SRINAGAR, Oct 10: Police in occupied Kashmir on Tuesday baton-charged 1,500 students demanding mercy for Afzal Guru sentenced to hang for plotting a 2001 attack on India’s parliament.

The students, shouting “Don’t force us to become terrorists,” boycotted classes in Srinagar’s main university and held a noisy demonstration inside the campus.

The police, who estimated the crowd at 1,500, said they baton-charged the students as they emerged from the campus onto the street in a bid to stop the demonstration from escalating.

“A few students received minor injuries,” a police spokesman said.

Police also detained on Tuesday six members of a political group, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, as they took part in a separate protest in Srinagar. Police said they were taken into custody to maintain order.

Guru’s wife, Tabassum, met Indian President Abdul Kalam in New Delhi on Thursday, accompanied by the couple’s seven-year-old son, to plead for mercy for her husband.

FIVE KILLED: Four Indian soldiers and a suspected Kashmiri militant were killed in a shootout after rebels ambushed an army patrol in occupied Kashmir.—AFP