Violence continues amid shutdown

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, October 27

Unidentified persons lobbed a petrol bomb in Sopore and set ablaze an autorickshaw here today for defying a bandh call as shutdown and restrictions continued to paralyse normal life on the 111th day of the unrest across Kashmir today.

The petrol bomb was lobbed on some handcarts carrying garments near Government Hospital in Sopore town of Baramulla district in north Kashmir. Though the garments were damaged, no one was injured in the incident, reports said. This was the first incident of use of a petrol bomb in the Valley for enforcing shutdown since the unrest started.

Miscreants continued to set ablaze academic institutes in the Valley. A school building was gutted in the Pattan area of Baramulla district today. So far nearly two dozen schools have been set ablaze during the over three-month long unrest. Most schools have been torched in south Kashmir’s Kulgam.

In Srinagar, an autorickshaw was set ablaze by unidentified persons in the Saida Kadal area.

In recent days, there has been a rise in incidents of burning of vehicles. At least 13 vehicles have been damaged in these incidents in the central Kashmir districts of Srinagar and Budgam.

Even as the normal life continues to remain paralysed due to shutdown called by separatists and the restrictions with heavy deployment of police personnel in sensitive areas, there has been an increased movement of pedestrians and vehicles here and other major towns of the Valley. Shops and business establishments are closed and the public transport is off the roads, while roadside vendors have been dotting the main market places.

The separatists, jointly issuing weekly shutdown and protest calendars, had called for a complete shutdown on Thursday against the “landing” of the Army in Jammu and Kashmir on this day in 1947.