Civilian killed in police firing as protests flare up in Riyaz Naikoo's village

Srinagar: The Jammu & Kashmir police on Thursday secretly buried at an undisclosed location the body of Riyaz Naikoo, the commander of Hizb-ul Mujahideen who was slain in a gunfight with the security forces in his village of Baigpora in Pulwama district on Wednesday.

Protests marked by stone-pelting flared up at several places in the slain militant’s home district on Thursday. At least one person was killed and 19 others were wounded when police opened fire and used pellet shotguns and teargas to put down a protest in Baigpora, the village where the former math teacher used to live before joining the militants in 2012.

The man killed in the police action today was a civilian, identified as Jehangir Yusuf Wani, a resident of Uthmula village in Pulwama district. Hospital sources said 32-year-old Wani was brought dead with bullet wounds in his chest, abdomen and leg. The injuries in the others brought to hospital were mainly in the lower limbs, sources said.

The authorities described said the clashes as “minor,” “negligible” and restricted to Pulwama and a few other pockets in the Valley. They shut down mobile internet services across Kashmir all the same. Phone services were down too, barring those provided by the state-owned BSNL.