By IANS,
Srinagar : Over three dozen people, including six policemen, were injured in day-long clashes in this Jammu and Kashmir summer capital Saturday following the death of a teenager they alleged was killed in a street protest a day earlier.
Irate mobs, pelting stones at the police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers, took to streets in many areas of the old city and Srinagar’s uptown areas.
Security personnel used batons and tear smoke as well fired in the air at some places during the day to quell the unruly mobs that kept regrouping and resorted to heavy stone pelting in Batmaloo, Narwara, Hari Singh High Street, Bemina, Ram Bagh, Natipora and other places in the city.
A senior police officer said six policemen were among the injured in Saturday’s clashes in the city, which erupted over the alleged killing of a teenager, Tufail Ahmad Mattoo, 19, in Rajouri Kadal area of the city Friday by the security forces.
Police maintain the youth was mysteriously murdered and are still investigating.
A team of doctors Saturday conducted an autopsy on the slain youth before the body was handed over to his relatives for burial.
Hundreds of locals joined the funeral procession of the youth, who was buried in the Martyrs’ Graveyard in the Eidgah area of the city.
Immediately after the burial, scores of youth engaged security forces in clashes in many areas despite curfew like restrictions in five police station areas of Khanyar, Rainawari, Nowhatta, S.R. Gunj and Safa Kadal.
Reports said a protesting youth had received a bullet injury in the abdomen during the day’s clashes and was being treated in a city hospital.
Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani was earlier taken into preventive custody and shifted from his uptown Hyderpora residence to the nearby Humhama police station.