Curfew relaxed for brief period in Kishtwar

, Aug 17: After eight days,

was on Saturday relaxed for one-and-a-half hours in selected areas of

-hit Kishtwar district in Jammu region in view of improvement in situation.

"Curfew in selected areas of Kishtwar town has been relaxed for an hour and a half from 1 PM today," District Magistrate, Kishtwar, Baseer Khan said. "There was no report of any untoward incident from anywhere in the district in the past 24 hours.

The situation is limping back to normal and in view of this improvement, we have decided to relax the curfew," Khan said. Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami yesterday reviewed overall security situation at the IB alongwith senior officers of Jammu frontier and representatives from the MHA.

Curfew was imposed in Kishtwar on August 9 after communal clashes in which three persons were killed and over 20 were injured. On August 10, authorities imposed curfew in Jammu and Rajouri after incidents of violence.

The following day it was imposed in Reasi, Udhampur, Samba, parts of Doda and Kathua. Curfew was lifted from seven districts on August 15 after situation there improved. A total of 141 people so far have been taken into custody in connection with violence in Kishtwar.

PTI