SRINAGAR – A firefight near a 14th century Muslim shrine in Indian HeldKashmir on Wednesday left three freedom fighters martyred, which sparkedprotests in the Himalayan region.
A police officer was also killed in the gunbattle near the Khanqah-e-Moulashrine, a tourist draw in Srinagar’s Old City.
The clash triggered a showdown between protesters and occupying forces, whofired tear gas at stone-throwing demonstrators shouting anti-India slogans.
Shops and schools shut as news of the deaths spread, and internet serviceswere suspended across the city.
Indian forces cordoned off the Fateh Kadal locality, close to the shrine,after they received information about armed militants hiding in a house, apolice statement said.
Witnesses said the gunfire broke out after soldiers knocked at the door ofa house and took away a young Kashmiri.
“We don’t know where he is and now we hear [police] say he was a militant,”the young man’s brother Asif Nabi told reporters outside his home, whichwas burned down in the clash.
Police rejected this version of events saying that the man, though notknown earlier to authorities, refused to leave the house when given theopportunity.
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“Instead, he picked up a weapon and opened fire on troops there, andconsequently was killed,” inspector general of police Swayam Prakash Panisaid.
As the firefight wound down, officers turned on journalists reporting atthe site of the encounter, injuring at least one reporter and two cameramen.
“They [police] just lunged at us and started beating us with sticks andthen fired in the air. The empty cartridges hit my head,” Asif Qureshi, ajournalist with an Indian news station, said.
Earlier this month, suspected freedom fighters shot dead two activists froma pro-India political group near the scene of Wednesday’s shootout.
India has some 500,000 troops deployed in held Kashmir, where people demandindependence or a merger with Pakistan. – APP/AFP