Srinagar: A complete shutdown is being observed across Kashmir Monday against the killing of six militants and a civilian in a gunfight with government forces on Sunday in a nocturnal gunfight. An Indian army soldier was also killed in the gunfight.
Government fearing protests and clashes made additional deployment of government forces personnel at several places across the valley including the capital city Srinagar.
Authorities have also imposed restrictions in some towns in southern Kashmir and in the old parts of the Srinagar city. Shops and businesses are closed while public transport is mostly off the roads.
The Joint Resistance Leadership, in a statement, on Sunday called for a complete shutdown to strongly protest and denounce the killing of 17 Kashmiri’s by “Indian forces’ brutal action” in last 3 days.
Most of the educational institutes are shut and university examinations have been postponed.
In a nocturnal encounter on Sunday, police said, it killed three top commanders among six militants of Lashkar and Hizb, while a Territorial Army soldier from Kashmir’s Kulgam, was also killed in the firefight in Batgund area of Kapran in Shopian of South Kashmir.
A 15-year-old civilian resident of Kulgam, Nouman Ashraf, was hit by a bullet and died of the injuries. In what locals described as “unprovoked, indiscriminate firing”, government forces showered civilians with pellets, and also fired bullets, to leave 68 persons injured, among them a 3-year-old baby girl.
