Strike by Hurriyat Conference affects normal life in Kashmir

SRINAGAR: Normal life was affected today in Kashmir Valley following a strike called by hardline Hurriyat Conference to protest the killing of a three-year-old boy by unidentified gunmen in Sopore.

Shops, business establishments and petrol pumps remained closed in and around Srinagar, officials said.

Public transport was off the roads, while private cars, cabs and auto-rickshaws plied normally, they said.

The officials said some vendors put up their stalls in the weekly flea market near the city centre here.

Similar reports of shutdown were received from other parts of Kashmir, the officials said, adding there were no report of any law and order problem from any part of the Valley.

The protest, led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, condemned the killing of the boy, Burhan, who succumbed to injuries after being injured in an attack by suspected militants which also left his father Bashir Ahmad dead in Sopore on Friday.

Geelani termed the killing of Burhan, his father and Hizbul Mujahideen militant, whose bullet-ridden body was found in Tangmarg yesterday, as "big tragedy and very unfortunate for the people of Kashmir."

He said that no religion in the world allows killing of children even in the battle ground.

"It is the murder of the whole humanity and whoever had done this act has committed a serious crime against the humanity which should be protested by every human being," he said in a statement yesterday.