SRINAGAR: At least seven people, including three civilians, were martyred in fighting in the Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) on Wednesday that sparked angry retaliatory protests and violent street clashes across the restive Himalayan region.
In the latest shootout, Indian forces killed three gunmen and a civilian allegedly being used as a human shield in the Kulgam district in southern Kashmir, police said. Hundreds of civilians marched on the village, chanting anti-India slogans and throwing stones at government forces who responded with live rounds, pellets and tear gas. “Two civilians died when they came close to the encounter site,” local police chief Shesh Paul Vaid said.
The violence comes shortly after 20 people — including four civilians — were killed on a single day earlier this month. On Wednesday, students protested against the Indian rule at Srinagar’s largest university, while shops were closed in the city.
Tensions were particularly high before Wednesday’s violence: two police officers were implicated this week in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl whose body was found in January. –AFP
Reuters adds: Indian security forces martyred four civilians in a village in held Kashmir on Wednesday when they opened fire on protesters pelting them with stones to stop an operation against suspected militants, senior police officials said.
This is the second such incident in IHK in just over a week. On April 2, Indian soldiers killed at least three civilians and wounded 70 more when hundreds of people tried to prevent another security operation.
As word of the deaths spread on Wednesday, thousands took to the streets of the capital Srinagar, chanting slogans such as “We want freedom” and “Go India, go back”. Schools, colleges and businesses in the Kashmir valley closed in answer to a strike call from separatists in protest at the killings.
Authorities reacted with a security clampdown, shutting down internet services in southern parts of Kashmir and suspending train services south of Srinagar. Twenty more people were wounded in Wednesday’s confrontation between protesters and security forces south of Srinagar, according to SP Vaid, the state director general of police.
