SRINAGAR: A 14-year old student from Pulwama, who was hit by teargas shell in head on September 5 and was undergoing treatment at Srinagar hospital, succumbed to injuries on Friday. This was a day after PDP’s sitting MP and one of the founding members of the party, Tariq Hamid Karra, announced his resignation from the PDP and Parliament in protest against civilian deaths in the Valley.
A senior doctor at the SMHS hospital here said Basit Mukhtar, the 12th grade student, had suffered severe brain injury. “He was brain dead and expired this morning,” said the doctor.
With Mukhtar’s death the toll has now gone up to 85 in Kashmir which entered the 70th day of unrest today. On Thursday another youth from south Kashmir’s Kulgam district, Rasik Ahmad Bhat, who was hit by bullet in his head on September 5, had succumbed to injuries at Srinagar hospital.
Meanwhile in a major blow to the ruling PDP, its sitting MP and former finance minister Karra announced his resignation from the party and parliament.
“I was feeling suffocated by the alliance and new avatar adorned by the PDP. My conscience cannot take it anymore. As a mark of protest against sell-out to the BJP, I am disassociating myself from primary membership of party as well as Parliament," Karra told reporters.
Stating that he had warned the party time and again about “repercussions and dangerous consequences” of shaking hands with the BJP, Karra blamed the PDP-BJP alliance for the current unrest in the Valley saying the “seeds of “seeds of deceit, discontent and betrayal got sown in hearts and minds of the people the day the alliance came into being”.
Alleging that there was no consonance between the collation partners, Karra said, “Whatever was agreed to be done, was not done and whatever was agreed not to be done” as he listed the controversies including the challenge to the state’s special positions, beef ban, Dadri lynching and harassment of Kashmiri students studying in outside state as the factors, which he said hurt the image of the PDP.
The summer capital Srinagar and major parts of the Valley continue to reel under fresh curfew since September 12 while as internet and mobile services, except for postpaid BSNL, are yet to be restored in the Valley.
The Government today said the imposition of curfew on eid-ul-adha was only a response to “UN Chalo” call.
“Government had inputs about some vested interests planning big troubles in some important places and uploading the pictures of the slaughtering of sacrificial animals only to further the cause of provocation in Jammu region. These were the reasons for imposing curfew and restrictions and withdrawing broadband internet facility,” said government spokesperson and senior minister Naem Akhter.
(Cover Photo Basit Zargar)