Life in entire Kashmir Valley was thrown out of gear on Friday following a separatist shutdown and incidents of violence those left 14 persons including six cops wounded.
Friday's strike had been called by the two groups of the separatist conglomerate, All Parties Hurriyat Conference to protest the death penalty to two locals and life imprisonment to another in the 1996 Lajpat Nagar bomb blast that had killed 13 persons in Delhi.
The strike was complete in Srinagar where shops, businesses, educational institutions and public transport remained shut while attendance in government offices and banks was also thin. Though the authorities had imposed strict security restrictions on pedestrian ad vehicular movement in the old city area, violence erupted in other parts of the capital city since Friday morning.
Police had to use teargas and baton charges to disperse the unruly stone pelting mobs in various parts of the city.In the uptown Maisuma locality, police had to detain the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman, Mohammad Yasin Malik who led protests in the area.Immediately after Malik's arrest, angry mobs pelted stones on the police and paramilitary, central reserve police force troopers resulting in clashes those continued till late this evening.
Security force-protestor clashes which started after the Friday prayers led to tension in the city and police and CRPF jawans were busy till this evening controlling the mobs.
A posse of the CRPF opened fire at a group of people who were leaving a local mosque in the Nowshehra locality of the city which had witnessed a stone pelting incident earlier in the day.
Police said 48-year old Manzoor Ahmad was hit by a bullet in his abdomen and was shifted to nearby Soura medical institute in a critical condition. The incident led to tension and protests in the area.Reports from north Kashmir Sopore and Baramulla towns and Anantnag in south also said that security force stone pelter clashes continued intermittently during the day. Chairman of the moderate APHC Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq was placed under house arrest in his Nageen residence by the authorities.
