Srinagar, Aug 22 (Inditop.com) A shutdown called by the separatist Hurriyat Conference protesting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Independence Day speech paralysed life in the Kashmir Valley Saturday.
Shops and businesses in Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital were shut and attendance in government offices was thin as public transport kept off the roads.
The shutdown was in protest of Manmohan Singh calling the “separatist ideology as irrelevant” in his speech from Red Fort Aug 15.
Educational institutions and banks remained shut here and in other towns. However, private transport was plying on the streets here.
In north Kashmir’s Sopore town, security forces used tear gas and batons to disperse stone throwing youth shouting secessionist slogans.
The overall situation in Kashmir was officially described as “peaceful”.
Meanwhile, two separatist guerrillas were killed in a gun battle in the Roshanpora forest in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district Saturday morning, a police spokesman said here.
