After remaining indoors for around 76 hours, people across the Kashmir Valley made a beeline to mosques and other places of worship on Friday evening for congregational prayers to mark Meraj al-Aalam. Earlier, Union home secretary G.K. Pillai went on television to announce curfew had been lifted from Friday evening, and that the relaxation would continue till Saturday evening.
[A report from Baramulla said one person was injured when the police fired on a stone-throwing mob Friday afternoon. At Kakapora, 20 persons were injured in police firing and mob violence.]
At some places in Srinagar, however, the police and CRPF men stopped people from leaving their homes, saying they had not been told curfew was relaxed. At Batamaloo, a Srinagar suburb, curfew was reimposed after protests.
The police made fresh arrests as part of the crackdown against troublemakers and mischief-mongers. Among those held since Thursday afternoon were Shabir Ahmed Wani, district chief of the Hurriyat Conference (Geelani), and his acquaintance Gulam Muhammad Dar. Home ministry sources said they intercepted phone conversations in Kashmiri between the duo, which was interpreted as their talking of money being exchanged and Wani saying: “There must be more deaths... 10-15 more people must be martyred.” But critics and Kashmiri language experts claimed the conversation was wrongly translated.
In New Delhi, intelligence sources said Wani’s interrogation had revealed some Kashmiri separatist leaders were in direct touch with top officials of Pakistan’s ISI and were acting on the latter’s direct instructions. Wani also said the ISI and militant outfits were provinding funds to whip up mass agitations against the state government and the Central security forces, the sources added.