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| 11 injured in Srinagar ‘grenade pelting’ | | Peaceful protests’ being upgraded to guerrilla attacks | | Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Jul 6: Five Police personnel and six civilians have sustained injuries in a grenade attack that occurred on Police amid intermittent stone pelting in Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chairman Mohamamd Yasin Malik’s residential locality of Maisuma in uptown Srinagar this afternoon. Two more grenades were fired on Police Station in Sopore.
SSP Srinagar, Syed Ahfadul Mujataba, told Early Times that scores of youth in Maisuma began gathering and pelting stones and brickbats on Police in the forenoon. Their ‘cause of action’ was mysterious disappearance of the student of a college who, according to residents and family members, had been missing since Friday last. He said that family members of the youth were in conversation with Police when groups of youth continued stone pelting intermittently for several hours.
SSP Srinagar said that one masked youth, who seemed to be one among the usual stone pelters, drew closer and lobbed a hand grenade in the direction of a Police column near Madeena Chowk of Maisuma. It exploded close to the intended target and left five Police personnel wounded. One of them, who sustained critical injuries in his head and kidneys, was battling for life at SKIMS late tonight. SSP said that six civilians also sustained splinter injuries.
Informed sources in North Kashmir said that around the same time in the afternoon, suspected militants fired two grenades in the direction of Police Station at Sopore. Both fell short of the intended target, exploded but failed to cause any damage to human life and property.
Today’s grenade attacks on Police in Srinagar and Sopore came close on the heels of a series of grenade attacks in both the towns. One shopkeeper had got killed and several others injured in a grenade attack at the crowded tourist hub of Dalgate last month. Earlier, suspected militants had similarly attacked a CRPF post under a flyover near Jammu & Kashmir High Court and Legislature complex in Civil Lines here. A powerful IED blast had accidentally happened in close vicinity of the Kashmir University campuses at Lalbazar on June 18th in which two of the militants, reportedly fabricating the IEDS, got killed and one more of their associate sustained injuries.
Srinagar, Sopore, Baramulla, Shopian and now Anantnag towns have witnessed violent clashes between demonstrators and armed forces this year even as militancy related incidents have fallen to a nadir. Detention of several separatist leaders, disappearance of some youth in mysterious circumstances, a woman’s allegation of sexual harassment against a Police official and an incident of rape-cum-murder of two young women in Shopian have led to clashes between demonstrators and armed forces. North Kashmir district headquarters of Baramulla has suffered the brunt of such violence as four youth have got killed in Police/CRPF firing and over a hundred injured in clashes.
Informed sources revealed to Early Times that Omar Abdullah-led coalition government was still keen to treat the nascent Valley turbulence as a “law and order problem”, taking a tough stand against CRPF for treating the stone-equipped mobs and routine demonstrations like armed militants. Even in a meeting with the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah this evening stressed on the need to “sensitize” the CRPF about the present situation. Omar emphasized that it was “increasingly a law and order situation”. He sought introduction of European-type modern equipment for “better crowd control and law and order management”. In a significant development, Chief Minister has already ordered replacement of CRPF in Baramulla district---excluding the border Tehsils of Uri, Boniyar and Tangmarg---by J&K Police.
However, sources said, Omar Abdullah’s government has issued “clear-cut instructions” to Police to take “effective measures” against those indulging in stone pelting particularly in Kawdara-Nowhatta belt of downtown Srinagar and Maisuma locality in uptown. SSPs and zonal SPs have been lately directed to conduct a mapping of the localities occupied by the stone pelting youth followed by identification of all the “miscreants and urchins”. According to these sources, Government was also toying with the idea of rewarding anybody with a job who would help Police in arresting such youth.
Meanwhile, reports from South Kashmir said that a group of around 100 youth took out a “Mashaal Jaloos” from Malakhnag to Lalchowk this evening in order to register their protest against the detention of a local cleric Qazi Yasir. Shutdown in Shopian against the rape-cum-murder of two young women on May 29th last has completed 37 days today. Residents have been demanding arrest of the culprits who have not been identified, either by residents or by two special inquiries in the last over one month.
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