More deaths as Kashmir clashes continue
NEW DELHI: The number dead from unrest in Indian-administered Kashmir climbed to 15 yesterday, officials said, despite authorities imposing a harsher curfew on the restive territory in a bid to prevent new demonstrations.
One protester was killed yesterday when government forces fired on angry residents who defied the restrictions in the southern Pulwama area and six died in different hospitals overnight after suffering gunshot wounds on Saturday, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Authorities extended the curfew to the entire Kashmir valley, including the main city of Srinagar, for the second day following Saturday’s wide-scale clashes over the killing of a popular rebel commander by government forces.
The clashes continued yesterday despite mobile networks and internet remaining suspended for the second day running in most areas.
Burhan Wani, a 22-year-old commander of the region’s largest rebel group, Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) was killed in a brief gunfight with government forces on Friday evening.
His death sparked protests and clashes between government forces and residents angry over the killing across the disputed territory in which more than 200 were wounded, most of them from firearms.
The injured included 96 police, a police statement said on Saturday.
At least three police stations were set on fire by protesters and three officers were missing, the statement added.
Wani, who was in his early 20s, had gained prominence over the past several years in the region, becoming one of the faces of the movement opposed to India’s control over part of Kashmir.
The separatists in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir support independence.
In a news conference in Srinagar on Saturday evening, a top local police official, SM Sahai, speaking about Wani’s death, implored Kashmir’s youth to avoid “this path so that these type of young lives are not lost”.
“We certainly do not want to kill youngsters of our society,” Mr Sahai said.
Police are investigating whether the use of force by officers against protesters on Saturday had been justified, he said.
Fahad Shah, a journalist in Kashmir, attended the prayer service for Wani in Tral, the town in southern Kashmir from where Wani came.
He said the turnout was unlike anything he had ever seen before, with “thousands of people” filling the park.
The prayer service was not violent, Mr Shah said.
But as news of Wani’s death spread, clashes erupted between protesters and police in parts of southern Kashmir and the police responded with force, including tear gas and gunfire.
Before the violence flared on Saturday, a former chief minister of the state, Omar Abdullah, warned of a reaction to the killing of Wani, whom he said was more of a force as a recruiter on social media than as a fighter in the insurgency.