Mobs erupt, hold protests
Violence continued in Kashmir Valley as three more youth were killed and four others badly hurt in CRPF firing in the on Tuesday. Crowds chanting pro-freedom slogans continued to pour out on the streets and at places fought pitched battles with the police and the CRPF. Already, Army columns were deployed at sensitive locations in
Baramulla whereas the troops staged a flag march in curfew-bound localities of the town, 58-km northwest of here, where a 9-year-old boy was killed in the police firing on Monday. Despite the restrictions, irate mobs staged protests and clashed with the police and CRPF at a few places, reports said.
A mob attacked a contingent of the CRPF while having lunch on roadside green. The policemen seeing a huge crowd walking towards them chose to withdraw leaving behind their lunch and some utensils and clothes which were later thrown into river Jhelum by the protesters, witnesses said.
In Anantnag, a huge crowd gathered at Mattan Chowk, the town’s central square, early in the morning to protest over the spate of killings in Sopore, Baramulla and Srinagar. Riot police swung bamboo sticks and fired teargas canisters to break up the demonstration. Meanwhile, a CRPF vehicle virtually rammed into the crowd and the men onboard opened fire wounding a 13-year-old boy Muhammad Arshad who was sitting on the pavement of a nearby closed Dhaba at which he works, said the witnesses. But the CRPF officials claimed that the policemen came under heavy stone-pelting from a mob and the fire was opened in self defence.
With the word about the incidents spreading, the town witnessed widespread protests. While chasing a stone-throwing mob into the Sher-i-Kashmir Colony at Lazbal along the Anantnag-Pahalgam road, the CRPF men allegedly opened indiscriminate fire killing two youth Ishtiaq Ahmed Khanday and Imtiyaz Ahmed Itoo and wounding four others. One of the injured persons later died in a hospital. He has been identified as Shuja’at Ahmed. The killings set off fresh mob violence in the area.
Tensions are simmering across the Valley after days of violence.
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