Curfew in Srinagar areas to prevent protests

SRINAGAR - Curfew was imposed in Old City areas in this summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir Tuesday following a call for protests and shutdown by separatists, police said.

Curfew has been imposed in five police station areas to maintain law and order,” a senior police official said.

The hardline faction of the separatist Hurriyat group headed by Syed Ali Geelani, who has been spearheading the ‘Quit Kashmir’ campaign for over four months, called for the shutdown throughout the Kashmir Valley.

Shops, other businesses, educational institutions, banks and post offices remained closed in Old City and uptown areas of the city. Public transport went off the roads. Some vehicles plied on uptown roads.

Stone pelting youths took to the streets in some places in Srinagar to enforce the shutdown, the police official said.

Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of the moderate Hurriyat group, has called for a protest march to the office of the UN Military Observers Group here Wednesday against the landing of the Indian Army in Kashmir Oct 27, 1947.