Even as normalcy returned to the Kashmir Valley on the first day of Ramzan on Thursday — exempted by the Hurriyat Conference from its week-long calendar of shutdowns and protests — an irate mob hurled stones at running vehicles on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Road to vent their anger over the alleged random arrests made by the police in the area overnight.
The windowpanes of some of the targeted vehicles were damaged, including one of the “Karwan-e-Amman”, the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service. A resident of Pakistani-occupied-Kashmir Abdul Aziz Ganai, who was returning home after spending a fortnight with his relatives in the Valley, was injured, the police said. This is for the first time that a “Karwan-e-Amman” bus was targeted by rock-throwing youth of the Valley during the ongoing unrest which has claimed more than 50 lives in police firings and beating since June 11, 2010. The bus service which was started in April 2007 to facilitate the divided families living on the two side of the Line of Control runs every Thursday between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad.
Meanwhile, the Army said that it killed three militants in a gunfight in the Bandipora forests of North Kashmir on Thursday and recovered a huge cache of arms near Sangrama in neighbouring Baramulla district.
Lt. Col. J.S. Brar, spokesperson for Northern Command, said that in an operation in the dense Bandipora forests, the Army troops killed three and found three AK rifles with 5 magazines and 480 rounds of ammunition on them besides “other war like stores”.