Srinagar: Angry protesters blocked the Jammu-Kathua Highway at Samba for nearly half an hour and demanded employees from the Kashmir division be moved out of the Valley. Senior officials from the administration and police intervened in the matter and pacified the protesting people.
The protesters were demanding from the administration that people from Jammu posted in Kashmir — as part of an inter-district appointment scheme under the Scheduled Caste quota — would not return to the Valley until the government ensured their security.
Read: PM package, Jammu based employees to be posted at District HQ by June 6
Meanwhile, the mortal remains of the slain government teacher, Rajni Bala(36) was consigned to flames at her native village, Nanke Chak, in the Samba district on Wednesday. People joining the funeral procession shouted slogans such as 'Rajni Bala Amar Rahe, Amar Rahe'. Her husband, Raj Kumar, lit the funeral pyre amid the presence of scores of mourners. Bala’s parents and in-laws were inconsolable.
Raj Kumar, who is also a government schoolteacher, said that after the targeted killings of minorities in the Valley, he and his wife had repeatedly urged the administration to transfer her to a safer place, but their pleas were not heeded on time. Their transfer orders came on Monday night and Tuesday was supposed to be Bala’s last day at the school in Gopalpora, he said. “I had given an application to the chief education officer of Kulgam. We told him that the school was not safe for my wife, but he did nothing,” Raj Kumar alleged.