J& K erupts as youth killed in Army firing

Irate crowds took to the streets in several parts of south Kashmir, the hot bed of militancy, after a local youth was killed in the security forces’ firing in restive Valley’s Pulwama district on Monday.

The witnesses said that clashes erupted in Pulwama’s Gusoo when the security forces laid siege to the village and its neighbourhood to flush out separatist militants dead or alive. A police spokesman said in summer capital Srinagar that the cordon- and- search operation was launched in several villages of Pulwama, including Gusoo, following reports about the presence of militants.

The witnesses said that the locals resisted the search operation and hurled rocks at Army vehicles at Gusoo. The troops who responded by using live ammunition injuring several persons, they said. The police sources said that the security forces used teargas and also pellet shotguns to quell “violent mobs” but “they continued to target the Army and other security forces with stones”.

Several people were injured in the security forces’ actions and one of them identified as Fayaz Ahmed Wani died in a Srinagar hospital later. The killing of the youth sparked off widespread protests in the area. The situation in Pulwama area is “very tense”, a senior police official said.

Earlier during the day, a Peoples’ Democratic Party ( PDP) worker Meraj Ahmed Parra had a narrow escape when suspected militants opened fire at him in Pulwama’s Naira village.