Curfew in Srinagar parts after assault on Mirwaiz
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Srinagar, India, Nov 26, IRNA -- Kashmir’s Chief Priest, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, was heckled and roughed up by activists of an extremist Hindu organization during a seminar in northern Indian city of Chandigarh on Thursday.
The attack sparked off angry street demonstrations in Kashmiri capital with authorities clamping curfew in parts of the city to prevent further escalation.
Slogan shouting group of Hindu activists from Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) accompanied by displaced Hindus from Kashmir, who had intruded into the seminar hall created ruckus soon after Mirwaiz began to speak.
Reports reaching here said some of the activists jumped on to the dais where Mirwaiz was seated and pounced upon him.
Eyewitnesses said in the melee, when the activists punched the Mirwaiz in the face, he fell from his chair.
Mirwaiz, the hereditary Chief Priest of Kashmir, also heads the moderate faction of Hurriyat Conference, a pro-independence conglomerate of two dozen Kashmiri parties.
Reports said organizers from Sikh Democratic Forum, immediately threw a protective ring around Mirwaiz and rescued the Kashmiri leader.
Mirwaiz is in Chandigarh, his first stop on a tour of various Indian states, to engage civil society and address a series of seminars aimed at preparing
Indian public opinion for the resolution of the Kashmir issue.
Seminar titled Kashmir and indo-Pak relations was disrupted and Mirwaiz was escorted to safety after police arrived on the scene.
Tension gripped parts of Srinagar as the news of attack on Mirwaiz spread with groups of youth taking to streets shouting pro-freedom slogans.
As the word spread shopkeepers in areas considered to be Mirwaiz stronghold, downed their shutters and soon traffic too went off the roads,” reports said.
Situation in these areas was tense with reports of clashes between angry youth and Indian paramilitary forces when this report last came in.
Police announced imposition of curfew for Friday in areas falling under the jurisdiction of five police stations of Srinagar.
A police spokesman said the 'rumor that Mirwaiz has got injured at a function in Chandigarh was totally false'.
He said the Mirwaiz is safe and the miscreants have been arrested.
The incident comes over a month after Hindu activists created chaos at a seminar on Kashmir in Delhi when another Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani was addressing it along with noted activist and author Arundhati Roy.
Earlier, on November 4, Mirwaiz colleague Shabir Shah was attacked by activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party youth wing in Jammu soon after his release from prison.
Reacting to the incident, Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah described the attack on Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in Chandigarh as a 'reaction to the kind of politics and policy' of the Hurriyat leaders.
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Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 30091778
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