Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, also the state Home Minister, has reportedly asked the police to probe the recent Turkwangan siege and the damages to properties at the “encounter-site”. The directive came after state CID wing submitted to the government a report about the incident, saying that no militant was hiding, but the Army and security forces are still damaging the property and firing even on people who were trapped inside the houses during the siege.
A senior police officer told this reporter that there was a brief exchange of fire between the Army and the militants in the area and after that they escaped. He said that the Army presumed that they were hiding at the Turkwagan village and laid siege for 16 hours despite police feed-back that no militant was hiding there.
Reports said that Mehbooba Mufti has taken-up the matter with the Central Government, expressing her dismay over the incident. The siege at Turkwangan village of Shopian in South Kashmir resulted in clashes between the security forces and the youths, in which is standard IX student Umar Kumar was killed.
South Kashmir remained on the edge in the past few days following the incident. It was followed by uglier incidents as some miscreants stoned a school bus in Shopian and in the stone-pelting incident a standard II student was injured seriously.
The Army destroyed the houses of two police officers at Turkwangan village as they are close relatives of a Hizbul militant Zeenat-ul-Islam, who reportedly escaped from the same area after a brief gunfight. A deputy superintendent of police took to social networking site on Friday, sharing pictures of how the Army and the security forces had ransacked his house on K.P. Road of main Anantnag town. Dy S.P. Nisar Ahmad Bakshi in his post said that it was eighth attack on his house since 2008. “Vandalism by security forces at K.P. Road Anantnag, property worth lakhs damaged”, Bakshi said. His post evoked a lot of reaction from people throughout the day.
Opposition leader Omar Abdullah and separatists have condemned the stone-pelting on the school bus. Syed Ali Shah Geelani said that such incidents cannot be tolerated by any civilised society.