NC leader, activists houses attacked, Ex-militant held
Srinagar: Violent stone-throwing clashes between youths and government forces against visit of National Conference (NC) leader left dozens of forces men including two top officers injured while houses of three pro-India workers were also damaged in Shahgund village of north Kashmir’s Bandipora district.
Shahgund is the native village of a slain youth, Farhat Ahmad Dar, who was killed during clashes in Hajin town last month on 14th.
Sources told GNS that NC leader and Higher Education Minister, Muhammad Akbar Lone, was scheduled to address a workers meet in Shahgund area of Hajin. “As locals came to know about his arrival, dozens of people particularly youth took to streets and enforced shutdown in Shahgund and its adjoining areas including Vijpore and Guniger. They pelted stones on vehicles and burnt tyres on the streets,” an eyewitness Ishfaq Ahamd told GNS.
The spontaneous protest in the area forced Lone to cancel his program in Shahgund and then addressed workers five kilometers away in other village.
Angry people in Shahgund, meanwhile, ransacked the houses of three NC workers and damaged their windows, glasses and panes.
Police sources identified the workers whose houses got damaged into the incident as Khazir Mohammad Dar – NC district President for Bandipora – Mohammad Maqbool Gasi and Advocate Ghulam Hassan.
As the situation turned ugly in the area, police and paramilitary troopers arrived and tried to disperse the protesters. Witnesses told GNS that police lobbed teargas shells and resorted to aerial firing. “However, protesters offered stiff resistance and resorted to intense stone-pelting on government forces,” Mir Gowhar, an eyewitness told GNS adding police then fired pellets in which two persons sustained minor injuries.
Meanwhile, a police official in a statement issued to GNS said that twenty police and paramilitary CRPF men including two officers sustained injuries during clashes in Shahgund.
The official identified the two officers as Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and a Station House Officer (SHO).
“Two houses have suffered some damage because of the stone pelting. Police rushed to the spot and chased the miscreants,” the official said, adding: “The situation is normal now.”
Another official said that police exercised ‘maximum restraint” while dealing with protesters in Shahgund.
Meanwhile, late in the evening police arrested a former militant identified as Ghulam Hassan Dar son of Abdul Jabbar of Shahgund, Hajin.
Dar, who is a driver, was arrested on charges of stone throwing incidents at Shahgund area. (GNS)