Srinagar, Dec 15 (IANS) The strike-hit Kashmir Valley Tuesday erupted in violent protests over the CBI probe report into the deaths of two women in Shopian as angry youth took to the streets and pelted stones at security forces. Over two dozen people, including policemen, were wounded in the protests.
Angry youth shouted slogans against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that has ruled out rape and murder of the two young women and said the deaths in May were due to drowning. The demonstrators took to the streets in several localities of summer capital Srinagar and indulged in heavy stone pelting on the police and paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

The security forces initially responded by using batons to chase away the mobs, but as the youth continued to re-group in lanes and by-lanes of Maisuma, Batmallo, Danderkhah and Nowgam in uptown and other old city localities, they used tear gas to disperse the protesters.

A senior police officer said over two dozen people, including five policemen, were injured in the clashes.

Reports of clashes between protesters and police were also received from the two north Kashmir towns of Baramulla and Sopore.

In Shopian town, 65 km from here, where the bodies of Asiya Jan, 17, and her sister-in-law Neelofar Jan, 22, were found by the side of a stream on May 30 this year, hundreds of locals including women staged protests denouncing the CBI report and demanding the arrest of the culprits.

The town has been tense since Monday after the CBI presented its 66-page report in the state high court stating that the two young women died due to drowning in the stream.

A complete strike was observed in Kashmir Valley Tuesday on a call given by the Shopian ‘Majlis Mushawarat’, which was supported by the two groups of the Hurriyat Conference.

The Majlis has rejected the report and announced that a “struggle to seek justice in the case will continue”.

The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) described the report as “trumped up” to prove Chief Minister Omar Abdullah correct.

Abdullah, in his first reaction to the death of the two women, had stated that they died due to drowning in the stream.

The deaths had sparked off widespread anger and protests in Kashmir in June with allegations that the women were raped and murdered.