Srinagar/Anantnag, SepT 7
Four persons were killed and one was injured in south Kashmir’s Shopian district in a firing by Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel. The killings took place hours ahead of the Zubin Mehta’s concert in Shalimar Garden.

While the CRPF maintains that the slain youth were militants and were killed in an encounter when they opened fire at the battalion headquarters in Gagren Shopian, 60 km from Srinagar, locals said the youth were civilians and were killed in an unprovoked firing.

“Six youth appeared on two motorcycles near 14th Batallion camp in Gagren when a sentry asked them to stop. One of the youth fired at the CRPF man with a pistol and in the retaliatory fire, three militants were killed on the spot and one died later. They were all militants,”

CRPF spokesman Kishore Prasad told The Tribune. “One militant managed to escape. We recovered a pistol and two Chinese grenades and a mobile phone from the spot,”

The police said the initial investigation has revealed that two among the dead were militants.

The locals, however, say that all four victims were civilian youth and were doing stunt biking in the camp area when CRPF shot them dead in an unprovoked firing at around 1 pm. One of the killed youth has been identified as Tawseef Ahmad Bhat, 17, son of Ghulam Muhammad Bhat of Baba Mohalla Shopian.

“Three other bodies have been kept at the district police lines, Shopian, and their identity is yet to be revealed,” the source said.

The injured youth said the firing was unprovoked. Adil Ahmad Wachkoo of Bonna Bazar area, a first year student, said he was on the way to the examination centre to appear in his biannual examination.

“I, along with my friend Tawseef, was on the way to appear in my BA final year examination at Degree College, Shopian, when we came under CRPF fire,” Wachkooo said at SMHS. “Tawseef died on way to the hospital,”

Wachkoo was shifted to SMHS Hospital in Srinagar and his condition has been stated as stable by the doctors.

Soon after the incident, hundreds of people came out to the streets in Shopian and demanded action against the erring CRPF personnel.

Meanwhile, 10 persons, including nine policemen, were injured in a grenade attack in Pulwama town of South Kashmir region.