SrinagarHigh alert was sounded throughout the Kashmir Valley on Friday and unprecedented security arrangements put in place ahead of slain Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani’s first death anniversary.
All exams scheduled for Saturday were cancelled by Kashmir University, which said that new dates would be announced later.
Internet, both broadband and mobile was snapped and Train services suspended.
Curfew-like restrictions would be imposed in Srinagar and other major towns across Kashmir on Saturday, said police.
An indefinite curfew was clamped on Tral town, the hometown of Burhan Wani.
Sources in state police said authorities were likely to impose restrictions in Anantnag, Pulwama, Kulgam, Shopian, Sopore, Bandipora, Kupwara, Ganderbal and some other towns of the Valley to ward off protests called by the separatists on Saturday.
All separatist leaders have been either placed under house arrest or taken into custody.
Burhan Wani had become the poster boy of militancy in the Valley and no other militant commander’s death evoked such mass protests in Kashmir since 1989 when the armed uprising started here.
More than 100 civilian protesters lost their lives in clashes with government forces during the unrest and violence triggered by his killing on July 8 last year.
Over 200 other civilians lost vision either partially or completely because of pellets fired by the forces to contain protests.
The unrest continued for 53 days during which everything from normal life, businesses, tourism, education and even routine governance came to a grinding halt in Kashmir.
Alarmed by the events of last year, the Union Home Ministry has sent over 20,000 additional central armed forces to augment the existing security set-up in the Valley.
To keep the militants at bay, a multi-layered security set-up drawn from the army, the Central Reserve Police Force, the Sashastra Seema Bal, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the state police is manning the 286-km-long Jammu-Srinagar national highway which is the lifeline of supplies to the Valley and the only road link used by the Hindu pilgrims of the ongoing Amarnath Yatra.
People deserted streets earlier than usual on Friday in uptown Srinagar and other district headquarters as public transport also disappeared from roads while security forces were present in force on traffic crossings, outside sensitive installations and other law and order vulnerable places.
Meanwhile protests broke out in different parts of Kashmir Valley on Friday. Clashes broke out between protesters and the government forces in Anantnag, Bandipora, Pulwama and some parts of Srinagar city.
Reports said that clashes broke out in Tahab Pulwama, Noor Bagh, Kawdara and Batamaloo areas of Srinagar, Garoora Bandipora, and Anantnag.
A police official said that barring few stray incidents of stone pelting, situation across Kashmir Valley remained peaceful.