SRINAGAR -After days of clashes, Jammu remained peaceful yesterday with only sporadic incidents of stone-throwing reported in a few localities. In the evening, the authorities relaxed curfew for an hour by rotation in Gandhi Nagar, Bakshi Bagar and Janipura areas. The clashes between irate Hindu mobs and police have left scores of people injured whereas at places houses and other properties of minority Muslim community, too, came under attack from angry Hindus.Curfew was clamped in Jammu and the towns of Bhaderwah and Samba on Wednesday following outbreak of violence over the revocation of the Jammu and Kashmir government's decision to transfer forest land to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB).
At Muthi, on the outskirts of Srinagar, the Kashmiri Pandits yesterday staged a protest on the main road along their settlement during which the effigies of Governor Narendra Nath Vohra, Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and People's Democratic Party patron and former chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed were torched. However, the police arrived soon at the scene and fired tear gas to break the demonstration.
The Kashmiri Pandits also blocked the highway connecting Jammu with Srinagar as part of the saffron parties' 'economic blockade' of predominantly Muslim Kashmir valley. They also damaged several Srinagar-bound vehicles, police officials said.
Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) President Rajnath Singh and another senior party leader Arun Jaitley are expected in Jammu today to show solidarity with the people of the region in their fight against the land revision move. The BJP has been in the forefront of the agitation which has brought all Hindu majority towns of the Jammu region to a standstill since Monday.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Azad, who is camping in Jammu for the past two days, has sought cooperation of various political parties towards normalising situation and maintaining communal harmony.
Azad also talked on phone with presidents of BJP, National Conference, Panthers Party, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Shiv Sena and General Secretary of CPI (M) and Mayor, Jammu Municipal Corporation and expressed his desire for a collective effort by all political parties to maintain law and order and communal harmony in Jammu province.