Valley shuts over civilian killings

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 11

A shutdown was observed across the Kashmir valley on Wednesday in response to an appeal by three key separatist leaders to demonstrate against recent killing of civilians during gunfights.

The markets across the region remained shut and public transport services remained suspended in response to the call for shutdown. The impact of shutdown was across all districts of the Valley and the inter-district traffic along the highways was restricted to a minimal.

It is the third shutdown in the past five days and had come in response to a series of killing of civilians, who were shot during demonstrations near the site of gunfights between security forces and militants.

The latest civilian killing took place on Tuesday in Shopian where one youth and two militants were killed in a counter-insurgency operation.

The shutdown had a paralysing effect on all walks of life as bustling markets of Srinagar and in other districts of the Valley remained deserted and commercial activities remained suspended.

The joint resistance leadership — a separatist front which includes Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik — had called for the shutdown and described it as a protest against the “use of unbridled force on unarmed civilians” in Shopian.

They said they had “deep concern over these heart wrenching incidents” and blamed the security forces for “merciless killings”. “Their approach is haughty and snatching our young and budding souls,” they said.