KL Report
SRINAGAR
Police have launched a major crackdown against stone pelters to prevent South Kashmir type protests on the polling days in Central and North Kashmir.
A top police official told CNS that Police is continuously analyzing the video clips in order to identify the stone-pelters responsible for the disruption of peace and order in different parts of Kashmir Valley. “We ensure that no innocent gets trapped and every arrest is made after proper assessment and visualization,” he said adding that more than thousand youth are involved in recent stone-pelting incidents all across Kashmir.
“I don’t have actual numbers lying with me about the arrests we have made so far, but we are conducting raids and stone-pelters have been picked up from Pulwama, Shopian, Anantnag, Kulgam, Tral, Kakapora, Sopore, Hajin, Kralpora Chadoora, Srinagar and other parts of the Valley.”
Police sources said that at least 25 youth have been arrested by police during nocturnal raids in South Kashmir’s Pulwama town after the eruption of clashes on the Polling day. “There is apprehension that some miscreants may try to disrupt the law and order on the day of polling in different assembly segments of Central Kashmir. “We are vigilant and have launched crackdown against those miscreants,” the police official said.
Deputy Inspector General North Kashmir Range Ghulam Hasan Bhat said that all arrangements have been made to conduct the coming Lok Sabha elections in North Kashmir peacefully. “There are few restive places like Palhalan, Pattan, Hajin and Sopore and police is ensuring that no untoward incident occurs during the polling day,” he said adding that police is making all efforts to curb those elements who are inimical to peace.
Station House Officer Chadoora Arshid Ahmed said that some miscreants have become habitual of stone-pelting and we are going to take action against those stone-pelters. “Yesterday, scores of stone-pelters attacked CRPF with stones and in this regard we have arrested few youth and formal cases have been registered against them,” he said and identified some of the arrested youth as Showkat Ahmed and Muhammad Ashraf.
Reports said that police has also conducting raids in Old City Srinagar, Baramulla, Hajin and Sopore to apprehend all those stone-pelters who according to police are trouble-makers.
Meanwhile, a complete shutdown was observed in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district and North Kashmir’s Hajin area of District Baramulla against the random arrests of youth.
Reports said that police arrested at least 12 youth during nocturnal raids in different areas of Pulwama town while in Hajin area, police arrested five youth allegedly involved in stone-pelting incidents. One of the youth arrested by police during nocturnal raid at Hajin is a pellet gun victim who had lost his sight of right eye during clashes with police last month.
