Curfew continues in eight Jammu districts, 11 held

An Army personnel keeps vigil during prohibitory orders in force in Jammu on Monday. An indefinite curfew have been imposed in the Jammu region following communal clashes in Kishtwar.

Curfew continued in eight districts of Jammu region on Tuesday even as the annual Amarnath Yatra resumed after three days, officials said. Eleven people have been arrested in connection with the communal clashes in Kishtwar.

The Amarnath Yatra had remained suspended for the last three days.

“The Amarnath Yatra resumed early today. 225 pilgrims were allowed to move from here to the Valley around 4.30 a.m. this morning,” a police official said.

“The pilgrims moved in six buses and one light vehicle. Adequate security has been provided to ensure their safety,” he said.

Normal traffic on the Jammu-Srinagar highway has still not resumed. Traffic on the Pathankot-Jammu and Jammu-Srinagar highway was halted following tension along the road after the Kishtwar violence on Friday.

Curfew continued in the eight districts of Jammu, Kathua, Samba, Reasi, Udhampur, Rajouri, Doda and Kishtwar districts of Jammu region. Loudspeaker-fitted police vehicles announced in the morning that curfew was in force in these districts and that people should remain indoors.

While curfew continued for the fifth day in Kishtwar district where it was imposed on Friday following communal clashes, in other districts it continued for the fourth day on Tuesday.

No curfew was imposed in Ramban and Poonch districts of Jammu region in the aftermath of the Kishtwar clashes.

The Doda district magistrate said no curfew has been imposed in Doda town, although the same was imposed as a precautionary measure in Gandoh, Thatri, Prem Nagar and Bhaderwah areas of the district.

Authorities Monday evening relaxed curfew for three hours in Samba district after which it was re-imposed. In all other parts of Kathua district, except the main town, curfew was relaxed for two hours Monday evening.

In Reasi district, curfew was relaxed for three hours, while in Udhampur, authorities relaxed curfew for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening.

“Except for some stray incidents in Kishtwar town and Raipur area of Jammu district, the situation remained completely peaceful elsewhere Monday,” an administrative officer told IANS.

“In fact, prominent citizens and civil society members from both the communities have already started carrying out peace marches at some places to defuse tensions,” he said.

Reports reaching here from the hilly Kishtwar town said a vehicle hired by police was Monday set ablaze by miscreants at Shalimar Chowk, five km from Kishtwar town.

Police arrested 11 people in connection with the communal clashes in Kishtwar. The arrested include Abdul Qayoom Mattu, a separatist leader police allege was responsible for instigating people to violence.

Protestors including women and children defied curfew in Kishtwar town Monday to protest the arrests. The protestors engaged police in stone pelting, in which two police officers including an additional superintendent of police and a deputy superintendent of police were injured.

Five protestors were also injured. The army later carried out a flag march in the area to restore order.

Meanwhile, mobile internet services remained suspended throughout the state for the third day Tuesday.

While authorities said the services have been suspended to check rumour-monging, professionals, academicians, students and journalists have criticised the suspension, saying it amounted to pushing the state into the another Stone Age.

“When information is gagged, rumours always run wild. I wonder what they want to achieve by this internet suspension, except for telling the world that Jammu and Kashmir is being pushed into another Stone Age,” said an academician.

Curfew imposed in Rajouri; Jaitley may be sent back from airport:

A police vehicle in flames after two groups indulged in stone-pelting and arson in Kishtwar district on Friday.

With the tension mounting in Jammu, authorities have clamped curfew at the district headquarters of Rajouri even as the options of imposing curfew in the capital of Jammu and denying permission to a BJP delegation’s visit to Kishtwar were being considered at a high level meeting late on Saturday night.

Superintendent of Police Rajouri Mubassir Latifi confirmed to The Hindu that curfew was imposed on the township indefinitely late on Saturday. “We had serious apprehensions of trouble. Deputy Commissioner has now imposed curfew”, Mr Latifi said.

Sources said that in view of certain untoward incidents at New Plot and Gujjar Nagar on Saturday evening, tension was building up fast and the authorities were likely to announce imposition of curfew in the capital city of Jammu anytime around the midnight.

Authorities are understood to have decided to deny permission to a BJP delegation’s visit to the curfew-bound Kishtwar on Sunday. The BJP delegation, headed by the senior party leader Arun Jaitly, is scheduled to arrive at Jammu airport at 9.00 a.m. Mr Jaitley’s requisition for a helicopter to ferry the party’s delegation to Kishtwar was unlikely to meet a positive response.

Well placed authoritative sources revealed that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was not in favour of permitting any political visit to Kishtwar for the next few days as the situation in the curfew-bound town had not stabilized. Mr Jaitley and his party colleagues, according to the sources, are likely to be intercepted at Jammu airport and sent back in a plane as had been done by the Omar Abdullah government when Mr Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj wanted to join a BJP youth rally at Lakhnapur, on Punjab-J&K border, a few years back. Sources said that section 107 Criminal Procedure Code was likely to be invoked to prevent the BJP delegation from visiting Jammu, Kishtwar and other towns.

Party’s J&K spokesman and a member of the National Executive Dr Jitendar Singh has been reportedly stopped at Batote on Saturday and told that the Government was not permitting any political delegation’s visit to Kishtwar for now.

Tension prevailed in Jammu as the BJP in the evening announced to extend the shutdown to 72 hours. “Bandh will continue in Jammu province on Sunday and Monday”, a senior leader said.

Earlier report:

Curfew continued in Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday and the Army conducted a flag march to restore order after Friday’s riots left two persons dead and about 80 injured.

The Hindu-dominated Jammu province observed complete shutdown on a call from the Bharatiya Janata Party while the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley remained equally paralysed with a strike call from Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the radical faction of Hurriyat Conference.

Sources said that notwithstanding violent incidents and clashes over the last few days, pilgrimages to Budha Amarnath (Poonch), Machail (Kishtwar) and Amarnath (Kashmir) had not been terminated. “These are all in progress, though one or two of them has been suspended temporarily,” an official said.

Twin tragedy

Funeral rites of the two persons, Arvind Kumar Bhagat and Bashir Ahmad Mochi, were performed in the afternoon at Sangram Bata, in the periphery of the district headquarters in an emotionally-charged atmosphere. Twenty-three-year old Arvind is said to have died of bullet wounds near Kuleed Chowk where the clashes originated. Hindu activist groups insisted that the young man was fired upon from .12 bore single barrel gun by an arsonist while Muslims insisted that Arvind died in police firing. Everyone, now, is awaiting the post-mortem reports.

Bashir’s nondescript house is yards away from Arvind’s at Sangram Bata. Residents said that Bashir, the poor 4th class employee of the Public Health Engineering Department had been captured by a mob, beaten up mercilessly and burnt alive just as a hotel had been set ablaze. His charred body was later shifted to Chowgan Grounds. It was identified in the morning as Bashir had a metallic rod in his fractured arm. “Tragedy is not new to this family. Bashir’s brother Farooq who was a painter, fell last year from a jail building that was under-construction and died,” a relative said.

“Who cares for these sweepers and scavengers?,” sobbed Ghulam Mohammad, another relative.

Bashir’s wife Waheeda works as a sweeper at a tuition centre. His daughter Rabia is an Anganwadi worker and his son Danish is a 10th standard student.