CISF personnel opened fire to quell a mob in Boniyar area of North Kashmir's Baramulla district.
A class XII student was killed and two others were injured when the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) fired at a mob protesting against the worsening electricity situation outside the Uri Hydel power project in Boniyar in Baramulla on Monday afternoon.
The killing triggered wide-spread protests in the garrison town of Uri and adjacent areas, prompting the police to arrest five CISF men for firing on the protesters.
Eyewitnesses said hundreds of people from several villages assembled at the gate of NHPC-run Uri hydel project and started raising slogans demanding power supply. As some people tried to march towards the gates, the CISF men guarding the Uri project got angry and opened fire, killing one person and injuring two others.
The slain has been identified as Altaf Ahmad Sood. The two critically injured who have been referred to hospital have been identified as Abdul Majeed Sudan and Parvez Ahmad Khan.
“We have registered a case and arrested five people (of CISF). We have also lodged protest with the union ministry of home affairs,” said BR Sharma, principal secretary- state home department.
Soon after the news of the firing spread, traders downed the shutters of their shops and started protests. People later kept the body on the road demanding action against the guilty CISF men.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah noted that CISF men can’t claim impunity under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
“No protection under AFSPA will be considered since they weren't on counter-insurgency deployment,” he said.
“It wasn't the plant (Uri power generation station), it was NHPC residential area (where the incident took place). No one tried to over run the plant. The boy was shot twice in chest,” Omar tweeted.
Uri was one of the few towns that had remained peaceful during the 2010 separatist-backed unrest.
Sensing trouble, the government went on a damage control mode and expressed deep regret over the firing incident. “The state government has taken a very serious view of the incident and asked the police to take immediate steps to bring those responsible for the incident to book,” an official spokesman said.
The spokesman clarified that the CISF, whose troops opened fire, are not a part of the Counter Insurgency Grid operating in the state and have been hired by the NHPC exclusively for the security of its installations across the state. They are not under the operational command of either the Unified Headquarters or the state government, he added.
Main opposition People’s Democratic Party, too, reacted angrily saying this is the direct result of the chief minister’s accusation against the people for being responsible for the current power crisis in Kashmir.
“It is irony that Altaf was killed near the Uri hydel project while demanding electricity supply. Normally this project should have been supplying uninterrupted free power to the area but with the NC who has gifted these projects to the NHPC, the locals have to fight for even paid facility and face brutality in the process,” PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said.
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