Govt offices set on fire, Police Stations attacked

Pro-Azadi groups enjoy field day in arson on Eid-ul-Fitr in Valley

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Sep 11: Apparently upbeat by the palpable response their ‘Quit Jammu & Kashmir Movement’ has evoked from Srinagar to New Delhi in the last three months of turbulence, Kashmiri separatist crowds today turned the religious congregation of Eid-ul-Fitr in a major anti-India political show. Much like in March 1990 and August 2008, Srinagar reverberated with pro-Azadi and anti-India slogans as masked and unmasked men carried green colour flags, zipped past the CRPF bunkers with ‘Go India Go back’ slogans and attacked a number of Police stations and torched government properties---including the offices of IGP Crime, Chief Engineer Maintenance & Rural Electrification, Managing Director of J&K State Power Development Corporation (PDC) and part of the Central Market at Exhibition Grounds.

Apprehending mob attacks, none of the beleaguered mainstream political leaders participated in Eid-ul-Fitr mass prayers at Hazratbal or any other major shrines or mosques today. Before leaving for New Delhi to join his family, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah attended the Eid prayers at Sayeed Sahib Shrine in close vicinity of his Gupkar Road residence. He was accompanied by Ali Mohammad Sagar and few of his party colleagues and government officials. Minister of Agriculture, Ghulam Hassan Mir, was the one-odd mainstream politician who dared to venture out of his home and performed the congregational prayers at a community mosque in his Assembly constituency of Tangmarg. Minister of Finance, Abdul Rahim Rather, joined his family in Jammu and attended the Eid prayers at Eidgah.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims performed the mass prayers at their local Eidgahs, community mosques, shrines and Imambaras all over the Valley. No untoward incident was reported from anywhere other than the capital city where hundreds of separatist activists set on fire Police barracks at the Auqaf buildings outside the most revered Hazratbal shrine. Finding Police at a receiving end, these violent crowds torched a Police Gypsy and latter turned a vehicle of Fire and Emergency Department upside down.

Officials as well as eyewitnesses said that Police fired hundreds of gunshots in the air and observed maximum restraint so as to ensure that there was no bloodletting on occasion of the Eid prayers. It took Police more than three hours to disperse the unruly crowds. An official spokesman blamed Hurriyat (G) leader, Massarat Alam, and his supporters for the arson.

Even as the clash was underway at Hazratbal, Chairman of so-called moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, led his 60,000-strong Eid congregation from Eidgah Grounds to the Civil Lines hub of Lalchowk, while shouting pro-Azadi and pro-Islam slogans. Though most of the flags carried by men in the Mirwaiz rally were traditional Islamic banners, eyewitnesses insisted that few people also carried flaunted Pakistani national flags.

Wending its way through Srinagar interior, Mirwaiz Umar’s rally delayed Chief Minister’s departure to Delhi by at least three hours. Authoritative sources said that Chief Minister monitored the situation from his residence and took two meetings with senior government functionaries to ensure that there was no shootout or casualty on the auspicious festival. Officials maintained that the young separatist cleric steered his religious rally and turned it into a major anti-India political show in violation of his assurances to the government.

While hundreds of people, most of them masked and carrying green flags, kept shuttling on the streets in entire capital city on their motorcycles and vehicles, men in the Mirwaiz rally dismantled a number of Traffic Police and District Police posts all through their route to Lalchowk. Police and paramilitary forces had completely cleared out. Police booths were destroyed near the Civil Secretariat entrance and Budshah Chowk. Scores of people hoisted green flags on the lately reconstructed clock tower at Lalchowk and later caused to it massive damage. Mirwaiz addressed the gathering at Lalchowk and vowed to carry on the “freedom struggle” with full zeal and zest.

One Imran Ahmed Bhat fell down and got injured when he was earlier hoisting a green flag at the clock tower. He was rushed to hospital.

While on way back to the downtown, hundreds of men swooped on a major office complex well in front of J&K High Court, Legislature Complex and Civil Secretariat. They ransacked the building and even struck an iron rod blow on an official of Crime Branch. Thereafter the unruly men set the complex on fire. Offices of IGP Crime, CE M&RE, MD PDC were among a number of government establishments that were destroyed in the blaze. The fire also caused damage to a number of shops in the adjoining Central Market at the Exhibition Grounds. There was no resistance to the arson.

An official spokesman later added that unruly crowds also struck on a number of other government buildings and Police Stations without instant provocation. He said that the crowds resorted to heavy stone pelting on the office of SP City (South) and Women’s Police Station at Rambagh.

The spokesman said that violent crowds also made similar attacks on the Police Stations at Hazratbal, Sopore, Pulwama, Kunzar (Tangmarg) and a CRPF camp at State Bank of India building in Sopore.

Breaking his three-month-long silence, Director General of Police, Kuldip Khoda said at a press conference that a group of miscreants tried to disturb peaceful atmosphere at Hazratbal, preventing the people from prayers with a clandestine conspiracy to set on fire the Aquaf building where a police post was located. He said that this post was exclusively meant for the welfare of the devotees coming to the holy shrine and to protect Dargah and the holy relic. He added that their intention was obvious and Police would investigate and unravel their criminal intentions.

DGP was flanked by Commissioner-Secretary Home, B R Sharma, Additional DG Law & Order, K Rajindra Kumar, and IGP Kashmir, S M Sahai.

Mr Khoda said that the administration had deliberately taken a conscious decision not to impose any kind of restriction on the day of Eid and allow people to pray and celebrate peacefully, even when Moulana Umar Farooq established contact with the administration and was allowed to lead an Eid procession upto Lal Chowk without any restriction. “Mirwaiz promised that it would be completely a peaceful procession, but immediately after his address to a gathering of 2000 people at Lal Chowk, PDD complex was set on flames. This has come as the interpretation of their peaceful procession”, DGP said.

“We have proved everywhere from morning to evening an exemplary kind of restrain inspite of the fact that public property was set on flames on the day which is the day of peace. The vehicles were burned and police personnel were assaulted and attacked but it is a proof of our maximum restrain that entire brunt was taken by us without causing any injury to a single person”, DGP asserted. He said that the authorities in future would be extra cautious in taking assurances from the separatist leaders.

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