Three Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) MLAs and their supporting activists were on Tuesday attacked by angry mobs in the north-western Kashmiri town of Sopore where they had gone to visit the family of a local youth killed in custody of the Jammu and Kashmir police’s counter-insurgency special operations group
(SOG), hours after his arrest in the weekend. Though the MLAs escaped unhurt, their vehicles were damaged in stone-pelting, witnesses said.
According to these witnesses, as the cavalcade of the PDP MLAs Moulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, Nizamuddin Bhat and Basharat Bukhari arrived at Krankashiven, a congested locality of Sopore, to meet the bereaved family, the latter chose to close the main door of their house before the Opposition leaders could enter. “They were politely told to return as the family does not want to see them,” said a neighbour Gulam Hassan over the phone from Sopore. A crowd, mainly local youth, which had gathered outside the house by then questioned the PDP MLAs over the party’s “shedding crocodile tears” and asked them “instead of meeting the family for photo opportunities you should join the street protests” against the killing which were underway in some town areas. They started chanting pro-freedom slogans.
Sensing trouble, the MLAs and their supporters quickly got back into their vehicles and were about to leave the area when the surging crowds attacked them with stones causing damage to some of these. Their security guards fired warning shots in the air to disperse the crowd. Soon the local police was at the scene and helped the cavalcade to move out.