Poll officials pelted with stones on eve of Srinagar byelection
SRINAGAR:A day before the bypolls in Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency, the security situation in Kashmir valley remained tense with a string of violent incidents reported on Saturday.
Violence erupted in Beerwah area of Kashmir’s central district of Budgam. Police officials said cops, on their way to poll duties, were targeted by stone pelters in Beerwah following which they had to lob tear gas shells to disperse the mob.
“There was no retaliation by our men. Nobody was injured in the incident,” said CRPF spokesman, Rajesh Yadav.
The election in Srinagar was called after the then PDP leader Tariq Hameed Karra resigned.
Authorities have deployed thousands of police and CRPF personnel across the capital to ensure the bypolls are peaceful. In Budgam on Friday, some people set ablaze a school building which was set to be a polling station for Sunday’s polls. The building suffered some damage.
There was also a blast near a polling booth in Srinagar’s Nawpora area in the afternoon. A police spokesman clarified that the very low intensity blast was due to the mishandling of a tear gas canister.
The Election Commission (EC) has designated all the 1,559 polling booths in Srinagar as “hypersensitive” or “sensitive”. Campaigning in the Valley has been a very low key affair owing to the anger of people against the government following the killing of over 90 people in the 2016 unrest, following the death of Hizbul Mujahidee commander Burhan Wani. NET SERVICES DOWN Internet services in three districts falling under the Srinagar constituency will be shut down from midnight as a precautionary measure to prevent floating of rumours by anti-national elements. Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal will have no Internet connections amid reports that Pakistan-based groups were engaged in spreading disinformation on the eve of polls.