Even as curfew remained in force in Srinagar and southern towns of Anantnag and Pampore and a security lockdown was being imposed in rest of the Valley, the authorities on Saturday restored postpaid m
Even as curfew remained in force in Srinagar and southern towns of Anantnag and Pampore and a security lockdown was being imposed in rest of the Valley, the authorities on Saturday restored postpaid mobile telephone services in Kashmir where 66 civilians and two policemen are killed during the six-week old unrest.
In fresh clashes between pro-aazadi crowds and security forces, about 20 people were injured. These included a 7-year-old boy, Junaid, who was allegedly targeted by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) with pellet-gun in Srinagar’s Qalamdan Pora locality, setting off protests in the area.
Police said the boy was injured in a clash between a stone-throwing mob and the security forces, but the residents claimed no protest or clash was held in the area when Junaid received pellet injuries in the chest.
In Kamla village of Tral area in southern Pulwama, an octogenarian resident Abdul Qayyum Falahi and his wife Nazeera Begum were injured in the pellet-gun firing. The couple alleged that members of local police counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and the CRPF raided their house late Friday night to arrest their son, Shabir Ahmed Falahi, an activist of rightwing Jamaat-e-Islami.
Since he was not present, they took his brother Noor Muhammad with them. When his parents resisted, they were allegedly thrashed and shot at.
Police confirmed the elderly couple received the pellet injuries but claimed that the gun of a cop went off accidentally in the melee. The senior Falahi was shifted to Srinagar’s SMHS Hospital for treatment, while his wife, who is hit on her arm, is being treated at a hospital in Tral.
Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti met governor N.N. Vohra at the Raj Bhavan on Saturday to discuss the overall security situation in the Valley. “In an hour long meeting, the governor and the CM discussed various important matters related to the urgent restoration of peace and normalcy in the state,” an official release stated.
The police said that five incidents of stone pelting had been reported from Anantnag, Baramulla and Sopore till evening. “Apart from these incidents, the situation remained under control across the Valley till the last reports came in,” a statement issued by it said. The officials said that curfew and security restrictions remained in force in view of the separatists’ call for “Aazadi march” to district headquarters as part of their protest schedule.
The mobile telephone services across all networks were restored around 11 am. However, outgoing call facility on pre-paid phones have not been restored yet. The mobile phone services were snapped on the second occasion in past four weeks on August 13 as part of security drill ahead of Independence Day celebrations as well as to hold back separatist plans of holding ‘referendum rally’ in Srinagar’s city centre Lal Chowk.
Scores of patients and drivers staged a protest sit-in outside the Old Secretariat in Srinagar after police stopped the ambulances ferrying patients between hospitals on Saturday. The patients said that policemen manning the road outside the Old Secretariat stopped the ambulances and started harassing the patients. Earlier on Thursday evening an ambulance driver Ghulam Muhammad Sofi was shot at by a CRPF sub-inspector P.S. Yadav in Srinagar’s Safa Kadal locality. The CRPF later placed the SI under suspension and ordered inquiry into his conduct, the force spokesman Rajesh Yadav said.
Reports pouring in here from across the Valley said that the security forces have continued raids in houses to arrest youth allegedly involved in stone-pelting incidents or have been in the forefront of pro-aazadi protests. The locals of Anantnag, Dooru Shahabad, Seer Hamadan, Kulgam, Pulwama, Shopian, Bandipore, Sopore and Baramulla areas accused the security forces of damaging private properties, ransacking houses and thrashing inmates.
Police also raided the headquarters of Mirwaiz Umar –Hurriyat Conference in Srinagar’s Raj Bagh area for the second time in past one week. The separatist amalgam alleged that the staff members were harassed and the office ransacked and the communication systems disconnected by the raiding party.
Meanwhile, the transport organisations have stopped carrying essential commodities to various places in Jammu and Kashmir from within and neighbiuring Punjab and elsewhere in the country saying their trucks have come under attacks in the Valley. Announcing to go on indefinite strike in entire J&K, the president of All Jammu and Kashmir Truck Drivers and Conductors Union, Kharudin Wani, said that no such supplies would be ferried to any part of the State. The All Jammu and Kashmir Oil Tankers Association too has decided to call for an indefinite strike, stating that 14 oil tankers were attacked and damaged in Kashmir. The Transport association has also decided to stop supply to the security establishments in Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh regions.
