SRINAGAR: Administration forces fired on hundreds of rock-throwing protesters in Indian Occupied Kashmir on Tuesday, killing 1 and injured two others as a 7-day curfew was lifted, locals and officials said. Hundreds of Kashmiri residents staged a demonstration and accused government forces of killing a youngster Monday. They rejected police claims that Muzaffar Bhatt, 17, died after he slipped into a stream by accident.

Resident Abdul Gani said Bhatt did not join Monday’s protest and was playing cricket when Indian paramilitary soldiers hit him with sticks and threw him into the river. Protests against Indian rule in the Himalayan state have grown more and more strident in recent weeks with Kashmiri people condemning government forces of killing at least 12 people during street protests.

Also Tuesday, an Indian border sentry was killed by gunfire emanating from Pakistani land, an Indian official said. The firing started as India’s Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers were returning to camp after patrolling the border between India and Pakistan during the night, said J.S. Oberoi, a top border force official. Oberoi said an investigation was under way to conclude whether the soldier was shot by Pakistani guards or by insurgents trying to sneak into the Indian part of Kashmir from Pakistani land.

In the meantime, angry residents of Tengpora region in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir’s main city, poured into the streets and clashed with government forces. Administration forces fired on the protesters after they failed to scatter the stone-throwing protesters with tear gas, a police officer said on situation of secrecy as he was not authorized to talk to the media. Fayaz Ahmed Bhatt, a 28-year-old protester, was killed on the spot and two others were injured, the officer said.

Manas Ranjan, a spokesperson for the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force, said his soldiers did not shoot on the protesters.

As the news of Bhatt’s killing spread, separatist activists in Srinagar used public address systems of Mosques (Masjids) asking public to join the demonstration. “Our protests and civil defiance will go on until India withdraws its armed forces and paramilitary soldiers from all occupied areas,” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key separatist leader who was leading thousands of marchers in downtown of Srinagar.

Carrying black and green flags, the protesters chanted “Go India, go back” and “We want independence” as they marched through the streets. The recent turbulence had prompted authorities to impose a curfew in most parts of Kashmir for a week. It was lifted on Tuesday excluding for the southern town of Anantnag.

An anti-India feeling runs deep in Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan and is claimed by both. Separatist politicians and armed militants refuse Indian autonomy in Kashmir, and want to carve out a separate motherland or merge the Himalayan region into Pakistan. More than 70,000 people, mostly civilians, have been martyred in the armed conflict since 1989.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites