SRINAGAR, June 30: Hundreds of villagers clashed with police in occupied Kashmir on Saturday as protests against the killing of four people by government forces continued for a third day, officials said.

The clashes, which left three police officers injured, occurred in the village of Putoshahi, 105km from here. The protesters threw stones at security forces when police tried to stop their march through the village, said Vijay Kumar, the local police chief.

Villagers say a 27-year-old man from Putoshahi, Irshad Ahmed, was killed by police in a fake encounter. Authorities say Ahmed and two other still-unidentified men were militants with ties to militant groups and were killed in a gun battle on Thursday close to the headquarters of the army’s infantry unit in Kupwara, 15km from Putoshahi.

A fourth person, a schoolteacher, was killed in crossfire, police said. The protesters say police arrested the three youths, brought them to the area and later killed them. “This was a fake gun battle,” said Bashir Ahmed, a local lawyers.—AP