Youth injured in firing as mob attacks Kashmir minister’s house

SRINAGAR - A youth was critically wounded when security forces fired at a violent mob that attacked the house of Education Minister Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district Sunday afternoon, police said.

Four others sustained minor injuries in the firing. The minister was inside at the time of the attack.

“A mob of around 300 attacked Sayeed’s house in Damhal Khushipora village of Anantnag district today (Sunday) afternoon. The security forces initially used batons and tear smoke shells to disperse the violent mob, but after the stone pelters resorted to sustained violence, security forces had to open fire,” said Deputy Inspector General of Police (South Kashmir) Shafqat Ahmad.

“One protester identified as Sameer Ahmad Malik sustained an abdominal injury and has been taken to Srinagar hospital for specialised treatment. Other four injured in the clash have sustained minor injuries,” he said.

In Srinagar, security forces also resorted to aerial firing in Maisuma area, where protesters defied curfew - imposed after Saturday’s widespread violence - and resorted to heavy stone pelting. Clashes have also occurred in Bemina area.

Earlier, a mob resorted to heavy stone pelting on the police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel in Soura area of the city, injuring a police official.

“A deputy superintendent of police was injured in the stone pelting in Soura. Security forces used batons and tear smoke canisters to enforce curfew there,” a police official said.

In Lethpora village near Srinagar, protesters blocked the strategic Jammu-Srinagar national highway - the only link between the Kashmir Valley and the rest of the country - pelting stones at the passing vehicles. The protesters were later chased away from Lethpora, Ahmad said.

Reports of clashes between curfew-defying mobs and security forces have also come in from north Kashmir’s Baramulla and Sopore towns.

Authorities had imposed an indefinite curfew in Srinagar and north Kashmir’s Baramulla and Sopore and south Kashmir’s Anantnag, Pulwama, Bijbehara and some other places in the Valley Sunday.

“The imposition of curfew had become unavoidable in the wake of the large scale violence and arson by mobs which had formed part of the protest march led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik here yesterday (Saturday),” a senior police officer said here.

After Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the Mirwaiz had betrayed assurances of a peaceful protest because of which the authorities had allowed his Lal Chowk march Saturday, police have lodged an FIR against the Mirwaiz in a local police station here.

“The FIR has been lodged against Mirwaiz Umer Farooq for instigating people to violence and arson through his inflammatory speeches,” police said.

Sixty-nine people have so far lost their lives in the ongoing unrest that started on June 11.