Srinagar, June 7: Violence erupted in Srinagar today, but separatists should be worried. The Valley could just be returning to normality.

What can be more normal than football fans rioting over a late goal against the home team? If hosting the Santosh Trophy was meant to bring the troubled state on the same wavelength as the rest of India, fans at the Bakshi Stadium here just may have lent a hand.

They broke through the fencing and charged onto the ground as Punjab took a 1-0 lead in the 68th minute against Jammu and Kashmir in a quarter-final league game.

As the visiting team scurried off the ground, the venue turned battleground with police caning the crowd and then firing tear gas as young men pelted them with stones. Some were heard shouting separatist slogans, but few would read much into it.

The game, crucial for both teams after each lost its previous match, will resume tomorrow and the remaining 22 minutes will be played, the state football association said.

Jammu and Kashmir is hosting the event after 30 years, having fought hard to convince everyone that it was safe to play here. The national soccer body, too, was guided by its experience of holding the championship in the insurgency-hit northeastern states, where violence would ebb during the meet.

In Srinagar too, the tournament has been a roaring success, drawing large crowds as the home team marched into the quarter-finals after 22 years.

State sports council secretary Bashir Ahmad blamed the media for the violence. “They (some photo journalists) were sitting on chairs behind the goalpost, and the match commissioner had objected to this. We asked them to leave the spot but they raised a hue and cry… and the crowd got provoked,” he said.

Some fans began throwing bottles and chairs at the photographers. Just then came the goal by Sukhwinder Singh.

Someone from the crowd hurled a stone, then hundreds rushed to the ground. The battle with the police left some 20 people, including a few personnel, injured.