Restrictions imposed in Srinagar
Mobile internet snapped in Kashmir, restored later
Photo/Javed Khan
Srinagar, Feb 09: The authorities snapped mobile Internet services in Kashmir on Sunday as a precautionary measure to prevent any law-and-order scenario on the seventh death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru, officials said here.
The mobile Internet services were suspended early in the morning as the authorities apprehended violence in the Valley in view of a shutdown call given by separatist outfits, the officials said.
The services were restored in the evening, they added.
The authorities had restored 2G Internet services in Kashmir on January 25, more than five months after snapping all communication facilities in the Valley following abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution on August 05 last year.
Police lodged an FIR against the banned Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) on Saturday for calling a strike on Guru’s death anniversary.
Guru was hanged in 2013 inside Delhi’s Tihar Jail for his role in the December 2001 Parliament attack.
Two journalists were summoned by the police for reporting the JKLF press release, which had called the strike on Sunday and Tuesday — the death anniversary of the outfit’s founder, Mohammad Maqbool Bhat.
The journalists were let off after five hours of questioning.
Bhat was hanged and buried inside Tihar Jail in 1984.
Meanwhile, normal life was hit in the Valley due to the strike, the officials said.
Markets and business establishments remained closed, while public transport was largely off the roads, they added.
There were no reports of any untoward incident from anywhere in the Valley, the officials said.
Restrictions were imposed in various areas of Srinagar today in the wake of death anniversary of Afzal Guru, the Parliament attack accused who was hanged at Tihar Jail this day in 2013.
Though most of the markets in Srinagar were shut today, life in rest of the Kashmir was ‘as usual’.
The traffic, both private and public plied on the Srinagar roads but shops in most of the areas remained closed.
Sensing any possible law and order situation, the authorities had imposed restrictions in several Srinagar areas, particularly in the down town area.
The road blocks were laid all over and most of the vehicles passing through were checked thoroughly. Even pedestrians were frisked and checked.
Officials, on the conditions of anonymity said that the measures were taken to ensure that no untoward law and order situation takes place.
