6 dead as Kashmir boils over after killing of militant Burhan Wani

Authorities fanned out thousands of policemen in riot gear overnight to enforce the security lockdown in parts of state.

: At least six people have reportedly been killed and scores injured as several areas in the Kashmir Valley erupted on Saturday, a day after new-age poster boy of militancy Burhan Muzaffar Wani was killed by security forces along with two associates in a gun battle in southern Anantnag district.

But the police has not confirmed any deaths so far.

Violent clashes have been reported between surging crowds and security forces in various areas. Anantnag with neighbouring Kulgam and Pulwama districts are witnessing worst street clashes and incidents of stone-pelting, police sources said.

Burhan Wani (right), who was killed by security forces in Kashmir on Friday (AP Photo)

Reports pouring in from various parts of the Valley said that a youth was killed in firing at Kolpora, Koimoh in southern Kulgam district. Identified as Zubair Ahmed Khanday, the youth had sustained multiple bullet injuries in thoracic region, doctors at a local hospital said. The protesters had attacked police and a CRPF camp in the area overnight, reports said.

CRPF personnel snatched the corpse of one of the youth slain in alleged police firing on protestors, before loading it into an army vehicle.

Another person identified by locals as Aadil Bashir was killed in security forces’ firing at Dooru area of neighbouring Anantnag district. Firing on protesting youth have been reported also from Silgam, Seer, also in Anantnag, leaving, at least three persons wounded, one of them critically, reports said. Two more youth are reported to have died elsewhere, one of them due to drowning in a river while being chased by security forces during the clash.

A mob is reported to have torched a police station in Achabal area of Anantnag. The BJP office in Kulgam and several police posts and deployments have come under attack in various parts of Kulgam and Anantnag districts and in northern district of Bandipore and at Warpora in Sopore township of Baramulla district.

A police picket guarding a cluster of houses of Kashmiri Pandits at Vessu near Qazigund, the gateway to the Valley from the south, also came under attack by a mob but without causing any casualties, police sources said.

Elsewhere, the irate crowds have indulged in heavy stone pelting on police and CRPF after they came in their way. Clashes were underway at Sheeri, Kreeri, Delina, Pattan and Palhalan in Baramulla district and several areas of Pulwama and Srinagar districts as reports last came in.

Some of the critically injured in police and CRPF firing and in stone-pelting incidents have been identified as Farooq Ahmed Rather, Zahid Ahmed Butt, Aaquib Hassan Parray and Manzoor Ahmed Wani-all in early twenties. Seventeen injured persons have been admitted to Srinagar’s government-run SMHS hospital, doctors attending on them said.

Major parts of summer capital Srinagar and several other major towns in the predominantly Muslims Valley were earlier on Saturday placed under curfew or locked down to hold back mourning rallies following the killing of Wani.

Wani, 22, was along with two of his aides Sartaj Ahmed Sheikh and Masoom Ahmed Shah killed in a fierce two-and-a-half-hours long encounter with security forces in Kokernag area of southern Anantnag district on Friday. He was carrying a cash reward of Rs 1 million on his head.

Amid heightening tensions, the authorities fanned out thousands of policemen in riot gear overnight to enforce the security lockdown in parts of Srinagar, Pulwama, Tral, Anantnag, Kulgam, Sopore, Shopian and some other towns, whereas security has been beefed up further elsewhere in the Valley. Most separatist leaders have been placed under house arrest or detained in police stations to prevent them from joining the planned mourning rallies.

The Amarnath Yatra has been suspended and no pilgrim was on Saturday allowed to move from winter capital Jammu towards the Valley to relocate to the 12,729-foot-high cave-shrine tucked away in Pahalgam hills. Those who returned to the base-camps of Baltal and Nunwun (Pahalgam) after paying obeisance at Amarnath on Saturday morning or will do it later during the day are likely to be escorted out of the Valley during the night time, police sources said.

As many 12,500 personnel from CRPF and other central forces and another 8,000 men from the J&K police besides columns of Army are providing security cover to the 48-day annual pilgrimage which commenced on July 2. Till Friday evening, 103,063 pilgrims had visited the cave-shrine.

The authorities have also suspended the Internet services on mobile phones and through dongles “as a precautionary measure”. Earlier many people took to the social networking sites to mourn Wani’s death. Many replaced their profile pictures with that of Wani on Facebook and Twitter.com to pay tribute to the slain militant commander.

Former Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter.com “Aftr many yrs I hear slogans for "Azadi" resonate from the mosque in my uptown Srinagar locality. Kashmir's disaffected got a new icon y'day”. In another tweet, he said, “Mark my words - Burhan's ability to recruit in to militancy from the grave will far outstrip anything he could have done on social media.”

Funeral procession of top militant commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani at Shareef village in Tral some 40 kilometers south of Srinagar. (Photo: Habib Naqash)

Train services between Baramulla in northwest Kashmir and Banihal town across the Pirpanjal mountain ridge in Jammu division have also been suspended. Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education (JKBOSE), Kashmir University and Central University, Kashmir have postponed all examinations scheduled for Saturday.

In Srinagar strict restrictions under Section 144 are being enforced in areas falling under police stations of Nowhatta, Khanyar, Rainawari, M.R. Gunj, Safakadal, Maisuma and Kralkhud. Elsewhere, a complete shutdown is being observed to mourn Wani’s killing. Late Friday night, thousands of mourners turned up at Srinagar’s historic Jamia Masjid to offer Nimaz-e-Jinaza Gaibana or prayers in absentia for Wani and his associates. A report from Tral, his native town, said that thousands of mourners carried the body of Wani through the streets of the town before the funeral. In Srinagar, clashes have erupted between irate crowds of youth and security forces who fired teargas canisters into stone-throwing mobs at places, witnesses said.

One could hear deafening sound of exploding teargas canisters and stun grenades. Mosque loudspeakers were blaring 'Tresh ma lajji Burhano' (Burhan, you may be feeling thirsty). This was reminiscent of early 1990s.

Key separatist leaders including Mirwaiz Muhammad Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik were placed under house arrest or detained at police stations to prevent them from relocating to Tral to attend the funeral of Wani or join the ‘prayers in absentia’ announced to be held in Srinagar and elsewhere in the Valley on Saturday.

The security forces’ officials termed Wani’s killing a “spectacular” win over the separatist militants in the Himalayan state and said that the same will have a demoralising impact on them. But octogenarian separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani who has called for a one day shutdown in Kashmir to mourn and protest against Wani’s killing said “the iconic mujahid’s martyrdom will give impetus to the push for azadi”. Mr. Geelani who has been facing curbs on his movement for the last few months also announced three-day mourning in Kashmir and said “Every household will pay tributes to the Kashmiri brave-hearts for three days.” Rightwing all-women Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of the Faith) has, however, called for a three days strike in Kashmir from Saturday.

(Photo: Habib Naqash)

Wani, the Internet savvy poster boy of Kashmiri militancy, was a resident of Dadsara village of south Kashmir’s Tral area (Pulwama district) who days before he was to appear in his Class X examination left his home in 2010 to join the region’s frontline indigenous militant outfit Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. He soon rose to become its district commander and figured in the list of most wanted militants by the security forces combating a 27-year-old insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir which has already claimed thousands of lives including militants, security forces’ personal and unarmed civilians.

Wani’s father Muzaffar Ahmed Wani is a school principal who said in a recent interview, “He is on a pious path and we are proud of him." Khalid, his elder son also was a militant who was shot dead by security forces in woods of Tral on April 13, 2015. The security forces had claimed that he was shot down in an “encounter” while trying to meet his brother Burhan.

Officials said that Burhan Wani and his associates were killed in a swift joint operation launched by the members of J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) from Srinagar and Anantnag and troops from Army’s 19 Rashtriya Rifles at Bamdoora, a remote village of Kokernag area.

One of the two other slain men Sartaj Ahmed Sheikh had after remaining active as a militant surrendered before security forces few years ago. But after his release from jail in 2014, he was recycled into militancy and joined the Hizb and was since closely working with Wani, police sources said.

Sources said that as the security forces after launching the operation on the basis of intelligence inputs and information gathered through the Internet zeroed in on a private house at Bamdoora being used by Wani and his associates as a makeshift hideout, Sartaj tossed a hand grenade at them but was quickly killed in their retaliatory fire.

A fierce encounter ensured between the remaining holed up militants and the SOG men who eventually used explosives and two landmines to blast the house resulting into the killing of the duo, the sources said. The third militant killed in the encounter identified as Masoom Ahmed Shah was a resident of Sri Gufwara in Anantnag.

The officials said that it was a “swift and clean” operation as the raiding party knew the exact location of the house on the Karkipora-Kokernag Road in which the militant commander and his associates were hiding. The house, they said, is owned by one Ghulam Muhammad Sheikh, maternal uncle of Sartaj. The operation was launched at 4.30 pm and was over by 7 pm on Friday, they added.

Burhan Wani would often turn to social media sites including Facebook with his statements, videos and photographs of the activities of the militant group he was heading. His last video surfaced in June this year in which he insisted that Kashmiri militants have no plan or intention to target Amarnath yatra but would definitely continue to attack local policemen as they are seen by them as ‘collaborators’ in Indian ‘occupation’.

The assurance not to disrupt the annual pilgrimage and the threat to continue to target Jammu and Kashmir police personnel came amid a series of deadly attacks on policemen in the Valley. He claimed that the Hizb had no option but to target the policemen as they were supporting the “Indian occupation” of the State.

In such displays on the Internet, Wani and his associates would often be seen in combat dresses and carrying automatic weapons but in the 6 minute 17 second video released on June 6 he was wearing a white T-Shirt and was sitting in a chair against white back ground. In his speech, he also threatened to target the clusters for Kashmiri Pandits and separate residential area –Sainik Colony-for serving and former soldiers and officer of the Army if and when these are set up in the Valley.

He had said, “If Sainik Colony or separate colonies on Israel pattern for Hindus are created in Kashmir we will target them”. He, however, also said, “Pandits can come here and live in their respective places.” He also cautions media saying it should desist from calling militants as terrorists. “We are not terrorists. This land is ours. Kashmir is ours. We are not terrorists but it is the Army that are terrorists.”