Srinagar: 5 hurt in fresh clashes; tension surges

Five persons were wounded, one of them critically, in police firing in the curfew bound Maisuma locality of Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar on Monday.

Meanwhile, curfew continued in the areas falling under five police stations in capital city and in north Kashmir's Kupwara town even as life was paralysed in view of the separatist called shutdown in Srinagar on Monday.

Police opened fire at a group of youth in the uptown sensitive Maisuma locality of the capital city wounding five of them who were shifted to hospital for treatment.

Condition of one of the injured, Yasir Ahmad Sheikh, who received a lower abdomen injury, was stated be critical as a team of doctors was trying to revive him in the SMHS hospital in Srinagar.

The other injured are stated to stable.

The local residents alleged the firing by the police was unprovoked as the group of youth were playing carom in a lane in the Maisuma locality of the city just near the residence of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik.

The critically injured Yasir is a cousin of the JKLF chairman.

As the news about the firing incident spread, angry youth took to streets in and around Maisuma, burnt tyres and pelted stones at police who were responding by firing teargas and baton charges.

Tension in the area was high as authorities moved in fresh reinforcements to beef up the security.