Stone pelters staging a comeback in Srinagar

Surrender to Geelani: Students won’t attend I-Day ceremonies in Valley

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Aug 8: After nearly nine months of calm in Kashmir valley, street clashes between pro-Azadi groups of youth and Police are back at several ‘flashpoints’ in this capital city, though not with much intensity yet. While the separatist leaders are trying to exploit the custodial killing of a youth in Sopore and tension is palpably building up ahead of the Indian Independence Day, Government is said to be holding the ceremonial parades without participation of schoolchildren on August 15^th.

Separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s shutdown, coupled by Friday protests against home confinement of separatist leaders, has cast some dark shadows on the nine-month-long peace in the Valley. Small groups of youngsters surfaced on the road at three or four places in Srinagar on Friday and engaged Police and CRPF in ding-dong battles. While the stone pelting demonstrators are visibly trying to recapture space, Police on the other hand have intensified efforts to pre-empt an uprising with raids and arrests of the “trouble mongers”.

Emphasizing continued protest demonstrations “till the arrest of guilty cops” in Sopore, Geelani is asserting hard to regain the ground he lost after September last year. It was evidently over Geelani’s call that scores of youngsters gathered on streets immediately after concluding the morning prayers today and resorted to 2008 and 2010-like stone pelting on bunkers and camps of Police and paramilitary forces in downtown. They alleged that Police had let loose a reign of terror with sporadic arrests in Srinagar and other major towns.

The violent crowds clashed with Police and CRPF for some time before they vanished into dingy neighbourhoods in the city interior. It was late in the afternoon that dozens of youngsters converged on the peaceful Maisuma locality and engaged Police and CRPF in intermittent clashes. Residents alleged that Police had conducted raids at several places and remanded to custody dozens of youth arrested in Baramulla, Sopore and Srinagar. They held the state government responsible for “creating 2008-like or 2010-like situation” with raids and arrests of peace-loving youngsters.

Authorities described these youngsters as “urchins” and alleged that they were trying to stoke fires of hatred and confrontation in Jammu and Kashmir “without any reason or provocation”. SSP Srinagar, Syed Ashiq Hussain Bukhari, made it clear that Police would continue its operations to arrest anybody trying to sabotage peace. According to him, a number of youngsters were being mobilized by militants and separatists, including some mainstream political activists, to indulge in street turbulence. He declined to comment on reports that over a dozen fresh arrests had been made in the last one week.

Due to the clash at Maisuma and adjoining Budshah Chowk, shops and other business establishments remained shut for several hours in few Civil Lines localities including Maisuma. Traffic too was frozen for less than an hour in the uptown locality.

With the fresh trouble brewing up in Srinagar and Sopore, authoritative sources revealed that, for the first time in the last over 50 years, there would be possibly no schoolchildren at this year’s I-Day ceremonial parades. Sources said that cultural and variety programmes, an integral component of the I-Day ceremonies, would be absent on Aug 15^th. This is being interpreted as the state government’s meek surrender before Geelani who has publicly called upon parents to keep away their wards from such “Indian shows”.

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