Srinagar: As unrest continued in Kashmir, the state police today said it would like to avoid the killing of the youth and urged protesters not to resort to violence, saying it does not bring the right consequences.
Additional Director General of Police (CID) S M Sahai again urged people to restrain their youngsters from participating in the protests that have erupted in the aftermath of the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen’s poster-boy commander Burhan Wani on Friday.
“The situation as of now is better than yesterday. At some places, people have come out and we are dealing with it. We would like to control the situation to avoid the killings of the youth,” he said.
Insisting that that violence does not bring the right consequences, Sahai urged people to restrain youngsters from violent protests and confine them to homes.
“Whether they have to protest or not, but they should not resort to violence.It does not have right consequences,” he said as the toll in the clashes since yesterday rose to 16 dead and over 200 injured.
Sahai defended the use of force which resulted in civilian casualties, saying the security posts were attacked by the unruly mobs.
“Militants fired upon security personnel from among the crowd. Weapon-snatching was also reported. Some of our personnel were injured,” the police official said.
He admitted that police had been unable to anticipate the areas of trouble after the killing of the militant commander.
“We admit that our focus was not on some areas. We are are seeing how it happened,” he said.
“We faced trouble from the outline areas. Government buildings, police stations, and army camps were attacked in the areas we least expected trouble,” he said, adding the areas police expected trouble were put under control.
Around 96 security personnel were injured in the clashes.
PTI
