While protests and clashes amid official curfews and separatist-called shutdowns continued to afflict Kashmir Valley, the unrest has spread to various Muslim-majority areas of Jammu region setting off alarm bells in the corridors of power here and in Delhi.
On the 29th day of mayhem, about 60 people, including 14 women, were injured, most of them in southern Anantnag district and in the highway town of Pattan in north-western Baramulla district which was placed under curfew amid heightened tensions on Saturday.
In a brazen act, which has evoked widespread condemnation, the police fired teargas, exploded chilly grenades and even used pellet guns to target Anantnag’s district hospital on Saturday evening, forcing people to run for cover, witnesses said. No one was hurt, however.
Earlier, about 40 people including seven women were injured in security forces action including use of pellet guns against a huge crowd of protesters in the neighbouring Chee area.
A pro-aazadi rally at Chandangam in Pulwama district was foiled after the security men uprooted a shamiana (marquee) and damaged six tractor-trolleys and eight motorcycles and also thrashed people who were making arrangements for it, reports said.
Protests and clashes were reported also from over a dozen other places including Srinagar’s Kawadara and Natipora areas. Four persons including a girl were injured in pellet gun firing in Pattan and three in Srinagar, police and hospital sources said. A mob torched an abandoned police post at Wagoora outside north-western town of Sopore where a 26-year-old Danish Rasool was killed in pellet gun fire on Friday. Old Srinagar area falling in police stations Rainawari, Khanyar, Nowhatta, Maharajgunj and Safa Kadal and also Batamallo in uptown Srinagar besides the towns of Anantnag, Budgam, Chadoora, Khan Sahib, Magam and Khan Sahib (Baramulla) remained under curfew or security clampdown on Saturday.
Independent MLA and leader of regional Awami Itehad Party Sheikh Abdur Rashid along with his supporters marched to the summer headquarters of the United Nations Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) here to demand plebiscite be held in Jammu and Kashmir.
The police, however, intercepted them midway and all were detained and whisked away to a nearby police station. Police used to issue handouts in the evenings on the day’s incidents earlier but has conspicuously abandoned the practice. No such official handouts were issued in the past two days and the one released on Thursday had no mention of the civilian killings that took place the previous night sparking off a fresh and intense round of protests.
Jammu’s Chenab valley comprising the districts of Kishtwar, Doda and Ramban and also parts of frontier districts of Poonch and Rajouri have witnessed shutdowns and street protests by huge crowds over the past few days against the killing in the Valley. In fact, pro-freedom slogans are being chanted at these shows in Kishtwar, Doda and Banihal areas of the Chenab valley whereas the participants elsewhere have openly identified themselves with the “oppressed and wronged” Valleyites.
Acknowledging the drift, Union minister of state at the PMO, Jitendra Singh, who is also Lok Sabha member elected from the region, said on Saturday that home ministry will deploy additional forces to contain the situation. These forces, he said, would be deployed as per the requirement.
“This is a matter of concern. There is unrest in the Valley for the last four weeks. For the past 2-3 days we saw disturbance in this part of the state, including Kishtwar, which has remained sensitive all along,” he said. He added, “We have brought it to the notice of the home minister and he has assured us that they are looking into it and are sending extra forces.”
BJP, Congress and various regional parties too have expressed serious concern over spillover of unrest to these areas on the other side of the Pirpanjal Range which divides Kashmir Valley from the Jammu region.
Mr Singh, however, also said there was a sense of normalcy in the region today and the district administration has geared itself with the support of community leaders who were also coming forward. “What is important is to realise that I would not subscribe to the view that this is indigenous, maybe there is a foreign mischief happening in the Valley and they are now trying to disturb the atmosphere in the Jammu region as well,” he asserted.
