Normalcy returns to Srinagar - but only for a day

SRINAGAR - With authorities relaxing curfew and separatists asking locals to resume normal life for a day, students streamed into schools while shops and businesses functioned normally in this Jammu and Kashmir summer capital Wednesday.

Srinagar schools reported 85 percent attendance, officials said, as both separatists and the administration gave residents some respite.

“Curfew has been relaxed in Srinagar city from 10 a.m. today while it was reimposed in Sopore, Baramulla and Kupwara towns in north Kashmir,” a police officer said here.

However, curfew has not been relaxed in two police station areas in the Old City of Srinagar because of reports that some people planned to incite violence, police said.

Shops, public transport, business establishments, banks, post offices and educational institutions started functioning normally in Srinagar.

Though officials claimed that attendance in educational institutions had improved Tuesday in comparison to Monday when schools reopened officially after three months in Srinagar, very few students turned up.

“Today attendance is overwhelming in all schools not because the government has lifted the curfew or because the separatists have asked for a day’s normalcy, it is so because both have decided not to interfere with our lives for a day,” said a frustrated parent.