Angry crowds made repeated attempts to force their way into the house of Jammu and Kashmir minister for education and senior Congress leader Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed and to set it on fire at Damhal Khushipora, in the Kokernag area of southern Anantnag district, on Sunday when parts of the Kashmir Valley erupted again inspite of curfew at many places, including Srinagar.
The police said violent mobs resorted to heavy stone-pelting at the minister’s residence at which the security guards and police reinforcements rushed in and fired teargas canisters and swung bamboo sticks to chase them away. The police also fired several rounds in the air to control the situation. However, reports from the area said the security forces opened fire into the mob as it tried to storm the house of the minister, injuring some protesters, one of them identified as Salim Ahmed Malik, critically.
The minister, who had gone to his native place to celebrate Id and was present in the house along with his family, escaped unhurt. “A police party has evacuated the minister to safety and no one from his family was hurt in the incident although the house was damaged in the mob attack,” officials said. Mr Sayeed is a former J&K PCC chief and his family house had come under similar attack during the ongoing unrest in the Valley. At that time he was at his official residence in Srinagar.
On Sunday, a day after Id prayers were turned into massive freedom protests in the Kashmir Valley followed by arson and violence, the authorities imposed indefinite curfew in Srinagar and six other towns of the restive region from dawn Sunday.
Thousands of policemen and CRPF jawans in full riot gear were once again out on the streets here and in the towns of Baramulla, Sopore, Anantnag, Bijbehara, Pulwama and Kakapora to enforce curfew. Even doctors were not being allowed to relocate to hospitals and mediapersons too faced curbs as the policemen refused to entertain curfew passes issued to them by district magistrates. Sheikh Imran Bashir, a reporter with a local news agency, alleged he was thrashed by the CRPF at Lal Bazaar here.
Officials said curfew-defying crowds clashed with security forces at about a dozen places in and outside Srinagar, injuring over 50 people, including a DSP and four Army jawans.
A youth among those injured in police firing last week on protesting crowds and rock-throwing mobs at Palhalan, 28 km northwest of here, died in a Srinagar hospital on Sunday, raising the toll in this shooting incident to five and to 70 in the many weeks of unrest in the Valley.
In Srinagar, Sopore and Baramulla pro-freedom protests were held and clashes between rock-throwing crowds and security personnel occurred in half a dozen other towns, including Bandipore, Awantipore, Pampore, Kunzar and Beeru, whereas “miscreants” torched a government middle school building in the frontier district of Kupwara. The CRPF was accused of barging into residential houses and damaging properties besides thrashing civilians at a number of places, including at Basant Bagh in Srinagar and Botapora in Baramulla district.
A police handout issued here said “miscreants” hurled rocks at a police post at Pothkhak-Sopore whereas a mob attacked a CRPF contingent with stones at Boatmen’s Colony in Srinagar’s Bemina area. At both these places the police used force to chase away the crowds.
Eight policemen were injured when miscreants resorted to heavy stone-pelting at Azad Gunj, Baramulla town, where a CRPF bunker vehicle was also attacked with a petrol bomb, causing minor damage to it. In a similar incident at Lethpora, along the Srinagar-Jammu highway, a mob resorted to heavy stone-throwing on the security forces and made repeated attempts to attack the area Police Lines. The police fired live ammunition to disperse the crowds. Twenty-one persons, including a DSP, three CRPF jawans and a local policeman, were injured. The condition of one injured protester was stated to be critical.
Witnesses said angry crowds also hurled rocks at an Army convoy passing through the area. The troops retaliated with force and in the clash several persons, including four jawans, were injured. At nearby Drangbal, Pampore, protesters attacked security forces with rocks and similar clashes were reported from Srinagar’s Soura, Gowkadal and Illahi Bagh-Malla Bagh areas and other localities, leaving an unspecified number of people injured
Locals alleged that security forces barged into nearby residential houses and damaged household items, triggering protests. The J&K Congress chief, Prof. Saifuddin Soz, had to take a helicopter into Srinagar from Awantipore airport to avoid a confrontation with the protesters.
A police spokesperson here said that following Saturday’s violent incidents across the Valley, a strict curfew had to be enforced in Srinagar and in the towns of Anantnag, Bijbehara, Pulwama, Sopore and Baramulla.