Life derailed in Kashmir Valley
Srinagar: Normal life was derailed in the Kashmir Valley on Wednesday as separatists announced a protest march to Shopian town in solidarity with civilians killed in fighting between militants and security forces.
As train services remained suspended for a third consecutive day, the authorities closed all educational institutions and postponed exams scheduled for Wednesday amid tensions in the Valley.
Train services have also been suspended. Traffic on the otherwise busy Srinagar-Sonamarg road remained suspended for a second day on Wednesday.
The separatist Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) headed by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik have announced a march to Shopian town to express solidarity with people there.
Authorities deployed security forces in large numbers in Srinagar, the urban hub of a dragging separatist campaign, and other places in the Kashmir Valley to maintain peace, officials said.
Twenty people, including 13 militants, four civilians and three soldiers, were killed in south Kashmir in three gunfights on Sunday.
Geelani and Mirwaiz have been placed under house arrest while Malik has been lodged in the Srinagar Central Jail to prevent their participation in protests.
Shops, public transport and other businesses remained mostly shut in Srinagar and other major towns in the Kashmir Valley on Wednesday, officials said.
Private transport, however, plied in the uptown areas and on the outskirts of Srinagar.
Meanwhile, a 23-year-old youth killed in clashes with the security forces in Kangan town was buried early on Wednesday.
A shutdown crippled normal life in Ganderbal district following the youth's death.
The District Magistrate of Ganderbal has ordered a magisterial probe into the youth's killing while police have ordered a departmental enquiry.
Clashes had broken out in Kangan on Tuesday immediately after the youth's body was taken there.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases. Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
