Mayhem continues in Valley, 2 more killed
Toll rises to 35, stray and intermittent incidents of stone- pelting reported from various areas, say police
The Kashmir Valley on Wednesday witnessed another day of mayhem as two more persons were killed and dozens injured in security forces’ firings and beatings even as chief minister Mehbooba Mufti made a fervent appeal to the people for peace, and sought their help and cooperation towards restoring normalcy in the state.
Police sources said that one person, identified as Hilal Ahmed Sofi, was critically injured in firing on a mob which attacked a police party at Harnag in the southern Ananatnag district on Wednesday afternoon. The police party was returning from the district headquarters when their vehicle was targeted with stones by youth, the sources said. However, the locals have alleged that no protest as such was going on in the area.
Another youth Mushtaq Ahmed, who was earlier wounded in security forces’ firing at Kaimoh in south Kashmir, succumbed in hospital on Wednesday morning. With these two fatalities, the death toll in five days of turbulence has risen to 35, including a policeman. All but one civilian death have been caused by security forces’ firings on protesters and stone- throwing mobs.
The J& K police in a statement here said that “stray and intermittent” incidents of stone pelting were reported from various areas of Kulgam, Pulwama, Baramulla, Shopian and Kupwara districts, but did not say if these evoked any armed response from the security forces or not. The statement was also silent on latest casualties. It, however, said that militants opened fire at the vehicle of a police officer at Zainapora in Shopian when
he was on the way to neighbouring Imam Sahib along with “law and order deployment”.
“There was no loss of life or injuries in this incident,” the statement added.
The Kashmir Valley erupted following the killing of Burhan Muzaffar Wani, the new- age poster boy of militancy in Kashmir, by security forces on July 8. More than 1,500 people have been injured, 400 of them receiving bullet or pellet injuries above their waist line. Officials said that one policeman has been killed and over 150 injured in mob violence which also left many police stations and posts and other infrastructure damaged.
On Wednesday, the police arrested two senior separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq as they tried to leave their besieged respective residences in Srinagar in attempts to relocate to Mazaar-e- Shohda or martyrs’ cemetery in the heart of the summer capital to pay homage to the 1931 martyrs. All separatist leaders and prominent activists of various pro- azadi organisations were placed under house arrest or “preventive custody” by police soon after the killing of Wani.