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Two protesters shot dead in Indian Kashmir: Police
Agence France Presse - August 13, 2010
Izhar Wani, Srinagar – A teenager and a 65-year-old man died Friday when security forces opened fire during anti-India protests in Indian Kashmir, a day after the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, police said.
The killings took the death toll from two months of violent protests in the Muslim-majority region to 53.
The first shooting death on Friday was of a 17-year-old youth in Trehgam village, north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir.
"Hundreds of people came out on the streets after dawn prayers and held a noisy anti-India demonstration," witness Abdul Rashid said, accusing security forces of opening fire without provocation.
Ramadan began on Thursday in Indian Kashmir, where an armed insurgency against Indian rule has been under way for 20 years, and which has seen a massive surge of popular unrest in recent months.
Police said they resorted to firing live rounds only after demonstrators started pelting them with stones.
"Several others are injured, including a 60-year old woman," a police officer said, asking not to be named.
Afterwards, a curfew was imposed in a bid to prevent further violence.
The 65-year-old man was shot dead when troops fired teargas and live ammunition after hundreds of protesters attacked a police station in Patan town, also north of Srinagar, police said.
The violent anti-India protests, which began when a teenage student was killed by a police tear-gas shell on June 11, have brought Kashmir's towns and cities to a standstill.
The majority of protesters killed have been young men and teenagers. Each fatality has fuelled fresh anger, in what Kashmir's Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has acknowledged is a "cycle of violence".
Separatists had called upon residents to stage protests on Friday and observe a general strike against Indian rule. The strike closed shops, schools, offices and banks in Srinagar and other towns in the region, police said.
The constant round of protests, strikes and curfews has all but shut down daily commerce in the mainly Muslim Kashmir Valley, hurting small traders and making shopping for basic provisions a major challenge.
In Srinagar, stone-pelting young men defied a curfew and clashed with riot police at nearly a dozen places, police said.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sought to calm tensions by urging Kashmiris "to give peace a chance". He held out the possibility of greater autonomy and vowed to address rampant unemployment.
But his overtures were rejected by both hardline and moderate separatist groups, who want New Delhi to repeal tough emergency laws, pull troops out of civilian areas and release political prisoners.
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