A Week After Firing, Kashmir's Handwara fights To Remove Army Bunker

A controversy has been raging in Handwara over the army post that has been standing in the town's main market for more than a decade. Since the firing on protesters last Tuesday, in which three persons have been killed, the locals have been demanding the removal of the police post.

After 6 days, when curfew was relaxed on Monday morning, it had be re-imposed within an hour again as a large number of people came out to demolish the post.

Last Tuesday, locals said a schoolgirl had been molested by an army man when she went to the washroom in the market. The girl has denied the molestation, the police said, and claimed that a local had misbehaved with her. The girl's mother had said she had panicked on seeing an armyman inside the washroom.

But her screams had drawn the locals, who started a protest, and the security personnel had opened fire. Young cricketer Nayeem Bhat and an old woman were among the three people who fell to the bullets.
 The north Kashmir town, which often defies separatist diktats and turned out to vote in large numbers in the last election, is now challenging the army's presence. After Tuesday's shooting, the bunker was set on fire by angry protesters.

The local lawmaker Sajad Lone, who is also a minister in the PDP-BJP government, said the bunker will be dismantled very soon. "The Army bunker is empty and it will be removed," he said.  It was also promised by District Magistrate Kumar Rajeev Ranjan a day after the shooting.

But the protesters are refusing to relent until the bunker is actually dismantled. And the death of two more persons in subsequent protests in other parts of Kupwara has only increased their resolve.

The impasse has left the BJP-PDP government red faced -- Kupwara and Handwara are held by BJP ally Peoples Conference.

"The opposition is deriving pleasure out of this situation," said Bashir Ahmad Dar, the lawmaker from Kupwara.