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| Valley rocked by shutdown, clashes, undeclared curfew | | POLITICIANS BEGIN TEARING OFF REMAINING CLOTHES OF THE SHOPIAN WOMEN | | PDP, Hurriyat take “gang rape” refrain to high pitch
Mehbooba in ‘preventive detention’ with 12 MLAs
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Jun 2: With the hardline separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani rejecting Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s announcement of judicial inquiry into the alleged rape-cum-murder of two young women in Shopian as an eyewash and the mainstream Opposition outfit PDP outsmarting the Hurriyat in issuing the call of ‘Shopian Chalo’, Kashmir valley on the second consecutive day today observed near-total shutdown. While Police detained the PDP President, Mehbooba Mufti, alongwith 12 of her party’s MLAs, and called it “protective custody”, at least 20 people have reportedly sustained injuries in today’s clashes at over 25 places in the Valley.
Even as a detailed report of the post mortem conducted by a team of doctors and forensic science experts was still awaited, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti today claimed that the two young women, found dead in Shopian town outskirts last week, had been “not raped but actually gang raped”. Claiming to be making his assertion on the statement of the family members of the two young women, Mehbooba added, while talking to mediapersons, that both had been “gang raped” and murdered by security forces of a nearby encampment. Leading a procession of her party colleagues and legislators and carrying placards---boldly demanding revocation of J&K Armed Forces Special Powers Act---Mehbooba called for severe punishment to the “guilty personnel” and also revived PDP’s demand of demilitarization in the state.
A large number of the separatist as well as mainstream opposition leaders---notably Geelani and Mehbooba--- have begun high voltage politics on the death of two women with the refrain of “rape and gang rape” even before establishment of such crime and identification of suspects, if any, by the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). Contrary to the public statement of Dr Bilal, who was among the three doctors, who had conducted initial examination and autopsy of the ill-fated women, Mehbooba Mufti today claimed that “gang rape” had been committed on both. “One of the doctors, whose name I would not mention, had come out of the theatre and cried bitterly before the crowds that the two women had been not only raped but also gang raped”, PDP chief said.
On the basis of the purported statement of two members of the victims’ family, Mehbooba asserted that both the women had been stripped and subjected to physical violence while being “gang raped”. Calling for a mass march to Shopian on Wednesday, she demanded apology from Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, who, according to her, had given “a clean chit to security forces even before the judicial inquiry” by saying at his press conference the other day that it was not a matter of “rape-cum-murder”. She said that no women in Kashmir would feel herself safe after the Chief Minister’s statement and asserted that PDP would continue its agitation until AFSPA was fully revoked and the troops withdrawn. She claimed that such incidents of human rights abuse would continue to happen as long as security forces enjoyed the immunity by law and the Kashmir problem remained unsolved.
Taking her march of MLAs from Sher-e-Kashmir Park to Lalchowk and Budshah Chowk and shouting slogans for return of troops to their barracks, Mehbooba was blockaded by a Police contingent at the entry point of the JKLF Chairman Yasin Malik’s residential locality of Maisuma. All the 13 Police-protected MLAs of PDP, including Mehbooba, were packed into vehicles and detained at Police Station Kothibagh. They had not reached back to their respective residences till late tonight. Those detained at Kothibagh included Mehbooba Mufti, prominent Shia cleric-politician Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, Nizam-ud-din Bhat, Syed Basharat Bukhari, Abdul Haq Khan, Abdul Rehman Veeri, Sartaj Madni (who also happens to be Deputy Speaker in Legislative Assembly, Rafi Ahmed Mir, Mushtaq Ahmed Shah, Zahoor Ahmed Mir, Mohammad Khalil Bandh, Abdul Razaq Zawoora and Syed Bashir Ahmed. Four of them happen to be former Ministers.
Even as senior officials, including DGP CID, Dr Ashok Bhan, who has been officiating as DGP during Mr Kuldeep Khoda’s holiday in USA, Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir, Masood Samoon, and IGP Kashmir, Dr B Srinivas, visited Kothibagh Police Station and persuaded the PDP MLAs to return to their home, they refused to leave and made it clear that they would remain in “detention” until the Government permitted and facilitated their march in Shopian on Wednesday.
Enjoying the facility of making and receiving calls on their mobile phones, the “detained” MLAs maintained to mediapersons that they would leave only after Government’s assurance that they would be permitted and facilitated to reach Shopian tomorrow. Later, in the evening, the PDP MLAs added the condition of “withdrawal of his statement and an apology” from DGP Dr Bhan who had asserted, at a news conference, that the opposition politicians had not been arrested but taken into “protective custody”. DGP had also suggested that the PDP leaders forced their entry into the Police Station and declined to return to their home.
“None of us will move out until DGP issued a public statement in total withdrawal of his false statement made at today’s press conference and sought an apology from all the legislators”, PDP’s Bandipore MLA and General Secretary, Nizam-ud-din Bhat, told Early Times. “He can not make such false statements and humiliate us publicly. We were not out to make drama of a human tragedy. We were marching with our demand of justice to the Shopian family and putting an end to such misuse of power”, Bhat asserted.
While the news of the “arrest” of Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari spread through the Valley, his Shia followers gathered at several places in the capital city as also a couple of places in Baramulla district and demanded his “immediate release”.
Officiating DGP, Dr Ashok Bhan, claimed at a hurriedly organized press conference at Police Control Room this evening that none of the PDP MLAs had been arrested or detained by Pollice. He claimed that Police swung into action and the Police-protected and SSG-protected MLAs into “preventive custody” when they completed their march to Budshah Chowk and began walking towards the highly sensitive Maisuma locality.
“We persuaded them against marching through Maisuma but theu did not relent. We had reasonable apprehensions that the PDP MLAs could be attacked by hostile crowds in Maisuma and their march onwards could be resulted into use of force and even retaliatory fire from Police that could have obviously harmed innocent human lives, including those of the protected politicians”, DGP said. He claimed that some people in Maisuma catapulted stones in the direction of the PDP MLAs from a distance and expressed anger over the march. DGP claimed that one of the MLAs, namely Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, had “peeled off” earlier and he turned up later and joined his colleagues 15 minutes after they had landed at Kothibagh.
DGP said that violent demonstrations and clashes had marked the second consecutive day of the Geelani Hurriyat-sponsored shutdown in Valley and reports of clashes between 25 to 100-strong mobs had poured in from about a dozen places in Srinagar and elsewhere. He said that seven civilians and four Police personnel had sustained injuries in today’s violent incidents. He said that the separatists’ call for strike had brought down the number of incoming tourists from 3,500 on May 30th to 2,700 on June 2nd. Divisional Commissioner and IGP Kashmir were also present at DGP’s press conference.
While shutdown was near-total in Srinagar and none of the government offices---other than Civil Secretariat and some Police offices---was seen open today, reports said that 95% of traffic was off the road and 99% of shops, business establishments, banks, educational institutions and government offices remained closed in all other districts. As already reported, Geelani had on Monday extended his call for shutdown to three days. On the 3rd and the final day of this strike, polling is also scheduled to be held for Assembly by-election in Hazratbal segment of Srinagar on Wednesday. Non-official reports said that at least 15 civilians and 5 Police personnel were left injured in today’s clashes. These reports said that five of the demonstrators received rubber bullets on their bodies but all of them were stable at hospital.
Meanwhile, drop scene of a high drama was witnessed at Kothibagh when over a hundred of the followers of Maulvi Ansari appeared at the Police Station and all the “detained” MLAs walked out to join them for half-an-hour-long dharna on Residency Road. Thereafter, all the 13 MLAs, including Mehbooba Mufti, returned back to the PDP headquarters near Sher-e-Kashmir Park and stayed there for the night. Nizam-ud-din Bhat told Early Times that the authorities had arranged vehicles for their trans-shipment to an isolated house at Cheshma Shahi but the PDP leaders came out and preferred to stay at their party headquarters. He said that PDP’s programme of a march to Shopian tomorrow was intact.
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