Srinagar, June 30: As the Kashmir Valley continues to remain tense with violence spreading, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called a high-level meeting on Wednesday to review the deteriorating situation.
The meeting, which began at 5.00 pm, is reviewing the situation as well as deliberate on measures to bring it under control.
The meeting will be attended by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, Defence Minister AK Antony, National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, Union Home Secretary GK Pillai and officials from security agencies.
Chidambaram is expected to brief the meeting on his discussions with J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
The meeting is expected to take note of intelligence reports suggesting that certain elements from Pakistan were trying to foment trouble in the Valley.
Earlier in the day, Chidambaram appealed to parents in the state to ensure their children stay at home in curfew-bound areas.
Chidambaram’s appeal comes in the wake of several deaths reported during clashes between mobs and security forces over the past few days in the Valley. Most of the dead were teenagers.
Meanwhile, Jammu-based association of oil tankers has refused to ply their vehicles in the Kashmir Valley and Leh, fearing safety.
Nearly 35 tankers have been damaged by protesters in the Valley so far in the latest series of violence. The association has demanded security for their drivers, saying only then the tankers will ply to violence-affected areas.
Police today fired teargas shells to disperse stone-pelting mobs at a few places in Srinagar even as more violence-hit areas were brought under curfew in South Kashmir, where three youths have been killed in alleged CRPF firing.
Protestors, including women, took to the streets at Natipora and Batmaloo areas here and staged demonstrations against the killings that have rocked the Valley for the past few days, police said.
Police and paramilitary forces, which have been deployed in strength to maintain law and order, lobbed teargas shells to disperse the demonstrators at Natipora and Batmaloo in central Srinagar.
Police said there were no reports of any casualty in the clashes during which protestors indulged in pelting stones at security personnel.
However, locals alleged that several persons were beaten up ruthlessly by the CRPF personnel.
Curfew was clamped in Bijbehara, Mattan, Dooru, Kokernag, Achhabal, Pahalgam in Anantnag district and Kulgam district this morning. Efforts were on to enforce the curfew in Sopore, Baramulla and Anantnag and seven police station areas of Srinagar, police said.
Additional contingents of paramilitary and police units have been deployed to ensure effective enforcement of curfew, they said.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had yesterday made an appeal for peace and vowed to ensure return of normalcy soon.
Slamming anti-national and vested interests for instigating violence, he had said that “wherever curfew has been imposed it will be enforced strictly. The cycle of violence has to stop”.
Three persons were killed and two others injured as CRPF personnel allegedly opened fire at a group of stone pelting protestors in Anantnag, 55 kms from here, yesterday.
However, locals alleged that CRPF personnel barged into houses and shops while chasing the stone pelting protestors and shot the victims from a close range inside a house and a bakery shop.
While two persons died on the spot, the third succumbed on way to hospital, the police said.
The protestors went on the rampage after the incident and set ablaze three ambulances, three state road transport corporation trucks and a police post resulting in injuries to 30 others including ten policemen.
—Agencies