Thaindian News

Srinagar, June 26 (IANS) Six people were injured Friday when a shutdown called to protest the rape and murder of two women in south Kashmir’s Shopian town and the detention of hardline leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani turned violent after a mob attacked a paramilitary camp near Shopian.
Police here said an agitated mob gathered outside a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp at Harman village on the outskirts of Shopian in the afternoon and pelted stones at the security forces.

CRPF personnel used batons and tear gas shells to disperse the mob. Six protestors were injured in the incident and three of them are believed to have sustained bullet injuries.

When the injured were brought for treatment to neighbouring Pulwama town, it triggered further protests there and an unruly crowd pelted stones at the Pulwama police station.

Intermittent clashes between stone-pelting mobs and the police also occurred at several places in the old city area of summer capital Srinagar and north Kashmir’s Sopore and Baramulla towns. But at these places, the security forces showed restraint and no serious injuries were reported.

Life across Kashmir was crippled due to the shutdown Friday. Schools, government offices, banks, business establishments and shops remained shut in Srinagar and other towns of Kashmir. Vehicles were also off the roads.

Chairman of the Hurriyat’s moderate faction, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq had asked people to observe Friday as “Solidarity Day” with the people of Shopian, who are on an indefinite strike demanding identification and punishment of the guilty in the rape and murder of 17-year-old Asiya Jan and her 22-year-old pregnant sister-in-law Neelofar Jan.

The two women were found dead May 30, a day after they went missing from an orchard in Shopian. Medical tests confirmed that they were raped.

The authorities had imposed security restrictions in parts of the old city and uptown areas to foil the separatists’ attempts to march to the Cheshmashahi area, where Geelani is lodged after his arrest earlier this month, to express solidarity with the separatist leader.