AMN
At least 30 people were injured in day-long clashes in several areas of the Kashmir Valley on Sunday against the killing of 22-year-old youth Gowhar Nazir Dar allegedly by paramilitary Force in Zainakote area on Srinagar outskirts.
According to witnesses, massive clashes erupted at Lawaypora, Shalteng, HMT, Narbal and Zainakote on Srinagar-Baramulla highway, against the youth’s killing.
Witnesses said hundreds of youth tried to block the highway at HMT and Zainakote with bricks and logs of wood. Police, they said, instantly swung into action and fired teargas shells to disperse the protestors.
A police official said traffic on the highway got disrupted due to the protests, but was soon restored as the forces pushed the protesting youth into the interior lanes. Residents of HMT said protests continued in the area till late night.
30 persons, including some police and CRPF men, were injured in daylong clashes over the youth’s killing, a police official said.
The government had already placed curbs on movement of people in old Srinagar areas in the wake of the youth’s killing.
Reports said as police and CRPF men were being withdrawn from deployment from old Srinagar areas, groups of youth pelted stones at them. Incidents of stone-pelting were witnessed in Gojwara, Nowhatta, Saraf Kadal and Kawdara.
In Nowhatta area, a police official said, stones hit three CRPF men who were referred to a hospital for first aid.
Reports said clashes erupted in Old Town and Batengoo areas of South Kashmir’s Anantnag (Islamabad) district amid complete shutdown.
Police and CRPF men resorted to teargas shelling to disperse the protestors, they said.
In Pulwama, Kulgam and Shopian districts, a complete strike was observed against the youth’s killing.
Reports of protests also poured in from Bandipora district of North Kashmir where a scribe Owais Farooqi was roughed up by CRPF men.