SRINAGAR, Feb 24: Police fired warning shots and used tear gas against 2,000 demonstrators outside a mosque in held Kashmir’s main city on Friday, as a strike called to protest the killings of four boys during an army manhunt for militants shut businesses and cleared roads.
Five protesters and two policemen were injured when demonstrators attacked government forces with stones and burned effigies of Indian army soldiers after Friday prayers at the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, said Ali Mohammed, a police officer.
Across Srinagar, shops and businesses closed and buses and cars stayed off the roads after angry crowds pelted passing vehicles with stones.
Separately, angry mobs burned effigies of US President George W. Bush and chanted “Down with America” in the Dal Gate neighbourhood. They were protesting the bombing of one of the holiest shrines in Iraq.
Also on Friday, angry residents of the village of Chati-Bandi blocked streets and shouted slogans after a woman was killed during a shootout between rebels and army soldiers late Thursday. Three militants and a soldier were also killed in the battle, which lasted into early Friday morning, said Junaid Ahmed, a police superintendent. Chati-Bandi is about 65km north of Srinagar.
The Srinagar protest was sparked by a Sunday shooting in the village of Dodipora, where protesters say security forces cordoned off a playground and fired indiscriminately during a hunt for a militant suspect..
Four boys between the ages of 6 and 18 died in the shooting.
The call for a strike was made on Thursday by the All Party Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella body of separatist groups. Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said the strike was also to press their demand for a reduction of troops in India’s Jammu-Kashmir state.
“Our demand for demilitarizing Jammu-Kashmir should be viewed in the context of such incidents which continue to happen despite repeated pledges from the government that they won’t recur,” Farooq said in a statement on Thursday.
On Friday, police detained Hurriyat leader Molvi Abbas Ansari as he left home, fearing he would lead fresh protests, Ahmed said.
GUNBATTLE: Three militants, a soldier and a woman died in a gunbattle in revolt-hit held Kashmir when troops attacked a rebel hideout, the army said on Friday.
The deaths occurred late Thursday near Bandipora town, 60km north of Srinagar.
“The gunbattle erupted when troops launched a raid on a rebel hideout,” army spokesman Vijay Batra told AFP.
He said militants opened fire, killing a soldier and injuring another.
“In the retaliatory fire, three militants died,” said Batra, adding that the woman was killed when she was caught in crossfire.
Fresh fighting erupted between soldiers and rebels on Friday but there was no immediate report of casualties, Batra said.—-AP/AFP
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