Partial strike in Kashmir on Afzal Guru anniversary
A partial to complete strike to commemorate the eighth death anniversary o f Parliament attack convict Muhammad Afzal Guru closed marketplaces and disrupted transport services in many parts of the Kashmir Valley on Tuesday. Guru was hanged in New Delhi’s Tihar jail on February 9, 2013.
The call for Tuesday’s strike was issued on behalf of laid up Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani by his Pakistanbased representative Abdullah Gilani and the same was circulated through social media earlier.
While life was brought to a standstill in Srinagar’s central quarter of Lal Chowk, its neighbourhood, the old city and a few other parts of the Valley including Guru’s native Sopore area, only a partial shutdown was observed or normal life was largely not affected elsewhere. The strike found no takers in Jammu or Ladakh regions either. The security across the Valley was tightened further ahead of the Guru anniversary.
The authorities said that the Jammu and Kashmir police and Central armed police forces will remain in a state of high alert for two more days as the death anniversary of Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Front (JKNLF) cofounder Muhammad Maqbool Butt falls on Thursday.
Butt charged with murder of an Indian intelligence officer Amar Chand in Bomai area of Sopore way back in mid-1960s was also executed in Delhi Tihar jail on February 11, 1984 and like Guru his mortal remains were buried inside the prison premises.