Scores injured in violent J&K clashes

It was not like any other day of ding-dong stone-pelting street battles but a complete revulsion and virtual insurrection by surging crowds who kept police and paramilitary forces on their toes and in action whole day on Friday in Srinagar and many other places in the curfew-bound Kashmir Valley.

Scores were injured in the clashes that only intensified after the Juma Namaz was offered in mohalla (locality) mosques. No weekly congregations were, however, allowed at major Muslim places of worship including Srinagar’s historic Jamia Masjid.

The injured included three boys in the 11-17 age group shot at by troops while containing a violence mob at Gushe in frontier Kupwara district. All the three — Irshad Ahmed Butt, Faisal Nazir and Irfan Nanha — have been shot in their legs and are “stable”, the doctors said.

Another youth, Owais Aziz, was injured when hit by a teargas canister and two more in pellet gun firing at Kuligam Lolab, reports said.

The police admitted that till 5 pm as many as 70 incidents of intense stone-pelting had been reported from different areas of the Valley and that a number of police and other security establishments and camps also came under mob attacks, leaving 48 personnel injured. It put the number of ‘non-lethal’ casualties among the protesters at 8. However, hospital sources said that the number is between 60 and 70 including three with bullet wounds.

The police also said that militants tossed a hand grenade towards J&K police and CRPF personnels deployed for law and order duty in southern Shopian town but it did not explode and was later defused by the bomb disposal squad. At Rohama in Rafiabad, the north-western Baramulla district, a mob torched a government building. In another act of arson, a sheep husbandry department building at Shirmal in Shopian was also gutted.

The police reported that miscreants had placed obstructions on Beerwa road near Hardapanzu (Baramulla district) to stop movement of traffic this evening.

“A motorcyclist identified as Abdul Ahad Ganie rammed into the obstruction, injuring him and his son Kamran, the pillion-rider. The motorcyclist succumbed to his injuries later,” it said.

The protests broke out early on Friday and intensified in the afternoon even as the authorities re-imposed curfew in most parts of the Valley at dawn to hold back a rally at Srinagar’s grand mosque.

Separatists had called for ‘Jamia Masjid Chalo’ and asked the people to converge in large numbers at the historic place of worship in the heart of central Srinagar for a memorial service for over 50 people killed in security forces’ firings and other actions in their attempts to quell the ongoing unrest in the Valley during the past three weeks.

Reports said that the security forces fired hundreds of teargas canisters and exploded scores of stun grenades to quell protests and stone-throwing mobs.

At places, pellet guns were also used. A stun grenade, also known as a flash grenade, flashbang or soundbomb, is a non-lethal explosive device used to temporarily disorient the protesters’ senses.

The stun grenade contains a mercury and magnesium powder which, upon detonation, creates a blinding flash equivalent to 300,000 candlepower.

The 160 decibels of sound produced by the grenade not only shocks and stuns, but is also loud enough to disrupt the balance function of anyone in range, causing severe dizziness.

But witnesses said that at several places each use of stun grenade would provoke ever-increasing stone-pelting attacks at the security forces from defiant youth. Also, ‘experts’ in the mobs, many of them wearing bandanas and three-hole balaclavas to hinder recognition, were seen quickly picking up the teargas canisters that would land in their midst and then throw them back at the men in khaki.

A senior police officer, when contacted by this correspondent in the evening to ask about the areas which had witnessed clashes, quipped, “Ask me which are the areas which are not witnessing protests and stone-pelting incidents at the moment. I’ve not seen this kind of mayhem on the streets before.”

Home minister Rajnath Singh had a telephonic conversation with chief minister Mehbooba Mufti in the afternoon during which the turbulent situation prevailing in the Valley is understood to have been discussed. Mr Singh spent the last weekend in the Valley for an on-the-spot assessment of the situation. He also held a series of meetings with top officials of the state administration, police, Central armed forces, army and intelligence agencies and separately closeted with leaders and representatives of various mainstream political parties excluding Congress which declined his invitation. The Valley’s key civil society groups and trade unions leaders also refused to meet him.

The Kashmir Valley is on the boil since July 8 when security forces in a joint operation killed Burhan Muzaffar Wani, a top commander of indigenous militant group, Hizb-ul-Mujahedin, along with his two associates in Kokernag area of southern Anantnag district.

The chief minister, Ms Mufti, said on Thursday that had the troops who killed the militants known beforehand that Burhan was among them “they may have given him a second chance.” She termed the killing of Burhan as a “coincidence.” She also said that since the situation on ground had improved considerably, giving a second chance to Burhan was an option in order to avoid the situation the Valley has been caught in as a result of his killing.

But the Congress and National Conference parties have ridiculed her statement terming it a political gimmick.

Small processions were underway in several parts of Srinagar at the time of filing this report. One protest was held outside the summer headquarters of the United Nations Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) at Sonwar earlier during the day but police used force to disperse it, witnesses said. Mosque loudspeakers continue to reverberate with pro-azadi slogans and rebellious songs. Police had on Thursday raided a few of these and confiscated the public addressed system.

Police officials said they had issued strict instructions to their men to exercise maximum restraint while dealing with the situation.

Key separatist leaders, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who were put under house arrest, defied the restrictions and came out of their homes to march to the Grand Mosque. But police stopped them and took them away. While being arrested, Mr. Geelani told reporters that the local police and ‘Indian forces’ were “committing a colossal crime” by preventing people from offering Friday prayers. He said, “Despite repression, our struggle will continue. Despondency and cowardice can never overcome us. Allah’s help is coming.”

In the evening, the octogenarian separatist leader distanced himself from the leaflets that are reportedly being distributed in south Kashmir areas in the name of his Tehrikh-e-Hurriyat party and which contain text against the ongoing Amarnath yatra. Blaming it on ‘Indian intelligence agencies,’ he said it was being done to “defame our ongoing freedom struggle.” He said, “Some masked people are moving in Islamabad (Anantnag) district on scooters and motor bikes without number plates and are distributing posters and pamphlets against the Amarnath yatries in the name of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat. I want to make it clear that it is the wicked planning of the government and the Indian agencies which we condemn in strongest words. We are neither against the yatries nor the tourists or any other Indian citizen and, in fact, they should come here and personally witness our freedom struggle so that they can tell their rulers back in India that you are fighting a lost war in Kashmir.”

Chief minister Ms Mufti had on Thursday accused the separatists of encouraging protesters and violence acts and said that the pastime is doing incalculable damage to the image of Jammu and Kashmir as also to its vital economic and social interests including tourism and education.

She, however, also said that a lasting solution ought to be found to the problems confronting the restive region in order to make peace a reality “not only here but in the entire South Asian region.”

She asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make a renewed effort towards the resolution of the problems in the state by engaging all the stakeholders in a process of dialogue and reconciliation and to use the Vajpayee doctrine for amicable way out. “I am sure the country’s political leadership will pick up the threads and carry forward the reconciliation and resolution process started by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003,” she said and insisted that there is an urgent need for taking concrete steps to win hearts and minds of the people of the state.

Meanwhile, the state cabinet, which met here on late Thursday evening with the chief minister in chair, ordered a massive reshuffle in the administration. Asgar Hassan Samoon, divisional commissioner (Kashmir) has been transferred and posted as the commissioner/secretary to the government in the higher education department. Baseer Ahmed Khan, secretary to the government in the cooperatives department, is the new divisional commissioner of Kashmir division. This is the highest position in the divisional administration and the area of jurisdiction is Kashmir Valley and Ladakh. Jammu region of the state has a separate divisional commissioner.

About thirty other senior IAS and KAS (Kashmir Administrative Service) officers and a few police officers were also shifted from their present postings.