SRINAGAR: More trouble is brewing for the authorities in Kashmir even as the security forces are implementing stricter measures to contain a five-week-old unrest in the Valley triggered by the killing of Burhan Wani, the 22-year-old poster boy of the militancy on July 8.
On Thursday, three more companies of CRPF (370 men) along with the weapons and riot gear were flown here in an IAF plane from Tripura to join the effort. Earlier, more than 5,000 personnel from the CRPF and other central armed forces were brought here from different parts of the country.
The Army is also playing an active role towards containing the turbulence which has, so far, claimed 58 lives, most of these in security forces’ firings, and left thousands of people injured. But the separatists who are virtually calling the shots seem to be undeterred.
On Thursday, they announced a ‘referendum march’ to be held on August 13 and 14, asking the people to gather at Srinagar’s historic Lal Chowk. Similar pursuits in past one month have led to bloody face-offs between people and securitymen, resulting into more deaths.
Earlier, police took into preventive custody Hurriyat Conference leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq as they tried to defy house arrest and march to Eidgah to pay homage to Sheikh Abdul Aziz on his eighth death anniversary.
