By PTI
SRINAGAR: Normal life was affected in the Kashmir valley on Friday due to a strike called by the Hurriyat Conference to express solidarity with the families of the civilians killed in the Hyderpora encounter earlier this week, officials said.
Most of the shops, fuel stations and other business establishments in Srinagar were shut, the officials said.
Public transport was largely off the roads, but private cars and auto-rickshaws were seen plying in some areas of the city, they said.
The officials said similar reports of the strike being observed were received from other areas of the valley.
The effect of the strike was accentuated by the public holiday on account of Gurupurab, they added.
The Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq had given the strike call.
“Hurriyat Conference regrets that as most peoples’ leadership and political activists are either in jails or under house detention, to protest such inhumanity, and in solidarity with the devastated families of the slain civilians and their demand that the dead bodies of their loved ones be returned to them for burial, people should observe a shut down on Friday 19th November on their own,” the Hurriyat said in a statement here.
The bodies of the two civilians, Altaf Bhat and Mudasir Gul, killed during Monday’s encounter in Hyderpora area of the city were exhumed at Handwara late on Thursday and were handed over to the families.
The bodies were buried here during the night after their last rites were performed by the families.
