Hurriyat men tonsure voters

Unnerved by the massive turnout in the first phase of the Jammu and Kashmir polls on Monday, Hurriyat activists on Thursday tonsured and thrashed dozens of people after identifying them from the indelible ink marks on their fingers. The separatists picked them out from a crowd of travellers from Bandipora at the Sopore bus stop in north Kashmir. Bandipora had voted in the first phase of polling on Monday. Witnesses said a number of youths assembled at the bus stand and started looking for people with the ink mark. “After identifying them, the youths first tonsured and then thrashed them,” a source said. Similar report of mobs thrashing people with the indelible mark on their fingers was received from Baramullah district’s Tarzu area. Police chased away the Hurriyat activists and rescued several people. A senior police officer said such incidents would not be allowed to happen again. “We have taken measures to prevent such ugly incidents and deployed police at sensitive spots,” he said. Meanwhile, hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s supporters were busy campaigning for poll boycott across Sopore, which is his stronghold. Geelani had been elected to the state Assembly from Sopore several times. A Sopore resident, Haji Ghulam Rasool Bhat, alleged that Hurriyat activists threatened him and asked him not to vote. But Bhat said he is determined to vote. “We got the worst MLA in the previous Assembly due to the boycott in 2002. But we will vote him out this time because our area has lagged behind in development,” he said.