Kashmir Divisional Commissioner Shailendar Kumar on Friday ordered a magisterial inquiry into the >death of a youth in firing by the Central Reserve Police Force on April 30.
Srinagar District Magistrate Farooq Shah was appointed the Inquiry Officer and asked to submit his report and recommendations in 15 days.
Twenty-four-year-old Bashir Ahmad Bhat of Gratabal, Nawakadal, died when the CRPF fired at unruly demonstrators near Nawakadal Crossing on Nallah Maar Road.
Officials maintained that the crowd had attacked a polling party carrying EVMs to the fortified SKICC counting centre, which was being escorted by the CRPF and snatched a CRPF constable’s gun.
“The miscreants snatched the weapon of a security force personnel. In the ensuing scuffle two persons identified as Bashir Ahmed Bhat, son of Ghulam Hassan Bhat and Nazir Ahmed Kaloo of Nawakadal were injured.
Bashir Ahmed later succumbed to injuries,” a Police bulletin said on April 30.
Three residents of Gratabal and Braripora neighbourhood in Nawakadal dismissed the official version as a “blatant lie.”
“We will thoroughly investigate how the civilian died in the firing. We will see if the Standard Operating Procedure had been violated,” Mr. Shah told The Hindu .
Meanwhile, half-a-dozen government vehicles were damaged and several officials sustained injuries in different incidents of stone-pelting in Kashmir since Thursday night. Official sources said that Superintendent of Police Srinagar Airport Manzoor Ahmad Dalal was injured and his vehicle was damaged in the incident.
Informed sources said that the demonstrators clashed with the police and the CRPF at over a dozen places. Curfew remained in force in downtown Srinagar on the second consecutive day on Friday.
