Four persons, including the main accused, have been arrested in connection with the death of 11-day-old ailing baby boy over a week ago when protesters stopped a vehicle carrying him and roughed up its passengers in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla district.
“We have arrested four persons including the main accused in connection with the stone pelting incident at Chakla-Baramulla in North Kashmir on February 22,” State Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ali Mohmmad Sagar said on Monday.
The arrested were identified as main accused Tahir Ahmed Salay, Bilal Ahmed, Akhtar Hussain Bhat and Mohammad Ramzan Siraj, he told the Assembly.
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All the accused faced murder charges and statements of 15 eye witnesses were recorded in this regard, the minister said, adding, further investigations were on.
Giving details of the case, Mr. Sagar said on February 22, a Matador, coming from Rafiabad to Baramulla, was stopped by a by a group of people at Chakla.
The protesters, demanding release of youths arrested on charges of stone-pelting on security forces in the past few weeks in Kashmir, dragged the passengers out of the vehicle after asking them to join the protests. “A lady named Kalsooma of Rawoocha-Rafiabad was carrying her ill 11-day-old baby under her ‘pheran’ (loose kashmiri gown). Some miscreants started pelting stones and in the process the baby fell down and died apparently due to suffocation,” the minister said.
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While Mr. Sagar was making the statement, a PDP member wanted to know affiliations of the arrested, claiming the government had earlier alleged PDP workers’ involvement in the case.
However, Speaker Akbar Lone rejected his demand saying, the minister had already given the details.