JOIN USComplete shutdown in Kashmir against civilian killings
Normal life was crippled across Kashmir on Friday due to the strike called by the separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference against the killing of three civilians in Srinagar on Monday.
Four people, including three civilians, were killed in the uptown Hyderpora area of Srinagar on Monday evening in a ‘staged encounter’ that has come under a cloud since then. While police initially claimed that among the four two were active militants and the other two their ‘associates, it came to the fore that three among the slain were civilians.
The Hurriyat Conference, in a statement on Thursday, said the Hyderpora encounter has stunned the people of Kashmir.
“Since most leaders and political activists are either in jails or under house detention, to protest such inhumanity (Hyderpora encounter) and in solidarity with the devastated families of the slain civilians and their demand that the bodies of their loved ones be returned to them for burial, people should observe a shut down on Friday on their own,” it said.
This was the first strike called by the Hurriyat since August 2019 when J&K’s special status was revoked and a massive security crackdown was launched against separatists and their sympathisers by the government.
The strike call evoked massive response as shops and business establishments across the Valley remained shut while transport was off-roads, reports said. Due to the official holiday, government offices were not open on Friday.
Reports said hundreds of policemen and para-military personnel donning riot gear were deployed in the sensitive areas in Srinagar and other towns to thwart any possible protest. In old city areas, the security personnel patrolled the lanes and by-lanes.
Similar reports of shutdown were received from all district headquarters in northern and southern Kashmir.
Most of the local newspapers had not carried the Hurriyat statement for strike call apparently due to the government's ‘arm-twisting tactics'. However, word of mouth prevailed and for the first time in the last two years, any strike in Kashmir evoked such an overwhelming response.
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