100 killed in protests in India-controlled Kashmir
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The civilian death toll in police and paramilitary shooting on protesters across Indian-controlled Kashmir Saturday crossed the 100 mark with the killing of another youth.
The killing took place in Anantnag town, 60 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Police spokesman said the youth was part of a violent mob which tried to ransack house of a pro-Indian political party leader in curfew-bound area .
Locals denying the police claim said police and India's paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force Personnel (CRPF) fired at a funeral procession Saturday morning, killing a civilian on spot and wounding 12 others.
Police identified the slain youth as 23-year-old Noor-ul-Amin Dugga.
Hundreds of people including women and children defied curfew restrictions in the town to participate in the funeral of a 17- year-old boy Maroof Ahmad Nath, whose body was fished out from a river early Saturday. Nath, according to locals, drowned last week in the neighborhood river during a police and paramilitary chase to quell the anti-India protest in the town.
The relentless protests have been going on in the region over the past three months and police in a bid to break them, usually resorts to firing tear smoke shells or bullets.
Police and paramilitary action to quell such protests trigger clashes, with irate youth hurling stones and brick pieces and in retaliation getting targeted either by tear smoke shells or bullets, which often prove fatal.
"Police action either results in wounding or killing people. Since the protests broke out, we have been witnessing the graph of number of injured and number of dead going up," said a doctor posted at Srinagar's premier health Institute SKIMS.
The hospitals usually remain overburdened because of the growing number of injured. There is no official data available about the number of injured over the last three months.
However, unconfirmed data says more than 1,000 people including police and CRPF men have got injured. Hospitals are facing shortage of some medicines.
The health officials at main hospital in Srinagar last Monday appealed people to come forward to donate blood as hospital's blood bank was running short of blood supply.
Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the psyche of majority of Kashmiris and each death is pushing the region on edge and triggering fresh wave of protests.
Experts say the ongoing summer protests have given a new edge to the two-decade old revolt in the Himalayan region.
"These protests have given a new dimension to the Kashmir revolt, which can't be easily demonised, even in a world obsessed with fighting terrorism. These stone throwing young men have changed the paradigm of the conflict, where even government of India talks about popular anger and legitimate aspiration," said Showkat Ali, a political analyst in Srinagar.
Some protesters have taken the fight to virtual world and are seen very active on social networking sites and Internet. These Web-savvy protesters usually upload videos and photographs of police brutality and mass protests on YouTube and Facebook, thereby triggering debates and discussions.
Both local government and New Delhi is battling hard to contain the protests.
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