Kashmir unrest: Sporadic incidences of violence as region crawls back to normal

There were sporadic incidences of violence in Kashmir on Thursday, even as the region crawled back to normal with public transport resuming services and vendors reopening stalls to sell clothes, fruits and vegetables.

Unknown persons fired in the air in Kulgam’s Chawalgam market when a few shops had opened, police said. An official said the intention of the masked gunmen was to scare the people who had opened shops despite the shutdown call by the joint separatist leadership.

Although reports in local media said petrol bombs were hurled at vendors in Sopore, an official at the police control room denied any such incident.

In another incident, miscreants set on fire an auto-rickshaw at Rainawari in Srinagar.

Read | Education in Kashmir faces another challenge: Almost 20 schools burnt in unrest

A government primary school was burned down by unknown miscreants in Pattan area of Baramulla district late on Wednesday night, making it the 20th such school during the ongoing unrest.

Over the past three-and-a-half months, at least one school in each of the Kashmir Valley’s 10 districts have either been burnt or suffered damages in fires.

Most of the schools have been burnt at night by unknown miscreants. A few caught fire allegedly during security forces’ use of tear gas shells to disperse protesters. Security forces, however, have denied these allegations.

Police said they were trying to identify the “miscreants” and also putting in place some security measures to avoid such incidents.

“A special team of Srinagar police arrested two hardcore stone-pelters Humair (Nelcha) and Zahid Rasool Shiekh of Nowhatta from Jammu,” police said in a statement on Thursday. “The duo is involved in many stone-pelting cases as also in the cases of arson. Both of them were evading arrest.”

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