SRINAGAR – Thousands of protesters poured into the streets in restive Indian occupied Kashmir on Saturday after a student was shot dead by the army. The new unrest raised memories of massive anti-India protests that rocked the Muslim-majority region last summer in which at least 114 people were killed, most of them shot by security forces.
Manzoor Ahmad Magray, 21, a student, was killed by Indian troops late Friday in Handwara, 80 kms (50 miles) north of the region’s summer capital Srinagar, police said. Thousand of people marched in the streets on Saturday to voice their anger, television footage showed. Indian military spokesman JS Brar said in a statement that the army regretted Magray’s death but added that “troops fired after he paid no heed to their signal to stop.”
Handwara-based police superintendent Mohammad Aslam said: “We have registered a murder case against the army in connection with the incident.” He said that the situation was tense but under control. Kashmir state chief minister Omar Abdullah, who was accused last year of allowing civilian unrest to spiral out of control, expressed his sorrow at the death.
“How can one not condemn the death of 21-year-old Manzoor at the hands of the army late last night? Another needless death in a bloody Kashmir,” Abdullah posted on micro-blogging site Twitter, adding he was making inquiries into the incident.
Relatives of Magray rejected the army’s statement that the young man had refused to stop and charged that he had been killed “in cold blood.”
“Torture marks were visible on the body of Magray. There was only one bullet wound in the lower part of the leg,” said Shabir Ahmad, a relative. The Himalayan region is held in part by nuclear-armed India and Pakistan but claimed in full by both. The intensity of a two-decade-old insurgency against Indian rule, funded by Islamist militant groups in Pakistan, has fallen since New Delhi and Islamabad began a peace process in 2004 to resolve all disputes including Kashmir.
But civilian protests against India’s rule have increased. Tempers have been rising again in the region since two teenage sisters were killed last month in an attack that India blamed on Lashkar-e-Taiba but which the Pakistan-based Islamist militant group denied.
Militant groups are known to kill people suspected of being police informers, while security forces have been accused by human rights organisations of extrajudicial killings and acting with impunity.
