SRINAGAR: Sinking Kashmir police won wide support on April24 for their protests against the death of a colleague detained by the Indian army.
Shop keepers closed their Shutters and government workers Stayed at home in the main towns of the Kashmir valley, where the army and paramilitary police are fighting back a bloody rebellion in Kashmir.
Many police stations were deserted and government installations, prime militant targets, mostly unguarded.
The government put extra paramilitary troopers on the Streets of old Srinagar, the hotbed of the revolt, and local residents complained they were not being allowed out of their houses even though no official curfew had been declared.
The policemen were on strike over the death of colleague Riaz Ahmed who they say was picked up by the army as they exchanged fire with militants.
They say Ahmed, in civilian clothes at the time, was’ suspected of helping the insurgents and was detained despite showing his police identity card.
The striking policemen, say Ahmed was tortured and killed in custody. The government says he was killed in crossfire between the army and militants.
The main target of the striking policemen is Rajendra Kumar, their own Senior Superintendent of Police. The strikers say Kumar refused to intervene to get Ahmed released.
Most of Kashmir’s senior police officers are Hindu while the lower ranks are almost entirely Muslim and have been largely sidelined in the fight against secessionist militants.
Most state policemen were “either subverted or too timid to counter the militants,” Kumar told newsmen recently.”
Anti-Indian passions are high in Jammu and Kashmir State, especially in Srinagar, the summer capital where paramilitary police have frequently killed demonstrators to break up protests.
Fears of more demonstrations rose on April30 when hundreds of people April Srinagar’s streets 0 cheer some 3,000 policemen marching to a United Nations office to hand over a memorandum demanding international intervention to “ensure justice.”
The U.N. office has been the goal of scores of demonstrations since the rebellion erupted in January 1990. Few have been allowed to reach it.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 7, 1993
