Mujtaba Wani
SRINAGAR: Normal life in Kashmir has been affected due to a strike called by the joint advisory council of separatists to demand the return of Mohammad Afzal Guru’s body to his family.
Shops and other businesses are closed and transport has been affected. The police and paramilitaries have been deployed in strength.
The northern towns of Sopore and Baramulla wore a deserted look as members of security forces lined roads, witnesses said. However in capital Srinagar, banks are open and so are government-run schools.
The Mutahida Majlis e Mashawarat (MMM), or a joint council of various separatist groups formed to chalk out a strategy of protests for the return of Guru’s body, had asked people to observe a civil curfew on Wednesday to press for the demand.
India’s home minister, Sushil Kumar Shine on Monday outrightly declined to return Guru’s body for burial in the valley.
The separatists however have asked people to follow their protest schedules strictly until the body was returned.
Disrupted
Life has been disrupted in the valley for over a month since the hanging of Afzal Guru in Delhi’s Tihar jail. The valley was placed under a curfew for seven consecutive days after Guru’s hanging on Feb 9.
Then the council of separatists issued weekly protest programmes. But things had started limping back to normal when the mysterious death of a Kashmiri student in Hyderabad caused a fresh wave of unrest.
Many in Kashmir believe that Mudasir Kamran, a PhD scholar was killed by “Hindu fanatics” or the police after his participation in protest demonstrations over Guru’s execution. The Hyderabad police say he committed suicide.
The latest to come was the killing of a 27-year-old youth, Tahir Ahmed Sofi by the Army in Baramulla on Tuesday.
The killing caused deep shock and anger in the valley. Even pro-India political groups including the governing National Conference have decried Sofi’s killing as “unprovoked”.
The chief minister Omar Abdullah broke down in the assembly saying he had no explanation for the killing. He lamented that those responsible for it could not be brought to justice due to impunity under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
People in the valley recently breathed normal on Saturday last, after five days of curfew and shutdown and clashes between the protesters and the police and paramilitaries that left nearly 200 people injured.
The authorities in Kashmir have justified the imposition of curfew saying that this has been done “to save lives”.
