Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday urged the security agencies to adhere to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) during counter-insurgency operations saying every “aberration” amounts to furthering the “evil designs of elements inimical to peace in the State”.
Mehooba arrived here from Jammu province’s Poonch district to oversee the law and order situation in the backdrop of a shooting incident in South Kashmir’s Shopian district on Sunday evening that left two lashkar-e-Tayyeba (leT) men and four civilians dead. The shooting triggered massive protests in South Kashmir while a complete shutdown was observed across the Valley on Monday.
The Army said that the slain civilians were linked to the terrorists who attacked Army. Mobile Vehicle Check Post (MVCP) was attacked by terrorists and in retaliation a terrorist was killed and later three persons were found in dead in a car. Another civilian was found dead in a separate car at a distance from the encounter site.
The locals dismissed the Army’s version saying the civilians were killed in cold blood. Mehbooba, who heads the Unified Command Headquarters, a counterinsurgency grid and holds home portfolio also called the slain men as civilians who died in crossfire.
Soon after arriving in summer capital Srinagar Mehbooba held a high-level meeting of top security and intelligence officers. “The CM impressed upon all the security agencies to work in synergy to ensure that Standard Operating Procedures as laid out should be strictly adhered to and in no way be these violated or overlooked. Every aberration in this regard amounts to furthering the evil designs of elements inimical to peace in the State,” an official spokesman quoted her saying to the officers. She asked the heads of all security agencies to ensure that no collateral damage was allowed to happen during security operations and care should be taken that common masses were not put to inconvenience during these operations.
She was briefed by heads of various security and intelligence agencies about the prevailing security situation in the state, particularly in Kashmir Valley, the spokesman said. Mehbooba was separately briefed by the XV Corps commander lt Gen AK Bhatt on the security situation in Kashmir in the backdrop of Shopian shooting.
The separatists have described the Shopian killings as “incremental genocide”. They have called for a march to Shopian on Wednesday even as complete shutdown was observed across the Valley on their appeal on Monday as well.
Meanwhile, normal life continued to remain crippled in four districts of south Kashmir—Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam and Anantnag on Tuesday in protest against the Shopian killings and shooting of a top-ranking Jaish-e-Muhammad ‘commander’ in Mufti Waqas in Awantipora area. Police claimed Waqas, a Pakistani national, was the mastermind of a suicide attack on Sunjawan army camp in Jammu last month.
The authorities have ordered closure of schools and colleges till Wednesday. High speed mobile internet also remained suspended across the south Kashmir region.
Sources said that protests continued in several villages of Shopian area against the killing of civilians. The police used force to disperse the protesters.