BELGRADE, October 13. /TASS/. Prime Minister Albin Kurti of unrecognized Kosovo has announced the end of a ‘police action’ in the province’s north and explained away the actions of the police who inflicted injuries on dozens of people, including a gunshot wound as a struggle against ‘smuggling’.
Kurti insisted it was "police actions to combat crime and smuggling in Pristina, and in the north and south of Mitrovica. These police actions were preceded by intensive investigations, and were sanctioned and coordinated by the relevant prosecutor's offices and courts." He claimed "various goods and pieces of evidence were confiscated which serve as material evidence," further declaring, "we’ll fight and prevent smuggling."
"Today’s operation is over. I call on the citizens of the northern municipality of Mitrovica to not fall prey to some Serbian media, which defend crime, corruption and smuggling and want to politicize it," Kurti wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday.
As Kosovo media reported, on Wednesday morning, the police of unrecognized Kosovo held a special operation in the predominantly Serb-populated northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica and broke into a number of shops to check the language of documentation. Hundreds of Serbs living in the city took to the streets, flocking to the scene of the incident. The demonstrators blocked traffic with trucks and emergency firefighting vehicles, and sounded off alarms. The police used tear gas and stun grenades.
A similar police action took place in the city of Zvecan where Kosovars opened fire on protesting Serbs. One person was seriously injured. Doctors are fighting for his life. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has urgently left for the administrative line with Kosovo and Metohija, where he will hold a meeting with representatives of the Serbian population of the province. According to the Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Petar Petkovic, dozens of people were injured as a result of the police actions.