Police detain a protester in Jammu on Saturday. APFOR two days since Friday afternoon, ‘darbar move’ Kashmiris employed with the state and residing in multi-storied government quarters in Janipura area, have been terrorised by continuous incidents of stone pelting. A tricolour hosted atop a building housing Kashmiri Muslims hasn’t stopped miscreants from indulging in arson — breaking window panes, damaging vehicles and injuring people.
Curfew in Jammu city continued for the second day Saturday with the J&K police and CRPF personnel asking people to stay indoors.
In Udhampur, shops and other business establishment reopened for just about an hour Saturday before being forced to down shutters by activists of Panther’s Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
Nearly half-a-dozen incidents of stone pelting were reported in Jammu till evening. Police arrested nine stone pelters, said M K Sinha, IG for Jammu zone.
On Saturday, a group of 30-40 people climbed the boundary wall of these residential complex and started pelting stones around 9.30 am, causing panic among the employees and their families. “We were having tea when stone pelting started,” said Sheikh Umer, who is staying with his wife and a year-old child.
Police came and chased them away, but some of them regrouped on another side of these quarters around 1 pm and started pelting stones again. Abdul Hamid, an employee, has sustained injury, while a stone had hit a woman in her head.
Though policemen were deployed in the area, miscreants took refuge behind the densely populated localities and continued to pelt stones.
Meanwhile, DGP Dilbagh Singh said that the police had facilitated shifting and lodgment of some Kashmiri people at Bhatindi. He said that movement of some stranded Kashmiri people to Srinagar is also being arranged.
