SRINAGAR: The strike-hit Kashmir Valley reverberated with protests for the fifth day yesterday against the “economic blockade” and the harassment of minority Muslim community in parts of Jammu, where the Shri Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti (SASS) extended 13-day-long agitation by another six days.
Violence and clashes between agitators and the police show no signs of ebbing with the town of Poonch in Jammu region coming under an indefinite curfew yesterday. Immediately after the Friday prayers thousands of people joined a procession headed for the UN office in Srinagar as announced by the moderate group of the separatist conglomerate, All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) to present a memorandum to the United Nation Military Observers Group here.
However, the procession was intercepted two kilometers short of the UN office and forcibly dispersed. All the prominent separatist leaders including Mirwaiz Maulvi Omar Farooq, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Shabir Shah and Naeem Khan have been put under house arrest to prevent their participation in the march.
Protests were also held in Qazigund and Anantnag in south Kashmir where police used tear gas and batons to disperse the mobs and in Nowhatta, Maisuma, Nowpora, Batamallo localities of capital city.
The Kashmir Valley is facing acute shortages of food, fuel and medicine as the revolt-hit region is gripped by the worst Hindu-Muslim tensions in decades, locals say. Angry protesters in Hindu-dominated Jammu have been attacking trucks ferrying supplies to the Muslim-majority valley, seeking to impose an economic blockade and defying an army curfew. Radical Hindu groups have told Muslims living in Jammu to leave and the latter’s houses have been set ablaze.
A shutdown called by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) crippled life in Kashmir for the fourth day yesterday. Shops are closed and traffic is off the roads here.
An indefinite curfew was imposed in the border town of Poonch after a flare-up and clashes between members of two communities late on Thursday.
After a relative calm in Jammu and other districts yesterday, tension mounted in Poonch, and protesters of two communities clashed with each other, forcing the authorities to clamp curfew in the town to control the situation this morning.
In Srinagar, brick-hurling Muslims have been staging running battles with police and the city has been paralyzed by strikes. Some residents say they have never seen the region so divided.
