Srinagar: Call it fate or coincidence, the torching of vehicles by unidentified masked persons during the prevalent unrest, which recently completed 100 days, has shown a pattern in the summer capital of Srinagar, here.
In all the three incidents reported from across the City this month, a pair of vehicles was torched in every attack, something which the police are probing.
On October 17, unidentified masked persons set ablaze two passengers’ vehicles at Parimpora on City outskirts. It was the third such attack on vehicles in a fortnight.
An official said a group of masked youth thrashed the drivers and asked the passengers to get off before setting the vehicles on fire. The vehicles, bearing registration numbers JK05B-5863 and JK09-9209, were carrying passengers to Srinagar when they were stopped at around 7:45 am. One of the frightened passengers, told reporters that a group of masked men appeared on the road and asked all the passengers to de-board before setting the vehicle on fire.
Earlier on October 10 evening, unidentified persons set on fire two private cars at Goripora Crossing on the Hyder Pora highway. “Miscreants set on fire two private vehicles bearing registration number JK01N-6690 (Estello) and JK02AB-103 (Swift-VDI) at Goripora Crossing near Snooker Hall (in the) jurisdiction of Police station Budgam,” a police spokesman had said.
Prior to that on October 4, two auto-rickshaws were set ablaze by unidentified persons at Bhagwanpora area of Kralakhud and Saida Kadal road for defying shutdown.
Interestingly on October 16, the stocks of street vendors were set ablaze at Dalgate. Here too the number of carts attacked was two.
The owners of two autos, which were the first to be torched, however, have accused the government of dilly-dallying the compensation cases. Soon after the incident Divisional Commissioner Kashmir had announced that Government will provide compensation to the owners of the burnt auto-rickshaws.
Meanwhile, the Srinagar police, which are probing the cases, are understood to be looking at the curious angle of “torching of vehicles in pairs to see if there’s a design behind this series of attacks.”
Sources said Senior Superintendent of Police Srinagar, Amit Kumar who is personally tracking the cases, has taken a review meeting of the investigations.
While security has been beefed up at some “vulnerable locations”, the sources said, police wants to find out if the same group could be behind all such attacks in pairs.
“There seems to be a typical design behind these attacks… We’ll crack the devil’s code,” said a police official investigating the case.
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