Shopian remains under curfew for third straight day

Curfew remained in force for the third consecutive day in Shopian, Kulgam and some other southern towns of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday.

Curfew was imposed on Wednesday after a civilian was killed allegedly by the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in the village of Gagaran near Shopian.

Four people were killed last Saturday at the same place, also by the CRPF. Three of the four dead were unarmed civilians.

Curfew has also been imposed in Kakapora and Khudwani towns.

The Jammu and Kashmir Government has ordered a magisterial probe into the firing incident.

Restrictions have also been imposed in and around Srinagar's Lal Chowk area to prevent Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front ( JKLF) chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik and his supporters from taking part in a sit-in demonstration in protest against the Gagaran firing incident.

Meanwhile, traders in the state are on a strike for ten days after Customs officials imposed certain restrictions on imports from Pakistan from across the border.

Cross-border trade has come to a complete standstill at the Chakan Da Bagh border outpost in Poonch district of Jammu since March this year after one empty and one live bullet was found mixed in the almonds that were being imported by a trader, Abdul Ghani Dewan.

Commenting on these developments, traders on Thursday accused Customs department officials of changing and manipulating cross-border trade regulations.

"The current scenario is that Customs officials are forcing us not to imports products from Pakistan and this was not happening before. But imports from Pakistan are not being made. So, when the products were coming then why were they stopped so suddenly?" said Zubair Ahmed Bhatt, a trader.

Cross border trade between India and Pakistan has suffered a lot of setback after incidents of ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the LOC in Poonch district of Kashmir and the killings of five Indian soldiers in August this year.

Both the countries were involved in an exchange of firings in the entire month of August.

In January, three Pakistani and two Indian soldiers were killed in one of the worst outbreaks of tit-for-tat violence in Kashmir since India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire along a de facto border there nearly a decade ago.