Protester dies, scores held in Kashmir lockdown

A protester died after being chased by police and more than 100 people were arrested during a curfew in Kashmir’s main city after the restive region’s autonomy was scrapped by India, officials said Wednesday, reports AFP.

The death was confirmed by police after the government passed a presidential decree on Monday stripping the Muslim-majority state of its longstanding semi-autonomous privileges.

Despite a paralysing curfew imposed to head off unrest, sporadic protests have been reported by residents in the main city, Srinagar, reports Reuters.

Streets in the region’s main city of Srinagar were deserted for a third day, with almost all shops shut, barring some chemists. Armed federal police manned mobile checkpoints across the city, limiting people’s movement.

Thousands of Indian security forces kept a lid on protests in Kashmir, helped by the continued suspension of telephone and internet services.

Knots of young protesters threw stones at soldiers, police and a witness said, amid anger over the telecoms clampdown that began on Sunday.

All telephone, television, and internet connections stayed severed. By night, police vans had patrolled the streets, with loudspeakers warning residents to stay indoors.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that in one incident a youth being chased by police ‘jumped into the Jhelum river and died’.

The incident happened in Srinagar’s old town which has become a hotbed of anti-India protests during the three-decade insurgency in Kashmir that has left tens of thousands dead.

A source said that at least six people have been admitted to hospital in Srinagar with gunshot wounds and other injuries from protests.

More than 100 people, included political leaders and activists, have been arrested as part of the lockdown for being a threat to the peace in the Himalayan valley, officials told the Press Trust of India.

Former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, along with regional party leader Sajad Lone, were placed under house arrest at the weekend and then reportedly taken to a guesthouse by authorities.

The reports came as footage of national security adviser Ajit Doval eating and speaking to locals on the streets of Srinagar was shown on Indian television news channels on Wednesday.

Doval reportedly met with state governor Satya Pal Malik on Tuesday to discuss the security situation.

Indian police insist that Kashmir, which is also claimed by Pakistan, has been mainly peaceful since the curfew was imposed at midnight Sunday.

Officials told PTI the only disturbances were ‘very few incidents of stone-pelting’.

South Kashmir, the epicentre of the insurgency in recent years, was completely locked down, said a state government official who visited the area, reports Reuters.

‘The highway was deserted, except for some trucks and buses carrying labourers out of the valley,’ added the official, who asked not to be named.

Local authorities have not declared a curfew, but instead clamped down on non-essential travel and gatherings of four or more, effectively keeping restive people in their homes.

Officials of emergency services, such as hospitals and the fire department, said their staff were also frequently stopped at checkpoints, with access sometimes blocked.

The principal of Srinagar’s Government Medical College, which runs the state’s largest hospital network, comprising about 3,500 beds, has to personally visit district officials to coordinate services or seek approvals, a hospital official said.

‘The principal doesn’t have any means of communication,’ added the official, who asked not to be identified. ‘Police stations have been given satellite phones but not him. That shows their (government’s) priority.’

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net