Srinagar : Three persons were killed and two others injured as CRPF personnel opened fire at a group of stone pelting protestors in Anantnag district of south Kashmir on Tuesday, police said.
Those killed were identified as Ishfaq Ahmed Khanday (15), Imtiyaz Ahmad Itoo (17) and Shujatul Islam (19) by the police which said they were part of a mob hurling stones at CRPF personnel in Anchidoora, 55 kms from here.
Two more persons received bullet wounds in the incident and were rushed to S K Institute of Medical sciences here, they said. While Khanday and Itoo were killed on the spot, Islam died on the way to the hospital.
However, locals alleged that the CRPF personnel barged into houses and shops while chasing the stone-pelting protestors and shot the victims from close range inside a house and a bakery shop.
As news of the death of three teenagers spread, more people took to the streets and set ablaze three vehicles of CRPF at Khannabal-Pahalgam road in the town, official sources said.
This is the second firing incident in Anantnag town since this morning. Earlier, a 16-year-old boy Irshad Ahmad Bhat received a bullet injury in his left leg when police opened fire at a mob at Mattan Bus Stand, 65 kms from here. The condition of Bhat is said to be stable.
Twenty other persons including ten policemen were injured in clashes during the day between stone pelting mobs and law enforcing agencies in the town.
With the killing of three more teenagers in Anantnag, the number of youths who have died in firing allegedly by security forces during the past five days has gone up to eight. A total of eleven people have been killed in firing incidents involving security forces in the past three weeks.
Fresh clashes on Tuesday broke out between locals protesting the killing of youths in alleged CRPF firing and security forces in parts of Srinagar, Baramulla and Anantnag districts, leaving 13 people injured.
With violence spreading to more places, curfew was imposed this morning in parts of Baramulla, Anantnag and seven police station areas of Srinagar as the situation remained tense in troubled Sopore in the wake of the protests. In view of the violence, mobile services in north Kashmir and SMS service in the entire valley were blocked on the instructions of the state government.
With separatists giving fresh calls for strike, life remained crippled across Kashmir valley, including Srinagar, for the fifth consecutive day on Tuesday.
In Anantnag, 65 kms from here, locals assembled at a bus stand and protested against the killings. Paramilitary forces deployed in the town initially cane charged them but when they refused to budge, they opened fire resulting in injuries to three persons including a teenager identified as Irshiad Ahmad Bhat. He suffered a bullet injury in one of his legs at the Mattan bus stand, a police spokesman told PTI.
He said Bhat was admitted to a hospital where doctors described his condition as stable. The spokesman said people also took to the streets in K P Road in Anantnag but there was no report of any casualty in the clashes that ensued between the protestors and law enforcing agencies.
In Srinagar, agitators staged protest demonstrations in Maisuma area, Zaldager, Galwanpora, the airport road, Nund Resh Colony, Boatman colony in Bemina, Batmaloo and HMT Zainakote, he said.
Five persons were injured in the clashes. In Baramulla town of north Kashmir where a teenager was killed on Monday, people staged demonstrations in the town, Delina and Khanpora and clashed with security forces resulting in injuries to five persons, he said.
Additional contingents of police and paramilitary forces were deployed in curfew-bound Sopore and other areas to maintain calm, police sources said. Two persons died and 65 others, including 32 policemen, were injured in the violent clashes in various parts of the valley yesterday. One of the two persons killed was a native of Baramulla.
Curfew, which was restricted to Sopore town since June 25, has been extended to Baramulla as authorities apprehended trouble, police said.
While hardline faction of Hurriyat Conference headed by jailed leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has given a call for a two-day strike, the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq has asked people to come on streets to protest the killing of youths by security forces in Sopore and Baramulla.
