At least two more persons — including a nine-year-old boy — were killed when the CRPF opened fire to quell protesters and stone-throwing mobs at two different places outside Sopore town on Monday, raising the death toll in the past three weeks to eight.
The Kashmir Valley witnessed widespread protests in which irate mobs attacked a police station, several police and paramilitary vehicles and those carrying government staff returning home from the civil secretariat here.
Around 150 people, including 31 policemen and CRPF personnel, were injured in day-long street battles at half a dozen places in Srinagar and the towns of Sopore, Baramulla, Pattan, Kupwara, Handwara, Anantnag, Ganderbal, Bijbehara and at several places along the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road, police and hospital sources said. The injured policemen included Handwara SSP Rafiq Ahmed Vakil, who was hit by a flying stone.
The situation on the ground was closely reminiscent of the blood-spattered agitation seen over the Amarnath shrine land row in the summer of 2008, when nearly 60 people died in police firing and clashes.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah discussed the escalating violence at a Cabinet meeting in the evening. PTI reported that state public engineering minister Taj Mohiuddin of the Congress said Monday night that the help of the Army might be sought to defuse the tense situation in Sopore and Baramulla if circumstances so warranted.