Srinagar, Aug. 3: Official sources here said almost 2,000 CRPF personnel were on the way to Srinagar while another 3,200 now based in Jammu areas were being redeployed in Valley districts.
The Army is also helping the CRPF to maintain order in border districts like Bandipore, Kupwara and Baramulla, reports said. Defence sources here said this was also to protect Army convoys moving in these areas.
Thousands of residents, including women and children, continued to defy curfew and stage sit-ins in central Srinagar. At first the police and CRPF personnel tried to stop them, but when the crowds began to swell, they withdrew from Khanyar, Nowhatta, Gojwara, Rajouri Kadal, Nallah Mar Road Fateh Kadal, Kaka Sarai and some other neighbourhoods.
At Khanyar, a CRPF jawan was seized by a mob and beaten up badly, witnesses said. Several thousands attended the funerals of two youth slain earlier in the Qamarwari and Narwara localities.
Elsewhere in the valley, large crowds defied the curfew elsewhere too, including in Baramulla, Bandipore, Kupwara, Anantnag, Pulwama and Budgam districts, clashing with the security forces.