SRINAGAR, March 2: At least 14 people, including six security personnel, were injured on the second day of protests that erupted in Jammu and Kashmir following the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a joint US-Israeli attack, officials said.
Authorities have imposed restrictions to curb people’s movement, shut down education institutes and throttled mobile internet speeds in the Union territory as precautionary measures.
Officials said that 75 rallies were held at various places in the Kashmir Valley, while a few demonstrations were held in the Jammu region as well.
Security forces had to use mild force to disperse the protesters in some areas.
Protests broke out in Bemina, Gund Hassibhat, Saidakadal, Nigeen, Foreshore Road and Jehangir Chowk areas of Srinagar city, in the Pulwama town of south Kashmir, and Budgam in central Kashmir.
All of which have a large Shia population, as agitators marched through the streets, raising anti-US and anti-Israel slogans.While most of the protests were by and large peaceful, clashes erupted at a few places, forcing the security forces personnel to use mild force to disperse the protestors, the officials said.
They said 14 persons — eight protestors and six security forces personnel — were injured during these clashes in the Kashmir valley.
Severe restrictions had been placed on the movement of people in parts of Kashmir.
The curbs were imposed against the backdrop of a call for a one-day strike given by Mutahida Majlis-e-Ulama (MMU) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
He had urged people to observe the strike “with unity, dignity, and in peace”.
PRAYERS HELD AT AMU
Members of the Muslim community held a funeral prayer for Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei at the lawns of the Aligarh Muslim University Students Union compound here amid tight security, with speakers urging the Indian government to offer condolences to the cleric’s family, instead of remaining silent.
The ‘Ghaibaana Namaaz-e-Janazza’ (funeral prayer in absentia) was attended by several people, including students of the university.
The prayer was preceded by slogans of Shia-Sunni unity and addresses to the gathering, where several speakers asserted that Ayatollah Khamenei, in his death, attained “martyrdom and aroused a wave of sympathy beyond the borders of his own country”.A number of speakers urged the Government of India to offer condolences to the family of the departed cleric, instead of remaining silent.
Addressing the prayer meeting, former president of the AMU Students Union Salman Imtiaz said that Khamenei, in his death, “became the voice of all those downtrodden people of the world who speak for humanity against the imperialist forces of the world” and brought Shias and Sunnis on the same platform.
“Ayatollah Khamenei was an old friend of India, and had stood by India even at the cost of its relationship with Pakistan,” Imtiaz said.
The prayer meeting was held under tight security arrangements, and the participants were advised to disperse after the meeting instead of taking out any procession, police sources said. Several opposition parties on Sunday condemned the killing of Khamenei in US-Israel strikes and questioned the Centre’s “silence” over the development, with the Congress saying that it shows the Narendra Modi government’s “abdication of moral leadership”. (PTI)
