SRINAGAR, Oct 6: Twenty people were hurt on Friday in fresh clashes in held Kashmir between police and demonstrators demanding clemency for a Muslim man sentenced to death for plotting a 2001 attack on parliament, police said.

Police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse the protesters who poured into the streets following Friday prayers shouting, “We want freedom” and “Don’t hang Afzal,” referring to the condemned man Mohammed Afzal Guru.

“Some 20 people have been wounded, seven of them policemen,” said a police spokesman in Srinagar, where a deadly revolt has raged against New Delhi’s rule since 1989.

Militants in held Kashmir warned last week of “dire consequences” if India executes Guru, 35.

The clashes came after 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.

“We can now only pray,” she said after her meeting with Kalam.

The execution now is unlikely to take place on Oct 20 as a decision by the president usually takes months and sometimes years.

According to the constitution, Kalam must seek advice on the appeal from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet.

Guru, who is held in New Delhi’s maximum-security Tihar prison, was found guilty of helping plot the attack that left 14 people dead, including the five attackers.

India blamed Pakistan-backed militants fighting against its rule in held Kashmir but Islamabad denied the charge.

Indian human rights activists and newspaper editorials have urged that the sentence be commuted, saying Guru’s crimes do not fit “into the rarest of the rare” category which is usually why the death penalty is imposed in India.

Many moderate Kashmiri politicians have also called for clemency, saying executing Guru could damage the ongoing peace process with Pakistan aimed at resolving the Kashmir dispute.—AFP