Issuing a statement, the Hurriyat Conference said it has called the shutdown in support of the families of the two civilians who were killed in the Hyderpora Encounter.
The Hurriyat Conference on Thursday called for a Bandh on Friday and demanded justice for the civilians killed in the Hyderpora encounter. Issuing a statement, the Hurriyat Conference said the Hyderpora encounter has stunned the people of Kashmir and said it has called the shutdown in support of the families of the two civilians killed in the encounter.
A fresh controversy has erupted over Monday’s encounter in Hyderpora following conflicting claims about the two deceased as their family members contested the police’s charge that they were “terror associates”.
“Since most leaders and political activists are either in jails or under house detention, to protest such inhumanity (Hyderpora encounter) and in solidarity with the devastated families of the slain civilians and their demand that the bodies of their loved ones be returned to them for burial, people should observe a shutdown on Friday on their own”, the Hurriyat Conference said.
As per updates from the police, Mohammad Amir of Famrote village in Ramban was a militant and was killed along with his Pakistani accomplice in the Monday evening encounter in Hyderpora, where an illegal call center and a terror hideout were allegedly being run.
During the encounter, two civilians — Altaf Bhat and Mudassir Gul — were also killed which triggered an angry reaction from their family who claimed they were innocent and not linked to militancy.
Later, their family members staged a sit-in at the Press Enclave in Srinagar on Wednesday and held a candlelight vigil after the daylong protest. However, they were forcibly removed from the site by police around midnight and a few of them were detained.
On Thursday, the Jammu and Kashmir administration ordered a magisterial probe into the Hyderpora encounter.
