Security has been beefed up across Jammu as various outfits have called for protests on Wednesday to condemn a deadly terror attack on tourists in south Kashmir’s Pahalgam tourist resort, officials said.
Terrorists opened fire at a famed meadow near Pahalgam town on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 26 people, mostly tourists, in the deadliest attack in the valley since the Pulwama strike in 2019.
The 26 deceased included two foreigners and two locals, a high-ranking official said, without getting into details.
The Jammu and Kashmir unit of the Congress and several right-wing groups have announced major protests in Jammu city and elsewhere on Wednesday.
Officials said a high-level security meeting, jointly chaired by Jammu Divisional Commissioner Ramesh Kumar and Inspector General of Police, Jammu, Bhim Sen Tuti, is underway at the Police Control Room here to chalk out a strategy to deal with the situation.
Additional police and paramilitary forces have already been deployed in sensitive areas as a precautionary measure to maintain peace and law and order, they said.
The Congress has asked all its leaders and workers of the Jammu urban and rural blocks and frontal wings to assemble at the party headquarters here on Wednesday morning for a protest against the terror attack.
The Shiv Sena (UBT), the Dogra Front and the Rashtriya Bajrang Dal, besides the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, lawyers and various market associations have also called for protests in the city on Wednesday.
Mission Statehood president Sunil Dimple staged an anti-Pakistan protest in Jammu city, while reports of agitations also came in from various district headquarters, including Doda, Kathua and Poonch. — (PTI)
