Killings, protests continue

DAY 3: Varmul simmers

Greater Kashmir Oct 4, 2009
Protests, Clashes Continue; Cops Exercise Restraint: IGP

ALTAF BABA/PTI

Varmul, Oct 4: For the third consecutive day Sunday, this north Kashmir town continued to simmer with hundreds of youths defying restrictions and clashing with the police at various places, in protest against the killing of a 12-year old boy in police shelling.
In the morning hundreds of youths from the old town gathered at the cement bridge and raised pro-freedom slogans, demanding action against the policemen responsible for Friday’s killing. The police resorted to lathi-charge and tear gas shells on the youth and the latter retaliated by pelting stones.
As the day progressed, the clashes intensified in which nine persons including two policemen were wounded.
Shops and business establishments remained closed across the town with most of the commercial vehicles off the roads. Only some private vehicles plied in the civil lines area.
Talking to Greater Kashmir, the inspector-general of police, Farooq Ahmad, said the situation in the civil lines areas was normal while the old town observed strike marked by stray incidents of stone pelting near the two bridges linking the two parts.
“Police has shown great restraint which is evident in the fact that two dozen policemen, including an additional superintendent of police, sustained injuries yesterday,” he said, adding that another five policemen were injured in stray stone pelting incidents which were confined to the Cement Bridge area only.
The situation in the town is tense since Friday evening when 12-year old Irfan Ahmad Lone of Drangbal, a Class-7 student, was killed after being hit by a tear-smoke shell fired by police.
Irfan was killed and four youths injured when police resorted to baton charge and fired teargas shells to quell a demonstration in the town protesting the continued house arrest of Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman, Syed Ali Geelani.
Geelani is under house arrest at his Hyderpora residence in Srinagar since September 9. On September 8, he was released on court orders from 95 days of imprisonment.
While police first claimed that the boy died of heart attack, later it said the student received shell splinters. Locals maintain that he was hit by a teargas shell on his head.

ADC APPOINTED INQUIRY OFFICER
According to a notification issued by the district magistrate today, the additional deputy commissioner, Muhammad Ashraf Shuntoo, has been appointed as inquiry officer to probe the boy’s killing.
“Anybody who is witness or has some knowledge about the incident may record his statement before the inquiry officer in DC Office Varmul from October 5 to 10, 2009, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m,” an official statement said.