Army opens fire after mob attack: 2 killed, 7 injured

Two persons, including a woman, were killed and seven others wounded wh-en the Army opened fire after allegedly being attacked with stones by an irate crowd at Qazigund, the gateway to Kashmir Valley from the south, on Monday evening. With these fatal injuries, the death toll in security forces’ firings and other actions during the days of turbulence in the Valley has risen to 43.

The J&K government, earlier during the day, said that as many as 2,125 people have been injured in the incidents of violence reported till 11 am on Monday. One policeman has also been killed and the CRPF and J&K police have said that over 1,550 of their men received injuries in mob violence.

Police sources here said that the troops of 9 Rashtriya Rifles were attacked by the protesters with stones at Churhat, Qazigund. The troops opened fire, killing a protester Showkat Ahmed, 25, and a 45-year-old passerby woman, Saida Begum, and wounding seven other civilians, three of them critically, the sources said. Qazigund, 73 km south of Srinagar, is the last town along the Sringar-Jammu highway within the Kashmir Valley.

A statement on the incident issued by the J&K police here said, “Today evening an Army mobile domination patrol party, while moving towards Devsar, tried to clear a road blockade erected by miscreants at Churhat. The Army party, while removing the obstructions, came under heavy stone pelting by the miscreants from two sides. It warned the mob to maintain distance but it did not relent.”

“Some miscreants tried to snatch weapons from them and tried to set ablaze the vehicles. Despite repeated warnings, the mob did not disperse and Army personnel fired in self-defence in an effort to move out from the spot. Six persons were injured and two of them later succumbed to their injuries,” the statement added,

A report from Pulwama district, also in south of the Valley, said that five protesters were injured in pellet gun fire by the police during a protest in the area. The police said that “stray incidents of stone-pelting” were also reported from some other places.

Hajin in Bandipora, Gogloosa Payeen in Kupwara, Kondbal, Mansbal in Ganderbal, Batamaloo in Srinagar and Khrew in Pulwara district.

“A few persons and J&K police and CRPF personnel were injured in these incidents. A base camp store of potato seeds at Wouhlutra, Rafiaabad (Baramulla district), belonging to J&K agriculture department, was set on fire by miscreants,” the statement issued by the police here said.