KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
“I thought it was encounter,” said a visibly frightened elderly man in Srinagar’s Batamaloo when asked about early morning firing.
On Friday, two police jeeps went deep inside Batamaloo making announcements that curfew has been imposed in the area. “Don’t come out,” cop shouted through loud speakers installed over roof of one jeep, “it is better to stay home.” It was round 7:30 AM that police men were seen moving in the two jeeps making announcements.
The resistance leadership has asked people to offer Friday prayers on Batamaloo-Lal Chowk-Dalgate road stretch.
“People were out of their homes to buy essentials,” a resident of Danderkhah Batamaloo said. “Some shops had opened very early in the morning.”
“As soon as the two police jeeps reached Danderkhah, it came under stone pelting attack,” the local informed, “in rage, police men resorted to intense aerial firing.”
The firing by cops made people scary and they fled for safety. “I took hold of my two grandchildren and fled to a relative’s home as my house is under construction,” an elderly man said, “it was for the first time in last 84 days that cops have resorted to such sort of response.”
After people rushed inside their homes for safety, the locals said, shopkeepers fled keeping shops wide open. “Cops came and destroyed the items in the shop,” an eye witness said, “they also damaged an auto rickshaw which was stationed by its owner nearby.”
