J&K POLICE, STUDENTS CLASH LEAVES 50 HURT Jawans booked for human shield

Man was tied to Army jeep, paraded

Srinagar, April 17: Police have registered a case against unnamed Army personnel in the incident of allegedly using a civilian as a human shield against stone-pelters during the polling in Beerwah area of the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency.

The FIR was registered at Beerwah police station on Sunday, two days after a video showing a man being tied to an Army jeep as a shield against stone-pelters during the April 9 bypoll to the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency surfaced, drawing widespread condemnation and anger.

A police officer said the FIR has been registered under sections 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) and 367 (kidnapping or abducting in order to subject person to grievous hurt) of the Ranbir Penal Code.

The investigation of the case has been handed over to an officer of the Deputy Superintendent rank, he told reporters.

In the video that surfaced on April 14, Farooq Ahmad Dar from Khansahib in Budgam district is seen strapped to the front of a moving Army jeep.

A soldier can be heard saying, “This will be the fate of people who throw stones.” Dozens were injured on Monday in intense clashes between irate groups of students and the security forces in different towns of Kashmir including summer capital Srinagar. Amid heightened tensions, the mobile Internet services have again been suspended in the Valley.

Following the daylong clashes, the authorities ordered closure of schools, colleges and other educational institutions and all university and other examinations scheduled for Tuesday have been postponed.

The clashes erupted soon after the students took to the streets at these places to protest against “brutal use of force” against their comrades in and outside the government-run Degree College in southern Pulwama town on Saturday.

Sources said that more than fifty students had been injured in the teargas and shotgun pellet use by the security forces against the male and female students who were protesting against the police’s establishing a naka outside the campus.