KL NEWS NETWORK

SRINAGAR

People staged a massive protest against the Army and blocked Sopore-Baramulla road near Ladoora after a shell claimed the life of a 13 year old boy in the Ladoora.

Ladoora Rafiabad area of North Kashmir’s Baramulla district had witnessed a fierce encounter between forces and militant that had ended with the death of an army man and a militant.

Eyewitnesses told CNS that Janaid Ahmed Dar son of Nisar Ahmed, a resident of Ladoora died on spot after an unexploded shell with which he was playing on the roof top of his house went off suddenly. “Junaid was a student of Darul Uloom Zadoora, not far away from his native village Ladoora. A day after encounter on Thursday he came to see his family and most probably found a littered shell at the encounter site. He took the shell to his home and started playing with it on the roof top of his house, where it went off. The explosion created panic in the area. It not only resulted into the death of minor but also damaged a portion of the house,” eyewitnesses said.

Soon after the incident, thousands of people from Ladoora and its adjacent areas staged a massive protest and amid anti-government and anti-Army slogans blocked Ladoora-Baramulla road for hours. The protesters alleged that army don’t bother to sanitize the encounter sites from unexploded shell, thus putting the lives of innocent people at risk. “The forces instead of clearing the encounter sites from shells and live grenades always pose before mobile cameras along with the slain militants. We directly hold Army responsible for the death of this minor boy,” the protesters said.

A Defence spokesperson NN Joshi said that after every encounter “Army sanitize the whole area”. “We have to investigate the matter to ascertain the facts,” he said.

The unexploded shells have claimed several lives all across Jammu and Kashmir in past. In May 2014, a minor girl Simran Reyaz was killed while her brother lost her leg when an unexploded shell went off in Drang village near Tosamaidan Budgam. Two scrap dealers Abdul Salam Tantray and Muhammad Yousuf Malik killed were also killed in 2009 in Shonglipora village in Budgam district in the same kind of incident and again in the 2010 twelve year old Tufail Ahmad, 12, died on spot when an explosive device bursts at MohallaChandyal in Sangoit area of Mendhar Poonch. In the same year, a minor Iftikar Ahmed died and his brother ShaukatHussain sustained injuries while fiddling with a live grenade at a firing range in Berda village in Mendhar tehsil of Poonch.

Last month, two minor brothers Bilal Ahmed Reshi and Shakir Ahmad Reshi died after an unexploded shell went off at hillock near Sainik School Manasbal in district Ganderbal.

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