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Violent protests erupt in Kashmir after two killed
Associated Press - August 5, 2010
Aijaz Hussain, Srinagar, India – The death toll from civil unrest in Indian-controlled Kashmir rose to 48 Thursday after two more people were killed when paramilitary forces opened fire on demonstrators angry about decades of Indian rule over the Himalayan region.
Kashmir has been rocked by violent protests for nearly two months with demonstrators hurling rocks at paramilitary soldiers and setting government buildings and vehicles ablaze. In response, security forces have fired live rounds and tear gas into large crowds.
A 25-year-old man was killed and another critically wounded by gunfire in Srinagar late Wednesday, said Abdul Rashid, a local resident. The men were not involved in a protest at the time but shouted at passing paramilitary soldiers who opened fire, said a police officer on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
A 50-year-old man, Ghulam Nabi Badyari, was seriously wounded when he was hit by a stray bullet inside his home in downtown Srinagar after soldiers fired at protesters who destroyed their post and threw rocks at them, said the officer. Badyari died in a hospital early Thursday.
Forty-eight people have been killed in the violence over the past two months.
The recent unrest in the Himalayan region is reminiscent of the late 1980s, when protests against New Delhi's rule sparked an armed conflict that has since claimed 68,000 lives, mostly civilians.
Residents ignored the "shoot on sight" order and thousands defied the curfew after the latest shootings to hold noisy protests, shouting "We want freedom" and "Go India! Go back."
As Badyari's body was brought to his neighborhood Thursday, hundreds of men and women came out of their homes to take part in his funeral procession. Police responded by firing warning shots and tear gas at the mourners.
Meanwhile, Prabhakar Tripathi, a spokesman for the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force, said 300 members of a Rapid Action Force, specially trained to control violent mobs, reached Srinagar and were deployed Thursday.
The federal government has also sent nearly 2,000 additional paramilitary troops to Kashmir, Tripathi said.
On Wednesday, India's Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram appealed for an end to the violence in Kashmir, and said the government was ready for dialogue with the Kashmiri people.
Muslim-majority Kashmir is divided between predominantly Hindu India and Muslim-majority Pakistan but is claimed in its entirety by both. Separatist politicians and militants in Kashmir reject Indian sovereignty over the region and want to carve out a separate homeland or merge with Pakistan.
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