A 75-year-old man was killed and four persons, including two policemen, were injured in clashes between two groups of Kashmiri Muslims which started from a place of worship at Kanihama on the peripheries of Srinagar on Friday. The police has arrested 16 persons on charge of fuelling a law and order situation whereas dozens of police and CRPF personnel have been deployed in the area to prevent further violence.
The incident is being seen here as a knock-on effect of exacerbated enmity existing within Kashmir’s frontline religio-social organisation Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith whose president Moulana Showkat Ahmed Shah was murdered early April. However, a Jamiat spokesperson termed the incident as a local issue and said that it has nothing to do with the organisation or the slaying of its president. “The bloody incidents are actually upshot of a three year old dispute plaguing the area. Vested interests have only exploited the situation to create confusion at a stage when the Muslims of the Valley have united over the gruesome murder of Moulana Showkat,” the spokesperson said.
The police and witnesses said that the rival groups clashed inside a mosque at Kanihama during the Friday congregation. One of the three injured residents died in a Srinagar hospital.