Life limps back to normal in the Kashmir valley

After three days of shutdown and restrictions, life returned to normal in the restive Kashmir valley on Wednesday.

Shops and businesses establishments were open and traffic plied normally on the roads. Schools up to Class X functioned as usual. However, colleges and higher secondary schools remained shut.

The Jammu and Kashmir government had ordered the closure of colleges and higher secondary schools as a precautionary measure. High speed mobile internet was restored in Srinagar after the improvement in the situation.

Life, however, remained paralysed in the districts of Shopian and Pulwama over the killings of civilians and militants on Sunday.

Students of Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) and Central University of Kashmir (CUK) staged a protest against the civilian killings.

Students of Kashmir University also held peaceful protests against the killings. Thirty-three-year-old Assistant professor of sociology, Dr Mohommad Rafi Bhat, was among the five militants killed in a gunfight at Budigam village of South Kashmir's Shopian district on Sunday.

Police have rounded up several stone pelters from Ganderbal and Narabal areas after the killing of the 22-year-old tourist of Chennai and attacks on tourist vehicles.

"The situation in Kashmir is so fragile and worrisome that in just two months forces have killed 32 civilians, mostly youth, while scores have been blinded and maimed by the deadly pellets and pava shells. All means of peaceful protests and political spaces have been closed," said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of Moderate Hurriyat Conference