India, Kashmir : Srinagar, May 3: A day after 40-year-old civilian died after being hit by a stone in a passenger vehicle in summer capital of Indian Kashmir, police on Saturday arrested two persons and have launched a manhunt to track five others.

“At least seven stone pelter miscreants were involved in the incident. We collected evidences from the eyewitnesses and zeroed-in on seven persons. We have detained two of them and a manhunt has been launched to arrest the other absconding,” City police chief, Javed Riyaz Bedar has said.

Rubbishing claims that the 40-year-old civilian Mohammad Shafiq Sheikh died of bullet injury, the police officer said the autopsy report has disclosed that he died of injury that he had sustained after being hit by a stone in the head.

“The innocent person was killed by stone throwing miscreants. There are section of leaders, who want to confuse people and conceal the truth,” he said.

40-year-old Shafiq Sheikh, had died on Friday morning after he was hit by a stone on his head while travelling in a passenger vehicle near Batamaloo, some 4 kms from summer capital Srinagar.

The chief minister Omar Abdullah blamed the hardline Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani for Sheikh’s death.

He said, “It is only the result of Geelani’s Friday calendar of protests that he has announced that this innocent has died. If he (Geelani) he had not announced these protests I can assure you that not stone pelting would have taken place”.

Accusing the separatists of putting the lives of innocent people at risk by encouraging such protests, Omar said, “Geelani, who has a given a call for Friday protests and is encouraging the stone pelting… his followers… are responsible for the death of the innocent person as they were responsible for the death of the 10-day-old boy in Baramulla some months ago”.

However, Geelani blamed Indian agencies for the death of 40-year old civilian.

He visited the residence of the deceased on Saturday. Later addressing the mourners he said, “When our party calls for peaceful protests, different types of people come out on streets. They include pro-freedom as well as people from Indian agencies. To sabotage our programs, the government agencies can use people who are ready to sell themselves for petty gains”.

Geelani said nothing can be said at this point of time. “We will investigate the cause of Shafiq’s death”.

He urged people especially youth to maintain discipline while staging protests against Indian occupation.

National Turk India Kashmir – Fayaz Wani

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