Kashmir Valley under curfew, four more killed

Four more persons, including a girl and a teenager, were killed and six others wounded -- three of them critically-- in police firing in South Kashmir's Pampore area even as curfew continued without any break for the third day running.

Police opened fire in Pampore town as a huge mob of protestors attacked the local police station with rocks and stones.
Six others are being treated here in the SMHS hospital and in Soura medical institute for gunshot wounds. Doctors described the condition of the three of the injured as critical.

The mob later went on a rampage and torched the office and residence of tehsildar and also took away weapons from policemen guarding the court of the chief judicial magistrate in Pampore.

A police official on yatra duty in the town was thrashed by mobs that tore his uniform and burnt his official vehicle.

Security forces had to fire warning shots and use teargas and repeated baton charges this morning as huge mobs squatted on the Srinagar Jammu national highway which has remained shut for traffic since yesterday.

Police also opened fire to disperse a stone-pelting mob that attacked a local police post at Khrew near Pampore this afternoon wounding an 17-year old girl identified as Afroza Bano who had received a bullet injury in her head.

She was immediately shifted to Soura Medical Institute where she succumbed as doctors tried to revive her.

Police said mobs nearly ransacked the police post in Khrew where security forces had to be rushed to rescue the policemen from the besieged post.

Mobs Saturday felled roadside trees and laid them across the Srinagar- Jammu national highway between Panthachowk and Anantnag in south Kashmir at several points.

The security forces had a difficult time in clearing parts of the highway last night.

The traffic on the highway has come to a halt as mobs staged sit-ins and protests on it at several places Sunday.
More reinforcements have been rushed to south Kashmir to beef up the security.

Curfew continued without any break in the summer capital Srinagar and other towns for the third day. Authorities have deployed police and paramilitary contingents in full riot gear to scuttle protests and violence and to enforce curfew.

Residents here complain they were facing acute shortages of the essential commodities in view of the curfew and curfew-like-restrictions.