Click to play videoSrinagar: Eighteen people were injured, including some in firing, when a mob attacked a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) post in Habba Kadal locality of Srinagar on Friday evening.
CNN-IBN’s TV footage of the incident may again put in doubt the CRPF’s conduct in the Valley. In the footage, the Jammu and Kashmir Police can be seen trying to pacify the mob in Habba Kadal. The policemen, who can be identified with their epaulettes, are seen urging the CRPF personnel to stay calm and not to open fire.
The situation deteriorated when a young man approached the CRPF post and asked the personnel to step out. The CRPF personnel abused the man and then an armoured vehicle moves in and opened fire at the crowd.
The CRPF men next turn on journalists and beat up Muzamil Rashid, who is a cameraperson with CNN-IBN’s Hindi sister channel IBN 7. Two other camerapersons were also injured in the clash.
The authorities, however, maintained that the CRPF had fired only in the air to disperse the mob. “Only two people have been reported to have sustained bullet injuries, both of whom are out of danger. The rest of the injured sustained injuries in baton charge and tear smoke shelling,” a senior police official told IANS.
The Centre shifted CRPF’s Inspector General Sunil Kumar Jain out of Srinagar on Thursday after repeated allegations of misconduct and use of excessive force against the paramilitary force. Separatist leaders in Kashmir had been demanding Jain’s transfer for some time now.
CNN-IBN’s Special Investigations Editor V K Shashikumar reports from Srinagar the CRPF denies that its personnel opened fire unprovoked. Some CRPF contingents deployed in the Valley are not used to dealing with protesters and crowd management and appear to be edgy in such situations, says Shashikumar.
Independence Day passed of peacefully in the Valley until the Habba Kadal incident in the evening. At least 22 people have been killed and more than 300 injured, including policemen, in the violence that has erupted in the city for almost two months in the wake of the Amarnath land transfer row.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held an emergency meeting with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee at his residence late Friday evening to discuss the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and possible solutions to the Amarnath shrine land grant row.
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