Protests in J&K, many hurt

Srinagar and other major towns of the Kashmir Valley, placed under indefinite curfew early Friday, witnessed widespread protests over the killing of four residents in Thursday’s firing incidents in a remote village of Jammu and Kashmir’s Ramban district. Scores were injured in fresh clashes between angry mobs and the police who fired pellet guns and teargas canisters at places, reports said. A mob attacked the motorcade of social welfare minister and senior National Conference leader Sakina Itoo at Samboora, in Pampore town near here, but she escaped unhurt. Her security guards fired their rifles in the air to scare away the crowd, witnesses said. Meanwhile, the BSF, accused of opening indiscriminate fire on crowds protesting over the alleged desecration of Islam’s scriptures and thrashing the caretaker of a local madrasa, has vacated the camp in Ramban’s Dharam area and handed the facility over to the local police. The BSF men at the camp have been moved to their battalion area in view of anger after Thursday’s incidents.