Troops fire on Indian Kashmir funeral, killing 1

[September 18, 2010]  SRINAGAR, India (AP) -- Government forces opened fire on a funeral procession in curfew-bound Indian-controlled Kashmir on Saturday, killing one civilian and wounding at least 12 others, police and local residents said.

Thousands of people in Anantnag, a town south of the main city of Srinagar, defied the curfew to participate in the funeral of a 17-year-old boy whose body was recovered from a river early Saturday.

Anantnag residents said the boy drowned when he was chased by paramilitary soldiers trying to break up an anti-India rally earlier in the week.

Police and paramilitary soldiers opened fire on the procession after some mourners tried to set fire to the house of a pro-India politician, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. One civilian was killed, he said.

Three of the wounded were in critical condition, he said.

Residents of Anantnag denied attacking the politician's home.

"It was an unprovoked firing. They are not even allowing funeral processions," said Ghulam Nabi Nath, a local resident.

The police officer said the procession violated a nearly round-the-clock curfew.

The Himalayan region has been rocked by widespread protests against Indian rule since June. At least 100 people have died in clashes between protesters and paramilitary forces, but with protests escalating over the past week, the government on Friday deployed the army for crowd control.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, which is divided between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan and claimed by both. The protesters are demanding independence for the mostly Muslim region from Hindu-dominated India or a merger with predominantly Muslim Pakistan.

Also Saturday, a young man wounded by police gunfire in clashes earlier in the week died in a hospital in Srinagar. Thousands joined his funeral procession through the city as police and paramilitary soldiers looked on.

In another incident overnight, demonstrators set fire to a police officer's home in southern Pinjoora village, police said.

The current unrest is reminiscent of the late 1980s, when protests against New Delhi's rule sparked an armed conflict that has so far killed more than 68,000 people, mostly civilians.

[Associated Press; By AIJAZ HUSSAIN]

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