The Kashmir Valley was shut again on Monday, this time to protest a recent judgment of the Jammu and Kashmir high court interpreting life imprisonment awarded to a separatist leader by a trial court on charge of murder earlier as “jail for life”. Shops and other businesses, educational institutions and most government offices remained closed in response to the strike call. Also, a strike by public transporters in support of their demand of fare hike pushed people indoors for the day.
However, private vehicles and some autorickshaws could be seen plying on roads in and outside Srinagar. The security across the Valley, particularly in Srinagar, had been beefed up further in view of the strike call. Stray incidents of stone-pelting on the police by protesting crowds were reported from Saraf Kadal and some other old Srinagar areas. The call for the strike had been issued by various separatist organisations describing the court ruling as “political vendetta”. Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani had even openly blamed chief minister Omar Abdullah for the court ruling.
The J&K high court had last week pronounced a judgment in the case of Ashique Hussein Faktoo, alias Dr Qasim, a former militant commander who presently heads Jammu and Kashmir Muslim League, “jail for life” and said that the convict will have to spend rest of his life in jail. Facktoo, who is husband of chief of all-women Dukhtaran-e-Millat (daughters of the faith) group Sayeda Aasiya Andrabi, was convicted of killing a pandit human rights activist H.N. Wanchoo in 1992.