Two people were killed and 80 wounded in Indian Kashmir on Friday when troops fired bullets and tear gas shells to break up renewed protests by Muslims against New Delhi's rule in the disputed region. The shooting took place in two separate towns near Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, as several thousand worshippers demonstrated after weekly Friday prayers. “I saw several people falling down when forces fired indiscriminately,” witness Muzamil Ahmad told Reuters by telephone. At least 21 people were hit by bullets and were rushed to a local hospital, officials said. Protesters later threw stones in clashes with police, witnesses said. “Oppressors, get out of Kashmir,” shouted the Srinagar protesters. Clashes between police and stone-throwing protesters broke out in several other areas of Kashmir, witnesses said. Earlier on Friday, Yasin Malik, a senior separatist leader and chief of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was injured when police used tear gas and batons to disperse thousands of demonstrators he was leading in Srinagar. Malik shouted “Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest), we will break the chains,” before police fired tear gas, witnesses said. “Malik fell unconscious and was immediately removed to the hospital,” said Showkat Bakhshi, a JKLF spokesman. At least 37 protesters have been killed by government forces in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley since last month, when some of the largest pro-independence rallies broke out since a revolt against New Delhi's rule in 1989. Authorities deployed thousands of troops across the valley to prevent demonstrations called by the region's different separatist factions. Separately, Indian security forces shot dead five militants in gun battles in southern Kashmir on Friday, police said. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the strife-torn region since Muslim rebels launched a violent campaign opposing Indian rule in Kashmir twenty years ago.
