Four policemen and several people were injured in clashes during a protest march here on Friday against the plan to create “separate zones for migrant Kashmiri Pandits” in the Valley.
Police detained several protesters, including Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik, and used pepper gas and tear smoke canisters to push back the agitators.
As there were calls for peaceful protests after Friday prayers, the authorities had stepped up the presence of the police and CRFF personnel in the area. Armed with AK-47s, tear smoke canisters, pepper gas and fibreglass batons, hundreds of security personnel were deputed in the sensitive neighbourhoods.
“We have been here since 5.30 a.m. as we had been informed that there was going to be a big protest,” said a constable outside the Maisuma lane in Lal Chowk, from where Mr. Malik was detained. “Immediately after the prayers, around a thousand people took out a protest march from Maisuma. We had to stop them from reaching the main road in Lal Chowk.”
Soon after the march was stopped, the protesters started throwing stones and the police used pepper gas and tear smoke canisters to push them back.
“We detained Yasin Malik and more than 20 people during the protests in Maisuma. Four policemen were injured in the stone pelting,” J&K police spokesperson Manoj Pandita said.
Protests were also organised in the old Srinagar area against the government’s proposal.
The protesters raised slogans supporting communal harmony and urged the Kashmiri Pandits to come back, but not in “separate Israeli-type settlements as outposts of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.”
The separatist leadership had called for protests on Friday and a complete shutdown on Saturday after Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed gave his nod to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for return of Kashmiri Pandits in separate zones, which the Peoples Democratic Party is calling “composite townships.”
