The Kashmir Valley was shut Monday as protests by angry crowds over Sunday’s killing of two youth by troops spread to new areas, mainly the northern district of Bandipore. Thousands of police and CRPF personnel fanned out to enforce a security clampdown in Bandipore town and neighbouring areas, while scores were injured in renewed street clashes between crowds and the police. A mob also attacked an Army “goodwill” school and made a vain attempt to set it on fire.
A suspected militant and a policeman were killed and two CRPF jawans injured in an encounter at Madoora in the southern Tral area. Fighting was under way as reports last came in, officials said.
The local police has registered a case of murder against unnamed Army jawans and begun investigations on its own, separate from the Army’s probe into Sunday’s killing of two youths Tariq Ahmad Laharwal and Irfan Ahmad Ganaie Dar. A spokesman of the Omar Abdullah government, calling the incident “most unfortunate and unacceptable”, said state DGP Ashok Prasad had been asked to expedite the investigations.
During Monday’s protests, a mob tried to torch an Army “goodwill” school at Hajan, near Bandipore, but the police and fire services rushed there to douse the flames. Only minor damage was caused to the building, reports said. The police said the mob threw a bottle of petrol inside the school that caused a small fire, which was doused immediately.
An angry chief minister Omar Abdullah, voicing grief over the “eminently avoidable and needless” killings, said these negated the Centre’s attempts to “bridge the emotional distance” between Kashmir and the rest of the country. Saying his “heart bleeds” for the bereaved families, the CM said in a statement: “The deaths of two youngsters at the peak of their lives — and with so much to look forward to — are tragic. They lengthen the symbolic shortening of the emotional distance, made possible by the railway tunnel, between Kashmiris and the country.”
Mr Abdullah said he didn’t have words to express his “grief and outrage over this gruesome incident that was eminently avoidable and needless”. He added: “If I could bring back Tariq and Irfan, I would leave no stone unturned, but alas no human being has that power.”
The chief minister went on: “My words are not meant as rhetoric to heal wounds that will never get healed, but are an attempt to shoulder and bear the grief of bereaved families and console them. The unwarranted deaths of Tariq and Irfan harden my resolve and determination to make the state of Jammu and Kashmir into an example where life is sacred and the right to life is protected by the law.”