Indian forces use brute force on mourners in Srinagar leaving dozens injured

SRINAGAR: Dozens of people were injured when Indian troops and police personnel used brute force on the funeral of a martyred youth in Srinagar, occupied Kashmir on Saturday.

The youth, Qaiser Butt, in a new tactic of genocide by India, was deliberately run over by a vehicle of Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Nowhatta area of Srinagar during a demonstration, on Friday. He was shifted to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries early morning today, Kashmir Media Service reported.

The puppet authorities imposed curfew and restrictions in Srinagar, on Saturday, to prevent people from attending the funeral prayers of the youth and staging demonstrations against his killing.

Defying curfew and restrictions, thousands of people took part in the funeral prayers of Qaiser Butt first at Fateh Kadal Chowk and later at Eidgah in Srinagar. The participants of the funeral chanted high-pitched pro-freedom and anti-India slogans.

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Indian troops and police personnel fired pellets and teargas shells to disperse the mourners at both the places, injuring dozens of them. Indian troops beat up a journalist, Muheet Ahmed, when he was heading towards Fateh Kadal to perform his professional duties.

The Joint Resistance Leadership comprising Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, in a statement condemned the killing of Qaiser Butt. The leaders said, the genocide of Kashmiris by the Indian forces continues despite ceasefire announced by the Indian government either by bullets, pellets or lately by crushing them under their vehicles.

Meanwhile, complete shutdown was observed in the occupied territory, today, on the call of Joint Resistance Leadership against the surge in civilian killings, desecration of religious places and graves of martyrs and other brutalities of the Indian troops in the territory particularly in South Kashmir.

Indian police arrested Muhammad Yasin Malik after raiding his residence in Maisuma area of Srinagar. The puppet authorities placed Mirwaiz Umar Farooq under house arrest, while Syed Ali Gilani is already under house detention for the past more than eight years.

Hurriyat leader, Mukhtar Ahmed Waza remained lodged at Sherbagh Police Station in Islamabad town. The authorities also snapped internet and mobile services in Srinagar and Badgam districts besides suspending rail service between north Kashmir’s Baramulla and the Bannihal town in Jammu region.

In New Delhi, Indian police prevented the Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Salvation Movement, Zafar Akbar Butt, at the airport to proceed to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah along with his mother yesterday.

Young Kashmiris living in the US organised an event in New York to raise funds for the Kashmiri youth who have suffered damage to their eyesight due to the pellet firing by the Indian troops during peaceful protests in occupied Kashmir.

India has more than 500,000 soldiers in the part of Kashmir it controls, where scores of armed groups are fighting for a merger with Pakistan.