APHC leaders vow to defy rallies ban

Major General V Goudar said the heavily-armed freedom fighters and a soldier had been killed in a weeklong battle in a mountainous region north of Srinagar on Friday.

He said the operation was conducted in “inhospitable, harsh and treacherous terrain” at an altitude up to 15,000 feet.

Meanwhile, Indian authorities imposed an undeclared and indefinite curfew in Srinagar on Saturday night as an attempt to thwart Oct 6 Lal Chowk March call given by the pro-freedom parties who were demanding end of Indian rule in the Held Jammu and Kashmir.

A government official said that the curfew was a ‘precautionary measure’ taken to protect the life and property of the people. While as pro-freedom circles believed that the step of curfew imposition was an attempt to prevent a peaceful march in the state capital of Srinagar on Monday.

According to reports thousands of Indian paramilitary soldiers would carry an iron barricade to block roads during a curfew in Srinagar.

Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir government officially confirmed that it would impose curfew to thwart a march by pro-freedom leaders to Lal Chowk here on Monday.

The state’s Principal Secretary (Home) Anil Goswami went on Doordarshan Saturday night to announce that curfew will be imposed and appealed to the people to cooperate with the authorities.

He warned the people that if they attempted to violate the curfew, security forces would have to respond to ensure that they did not do so.

Sources said curfew had been imposed in Srinagar as the police and paramilitary troops were erecting barricades around Lal Chowk the venue for the Oct 6 March.

It is also reported that authorities had decided to put under house-arrest the pro-freedom leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik.