Parts of Kashmir Valley continued to simmer with irate crowds clashing with security forces at a number of places in and outside Srinagar on Tuesday, leaving scores injured on Tuesday.
Pro-freedom protests were held and clashes occurred between rock-throwing mobs and the police and CRPF personnel at Dal Gate, Ram Bagh, Natipora and Barzulla in Srinagar and at various places in Anantnag, Bandipore, Kupwara, Pulwama, Kulgam and Shopian districts, reports received here said. Hundreds of people, including women and children from Srinagar’s Maisuma area staged a protest sit-in at nearby Budshah Chowk intersection against a shooting incident in which five persons, including a nephew and a cousin of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Muhammad Yasin Malik, who were playing a carom board inside a backstreet, were injured on Monday. Though the authorities have placed the policemen who opened fire without any provocation under suspension and ordered an inquiry into the incident, the move have failed to dissuade the residents who defied curfew and held protests on the streets for the second day running on Tuesday, chanting pro-azadi slogans.
At nearby Pratap Park, Swami Agnivesh of “Peace Foundation” was joined by several members of the Indian Civil Society and their local counterparts in staging a sit-in protest against the recent killings across Kashmir Valley. The slogans written on the placards they were holding sought political resolution of the Kashmir problem, and end to all human rights violation, release of political prisoners and repeal of tough laws including AFSPA.
Swami Agnivesh is currently on a visit of the Valley at the head of a 12-member group of the foundation for an on-the-spot assessment of the situation. The group has had a series of meetings with local political leaders and human rights activists, including chief Muslim cleric and leader of his faction of Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.