Valley, in one case after an argument over whether curfew was in force in the area or not.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah, reportedly extremely upset, cancelled a meeting of the Unified Headquarters scheduled to be held here later to review the law and order situation. “He has conveyed his displeasure to concerned quarters,” an aide said. However in the evening, a J&K government spokesperson said the Unified Headquarters meeting was “postponed” by the chief minister “because of the engagement of senior police and paramilitary officers in law and order duties in the field”. He added the meeting will be held on Saturday.
The day began with the killing of 23-year-old Muddasir Ahmed Zargar and injuries to a woman resident, Jana Begum, 60, at Trehgam in Kupwara district in CRPF firing. Reports said local residents were confronted by the CRPF on coming out of a mosque after dawn prayers, claiming curfew was in force. The residents said they had no knowledge of it as no official announcement had been made. This led to an argument, following which the CRPF men opened fire.
At Pattan, a township along the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road, 62 year-old Ali Muhammad Khanday was critically injured and later died in a Srinagar hospital when the CRPF fired to break up demonstrations held in response to a call by Syed Ali Shah Geelani. A teenaged girl also sustained a bullet injury in the firing, reports received here said.
After the Friday prayers, the protests extended to new areas and gained momentum after word of the Pattan and Trehgam killings spread. In Sopore, 48 km northwest of here, the CRPF and police swung bamboo sticks and fired teargas canisters to quell protests which soon turned violent. The securitymen were soon forced to open fire, killing two youths on the spot and injuring two others. The slain youths were identified as Arif Ahmad Mir and Sameer Lone.
Mr Geelani, who was moved to the ICU of the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences earlier Friday, made an appeal asking people to observe a total shutdown and hold demonstrations on Saturday to mourn the “latest massacre”.
CRPF and police officials said firing was resorted to after mobs repeatedly attacked their camps and personnel, injuring 31 securitymen, and after use of teargas and baton charges failed to disperse the rock-throwing mobs.
With these killing, the death toll in the past two weeks has gone up to 37 (55 since June 11).
Thousands marched towards Srinagar’s Grand Mosque on Friday to attend the weekly prayers after finding curfew or other security restrictions were not in force in the city. This was the first time in two months that Friday prayers could be attended at the historic mosque. Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric and chairman of his faction of the Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, also joined the prayers after the police lifted the cordon around his house at Nagin. The Mirwaiz urged Mr Geelani to exempt Fridays from strikes and protests so that the authorities had no excuse to impose curfew.
A police spokesperson said curfew and restrictions in most of the Valley, including Srinagar, Pulwama, Anantnag, Shopian, Kulgam, Budgam and Bandipora were lifted for congregational prayers on the first Friday of Ramzan. “People at many places held huge religious congregations in North, South and Central Kashmir, at all mosques across the Valley. Peaceful protests were also held at a number of places. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq took out a peaceful procession in downtown Srinagar, which dispersed peacefully,” the spokesperson said.
He, however, regretted that at some places groups of people turned violent and resorted to heavy stone-pelting and also attacked a CRPF camp at Bomie in Sopore, the Nowhatta police station in Srinagar and security force patrols at Trehgam and Pattan. At Pattan, “miscreants” also violated curfew and indulged in heavy pelting on the police and security forces, he said.