Kashmir relatively calm, more areas under curfew

After four days of violence and deaths, Kashmir was today relatively incident-free even as more violence-hit areas were brought under curfew in South Kashmir where 3 youths were killed in alleged CRPF firing.

At least 8 people, including 4 securitymen were injured, as police fired teargas shells to disperse stone-pelting mobs in Srinagar, Anantnag and Kulgam districts on Wednesday. Three personnel of CRPF of 130 battalion and three protestors were injured in the clashes between stone-pelting mob and security forces at Sangam, 40km from here, in Anantnag district, police said.

They said station house officer of Mattan Rouf Ahmad was injured at Poibug-mattan, 65 kms from here in Anantnag district in stone pelting. Violating curfew, people of Kulgam came out on the streets and staged a protest against the killing of youths.

Raising anti-government and pro-freedom slogans, nearly 4,000 people of the town, 70km from here, took to the streets and clashed with law enforcing agencies for nearly four hours. Police and paramilitary forces fired tear gas shells and used lathis to disperse stone pelting protestors. However, there was no report of any casualty, the sources said. In Srinagar, protestors hit the streets at Natipora and Batmaloo areas here and staged demonstrations against the killings that have rocked the valley for the past few days.

Police and paramilitary forces, which have been deployed in strength, lobbed teargas shells to disperse the demonstrators at Natipora and Batmaloo in central Srinagar. Curfew in Sopore and Baramulla and seven police station areas of Srinagar continued without relaxation while the measure was clamped in Bijbehara, Mattan, Dooru, Kokernag, Achhabal, Pahalgam in Anantnag district and Kulgam district this morning.

Additional contingents of paramilitary and police units have been deployed to ensure effective enforcement of curfew, they said. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had yesterday made an appeal for peace and vowed to ensure return of normalcy soon and slammed anti-national and vested interests for instigating violence.