SRINAGAR: Police in Indian Kashmir yesterday said that morethan 35 people were injured in clashes yesterday, the fifth day of protests triggered by the discovery of the bodies of two women on Saturday locals say were raped and killed by Indian Army soldiers.
Police and paramilitary soldiers yesterday laid razor wire and erected steel barricades at street crossings in Srinagar, the main city in the Himalayan region, and other major towns.
Separatist leaders and even pro-Indian parties in the opposition have used the two women’s deaths to rally support to their sides. Demonstrators clashed with police and soldiers who fired tear gas to break up the protests, said a police officer on condition of anonymity in keeping with department policy.
Police arrested Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a key separatist leader, said his spokesman, Ghulam Mohammed Ganaie. Before his arrest, Geelani called for the strike to continue for two more days, Ganaie said.
More than 200 people have been wounded since Saturday when authorities recovered the bodies of the 17-year-old woman and her 22-year-old sister-in-law were found in a stream in Shopian, 60 kilometers south of Srinagar.
Police have said the women appear to have drowned, but their families and locals accuse Indian government forces of raping and killing them. The military and paramilitary groups have not responded to the allegations.
Geelani was arrested by the Kashmir police minutes before he was scheduled to address a press conference here in the afternoon on the issue of the two women. Geelani, who was under house arrest for the past about a week, was whisked away by the police to an unknown place from his uptown Hyderpora residence.
He was scheduled to address a press conference at his residence about the future program on the ongoing protests and the strike against the incident.
Before his arrest Geelani while talking to journalists called for an indefinite strike in the valley and said the same would continue till “the process of demilitarization begins on ground”.
The valley had been observing a three-day-long strike on his call to protest against the alleged rape and murder of two women by security forces in Shopian town last week.
He was arrested last year in the wake of the Amarnath land row agitation and was initially lodged in the north Kashmir health resort of Gulmarg but later shifted to Srinagar before his release.
Security forces opened fire to disperse a violent mob at Tengpora in Srinagar yesterday afternoon seriously injuring two youth identified as Adil and Irfan Khan. The mob tried to attack a paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force bunker in the Tengpora locality this afternoon.
Protests erupted in Shopian town yesterday and police had to use tear gas and baton charges to disperse the unruly mobs who indulged in stone pelting during a visit to the town by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti. Mehbooba had to be escorted out of the town along with other leaders of her party by the police.
Several thousands people spilled on the roads as the PDP president entered the town for expressing solidarity with the family. Protesters shouting pro-freedom and anti-India slogans marched on the streets in the town where security forces are maintaining tight security.
