UPDATED: May 28, 2021 16:45 IST
A man cycles through the closed Lal Chowk market in Srinagar on May 25 (Abid Bhat)
It has been more than three weeks since the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) government sacked Idrees Jan Mir ‘in the interest of the security of the state’ on April 30, ending his 13-year-long career with the state education department. A former teacher at a government girls’ high school in Kralpora village in northern Kashmir’s Kupwara, the 39-year-old was the first of six employees recently fired by the Union Territory government on the same grounds. Others include jailed J&K deputy superintendent of police Davinder Singh—who was caught travelling with a top Hizbul Mujahideen militant and two operatives in Kashmir in January 2020—as well as a naib tehsildar and a college professor from south Kashmir and two teachers from Kupwara in north Kashmir.