Curfew was lifted from uptown Srinagar on Tuesday, the 46th day of unrest in the Kashmir Valley, even as fresh protests left 12 injured, including a woman.
A police spokesman said there was an increased movement of people and vehicular traffic in Srinagar even though “areas under nine police stations remained under curfew.”
The volatile Anantnag district remained under curfew.
The police said three incidents of stone-throwing were reported from Shopian, Srinagar and Sopore. However, locals said 11 persons were injured in clashes in Shopian and a woman was injured in Bandipora district. Two seriously injured were shifted to a Srinagar hospital.
A Jama’at-e-Islami (JeI) spokesman alleged that two of its top leaders were “arrested in a police raid on its office in Shopian.”
BSF takes over Srinagar college
On Tuesday, nine detained leaders of the Employees Joint Action Committee, including its head Abdul Qayoom Wani, were shifted to prison, a day after they staged an anti-government demonstration in Srinagar.
The National Conference (NC) has described the crackdown as “tyrannical.”
NC slams Mehbooba
“The Mehbooba government is treating employees like terrorists. It doesn’t behove an elected government to issue public threats against its own employees,” NC provincial president Nasir Aslam Wani said.
Amid reports of the Border Security Force moving in 40 battalions, the premises of Shri Pratap College in Srinagar were taken over by the paramilitary force.
It is for the first time in 13 years that the BSF has been called in.
Sources said at least 14 prominent schools in and around Srinagar have been taken over by the paramilitary forces to battle the street protests, as the official accommodation is not enough for “their night stay and quick deployment.”
In Jammu, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said her party “will carry forward its agenda of political resolution, economic empowerment, good governance and employment generation.” She also called for a dialogue to resolve the issues.
Hurriyat faction chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Tuesday wrote to Pope Francis in Vatican, the Shankaracharyas in the country, the Dalai Lama and the head priest of Kaba mosque in Saudi Arabia.
In the letter, which contains details of civilian casualties in the last 46 days and the impact of the lockdown, the Mirwaiz said: “India is employing terror as an excuse to put the Kashmir struggle under the rubric of post-9/11 Islamophobic environment.”
