12-year-old critically injured in stone pelting at Sumbal

Shutdown enforced with stone peting; Food store looted in Sopore

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Aug 8: Showing little regard for separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s advice, Kashmiri youngsters today resorted to stone pelting on vehicles and shops in business at several places in the Valley to enforce shutdown in the afternoon. A 12-year-old boy, whose head was broken with a stone in Sumbal, was reportedly among numerous drivers and shopkeepers left wounded. Earlier today, business establishments and commercial traffic operated after nearly two weeks of separatists-sponsored shutdown and government-sponsored curfew in the entire Valley.

Shops and other commercial establishments were seen in business today after nearly two weeks of continued curfew, enforced by the government, and shutdown, sponsored by the separatists. Even as government offices remained closed due to the weekly holiday of Sunday, private offices and even some banks worked like on a normal day.

BSNL, according to sources, had decided to keep its offices and revenue collection centers open but senior officials in the circle objected to the suggestion and argued that separatist groups like Hurriyat could not be allowed to dictate schedule of working to a Government of India corporation. However, offices and outlets of private telecommunication companies remained open.

Government schools, colleges and universities had an off day but private educational institutes conducted classes. Teaching activity has remained frozen for over two months and most of the examinations, including recruitment interviews by State Recruitment Board and State Public Commission have been canceled or postponed. Private educational institutes had announced to conduct classes on days of shutdown but they have quickly withdrawn the decision after Dukhataraan-e-Millat chief, Asiya Andrabi, said in a statement last month that she would not be responsible if anything untoward happened with the schoolchildren.

Separatists have refused to listen to the public concern and none of the essential services has been exempted from shutdown. Geelani has now asked the hapless people to arrange at-home tuitions for their children.

After two weeks of frozen life, there was huge rush of shopping as thousands of vehicles were seen in movement, leading to traffic jams in the capital city and other major towns. Customers in distress were seen purchasing stocks in view of upcoming holy month of Ramzan and a fresh shutdown calendar released by Geelani last evening. According to the calendar, only some hours of Thursday next, besides the Pakistani Indepedence Day of Aug 14th, have been declared as open for business and traffic movement in the next eight days. The previously issued calendar had relaxed shutdown from morning to 2.00 p.m. today.

At dot 1400 hours, when the brisk business activity was still underway and traffic was flowing in full swing, stone pelters appeared at several places in the capital city as well as major townships. Without any warning, they resorted to heavy stone pelting on the vehicles in movement and the shops in business. Reports said that dozens of motorists and drivers, besides shoppers and shopkeepers, sustained injuries. The hooligans did not relent even as the hapless drivers and shopkeepers pleaded that Mr Geelani had proscribed the “counterproductive practice of stone pelting, arson and vandalism” in unambiguous terms. Consequently, businesses closed and the people deserted the markets.

Informed sources said that in the same stone pelting, a 12-year-old boy, namely Imtiyaz Ahmed Dar S/o Ghulam Nabi Dar R/o Shilwat, Sonawari, was hit in his head at Sumbal. The class 6th student was returning to his home. He collapsed but was quickly evacuated by residents and relatives to SKIMS, Soura, where doctors described him as critical. They found the teenager’s skull fractured and put him under intensive care treatment. He is the third victim of stone pelting as earlier this year, an 11-day-old child was killed in the lap of his mother at Baramulla and an employee of J&K State Board of School Educatio, a resident of Nattipora area of Srinagar, died after his head was smashed with a massive stone at Batmaloo.

Meanwhile, official sources said that hundreds of people broke locks of the food storage of Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution Department at Hygam in Sopore area of Baramulla district and they looted more than 200 quintals of rice. It was the first case of looting of a public ration store during the current spell of political turbulence and lawlessness in Kashmir. Sources said that another mob had earlier this week looted 1300 quintals of rotten rice that had been stored for disposal. They said that Police have registered FIR and begun the investigation.

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