Teenager's death in Srinagar sparks off protests, clashes; scores injured
SRINAGAR: Scores of mourners were on Saturday injured when the police and the CRPF fired shotgun pellets and tear gas as a funeral procession for a slain teenager turned into a protest in Srinagar.
The security forces resorted to aerial firing and also lobbed teargas canisters into a crowd which had gathered outside premises in Srinagar's Gandarpora, Idgah locality where the 16-year-old Qaiser Hameed Sofi was being given the last bathe. Later they also intercepted the mourners carrying the body of the teenage boy who, his family alleged, died of police torture. The police denied the charge.
The security forces' action sparked off protests which soon spread to new areas of Srinagar. Hundreds of young men chanting pro-freedom and anti-India slogans turned up at Sofi’s funeral and then hurled rocks at the security personnel while another group of mourners changed route to bury him. The boy died in a hospital overnight after he was found in an unconscious state a day after he went missing in Srinagar's Shalimar area on October 27.
His mother said that Sofi told her at the hospital bed that he was seized and then tortured by the security forces before forcing him to drink poison. Doctors who treated him said it was a case of poison as well as assault.
But the police said that Sofi was found lying on the road in Shalimar area with froth oozing from his mouth on October 28 and that he was rushed to Srinagar’s Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) where he succumbed late Friday night. “The doctors at the SKIMS performed his stomach wash and sample was sent to FSL for analysis to ascertain the nature of the poisonous substance he had consumed. As per the doctors the patient had a history of GTCS (epilepsy)", the police said adding that it has already taken up investigation into the mysterious death of the teenager.
Kashmir Valley is on the boil since July 8 after the killing of Hizb-ul-Mujahedin commander Burhan Wani. Nearly 100 people have died and thousands injured in security forces’ firings and other actions against the protesters and stone-throwing mobs during the unrest which entered its 120th day on Saturday. Two policemen have also died and several thousands security personnel injured in mob violence. The police has arrested nearly 10,000 people, mainly youth in a tough campaign launched by it with other security forces to contain the unrest.
