IED detected in J&K's Anantnag, traffic halted briefly on Jammu-Srinagar national highway

Srinagar, Nov 21: 

Traffic on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway was halted on Thursday for a few hours after an improvised explosive device (IED) was detected in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag district.

The security forces found the IED during morning patrolling in the Wanpoh area of Anantnag, which was later diffused by the bomb disposal squad, thus averting a major tragedy.

The IED was suspected to have been planted by the militants to trigger an explosion, sources said.

The national highway was open for one-way traffic with vehicles going from Srinagar to Jammu on Thursday.

Security in the Kashmir Valley has been tightened amid reports of militants trying to regroup.

Meanwhile, shops and businesses were shut and public transport remained largely off the roads in most parts of the Kashmir Valley on the second consecutive day on Thursday, after posters warning shopkeepers against opening their establishments appeared in some areas.

The posters calling for shutdown also appeared a day before Union Home Minister Amit Shah said in Parliament that normalcy had returned to the Kashmir Valley.

Officials said the shutdown was observed in Srinagar and Ganderbal districts in central Kashmir, Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama and Shopian districts in south Kashmir and in some areas in the north.

Shop owners did not open their establishments during the morning hours they did over the past few weeks, they said.

Public transport remained largely off the roads in the city and elsewhere in the Kashmir Valley. However, a few auto-rickshaws and inter-district cabs were plying, the officials said.

Pre-paid mobile phones and all internet services continue to remain suspended in the Kashmir Valley since August 5, when the Centre announced its decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories.

Most of the top-level and second-rung separatist politicians of the Kashmir Valley have been taken into preventive custody while mainstream leaders including two former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti have been either detained or placed under house arrest.

The government has detained former chief minister and sitting Lok Sabha MP from Srinagar Farooq Abdullah under the controversial Public Safety Act, a law enacted by his father and National Conference founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in 1978 when he was the chief minister.

Agencies

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