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| Valley refuses to budge, over 100 injured | | Educational institutions closed as situation aggravates | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | June 26
Though no death was claimed but clashes between protestors and security forces continued for fourth consecutive day today across Kashmir Valley leaving more than 100 injured from both sides as the controversy revolving around transfer of forest land to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board refused to die.
In view of protests turning violent and the security forces becoming helpless in this hostile situation, the district administration in Srinagar ordered closure of schools and all other educational institutions for next two days. The doctors from different hospitals also made fervent pleas before the protestors and security forces to allow the hospital vehicles pass through various routes.
Finding the situation too volatile, the Inspector General of Kashmir Police, SM Sahai asked the Police and CRPF to exercise restraint even as he appealed to protestors to take the course of dialogue. Express grief over those killed in firing, Sahai said the protestors pelting stones on troopers were forcing them to take the last resort.
Reports pouring in from different areas said that life remained paralysed for the fourth day across the Valley as protests and demonstrations spread to major and minor towns and cities in Kashmir. More than 100 people including the protestors and security forces have been reported injured at different places though Police officially confirmed only 22 with one sustaining critical injuries.
Slogan-shouting protesters took to the streets in uptown Maisuma locality of Srinagar where pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik led the protests. Mobs indulged in heavy stone pelting at the police and the paramilitary forces in old city areas of Rajouri Kadal, Fateh Kadal, Safa Kadal, Nawa Bazar and Karan Nagar. The police lobbed dozens of tear-smoke shells and resorted to baton charge against the protesters who kept on regrouping throughout the day.
Markets, educational institutes and banks remained closed and even the skeletal traffic that had plied Wednesday also remained off the roads.
All the university exams and those scheduled to be conducted by the board of school education have been cancelled, as the situation remains highly tense in Srinagar, Ganderbal, Baramulla, Budgam, Anantnag, Pulwama, Kulgam, Kupwara and Bandipore districts of the valley.
Muslims in the Kashmir Valley are opposed to the allotment of a large tract of forest land, measuring 40 hectares, to the SASB that manages the annual pilgrimage to the south Kashmir Amarnath cave shrine housing a 'lingam', or a stalagmite structure, that is seen as an icon of Lord Shiva, one of the Hindu Trinity. They allege that the board would use the land to settle "outsiders" in the area and thus change the region's demography.
Heavy deployment of the police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have been made on the Srinagar-Baltal road for the passage of the cave shrine-bound pilgrims, whose vehicles were stoned by protesters Wednesday.
"We have taken extraordinary precautions to address the law and order situation in the valley. Additional deployments have been made to meet any eventuality," Kashmir Inspector General of Police S.M. Sahai said.
"We are keeping a close watch on the situation so that miscreants are prevented from exploiting the public sentiments." During the last four days of violent protests, four people have been killed in alleged firing by the CRPF while more than 200 have been injured in clashes with the police.
Both the groups of the separatist Hurriyat Conference and some mainstream political parties like the National Conference, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) are demanding rescinding of the cabinet order that allotted the forest land in the Baltal forest area to SASB.
The valley's grand Mufti, Mufti Mohammed Bashir-ud-Din, has also issued a 'fatwa' (a religious edict) against the allotment of the land to SASB. The situation is equally volatile in Jammu, where Hindu groups, the Shiv Sena and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, called for a shutdown Thursday, throwing normal life out of gear. |
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