SIX PROTESTERS SHOT DEAD IN KASHMIR: POLICE
It is mayhem. Six are dead and dozens injured. The death toll could rise further
SRINAGAR, India / Jammu and Kashmir, July 18, 2013 (AFP) - Indian paramilitary forces Thursday shot dead six people protesting at an incident involving the troops at an Islamic school in Kashmir, police said.
Border Security Force (BSF) troops fired on demonstrators who had gathered outside their headquarters in the district of Gool, two officers said on condition of anonymity.
“It is mayhem. Six are dead and dozens injured. The death toll could rise further,” said an officer.
India's Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said he has ordered an investigation into the shooting and appealed for calm in the tense Hi- malayan region.
A revolt against Indian rule has simmered for decades in Kashmir, the country's only Muslim-majority state.
The head of the madrasa, Qari Shabir, said four BSF troopers came in looking for militants, at a time that a caretaker was alone reciting prayers during Ramadan.
“They beat him up...that is when Abdul Lateef (the caretaker) raised an alarm and people started to assemble and the word spread,” Shabir told AFP by telephone from Gool, 230 kilometres (143 miles) south of the state's main city of Srinagar.
The angry protesters clashed outside the BSF base on Thursday with troops who started firing, witnesses said.
“The BSF soldiers fired indiscriminately, downing protesters left, right and centre,” one witness who declined to be identified told AFP by telephone.
The insurgency has been a regular source of tensions between residents and security forces, which often spill over into violence.
About a dozen rebel groups have been fighting Indian forces in Kashmir since 1989, either for independence or for a merger with Pakistan. The fighting has left tens of thousands, mostly civilians, dead.