Tension prevails for 2nd day in Maisuma

Srinagar: Tension prevailed in Maisuma and adjoining areas in this summer capital for second consecutive day on Friday with shops and other business establishments remaining closed while police used teargas canisters and baton charged a group of demonstrators protesting against the arrest of JKLF chief Mohammad Yaseen Malik and his close associate yesterday.
Correspondent quoting eyewitnesses said that all commercial establishments remained closed in Maisuma, Medina Chowk, Red Cross Road and other adjoining areas.
The eyewitnesses said that a group of also took to streets this morning and resorted to stone-pelting on a strengthened contingent of police and paramilitary forces. Men in uniform resorted to baton charge and fired teargas canisters to disperse them. A cop was among several persons injured in the bitched battles that continued sporadically throughout the day.
JKLF chief, Mohammad Yasin Malik and his associate Shakeel Ahmad Bakshi were arrested yesterday by police from Budshah Chowk area.
While pro-independence JKLF said that the duo was arrested for staging a sit-in against the continued arrests of youth, a police spokesman said that Malik was arrested after he and his associates “intimidated and attacked” policemen at the Maisuma police station besides ransacking some items of the office while demanding release of a youth identified as Ashiq Hussain Dar.
The spokesman said that a complaint was lodged by Ishfaq Hussain Shah son of Peer Hussain Shah resident of Karnah, a Tavera driver, at police station Maisuma that he was attacked by some unidentified person. The complainant who was injured also alleged that he was beaten and some cash was also snatched from him. Accordingly a case FIR 23/11 under section 392/RPC was registered in police station Maisuma, the spokesman said.