Violence erupts in Indian Kashmir

Violence in India’s troubled Kashmir valley escalated on Tuesday, with three local youths, including a 13-year-old boy, shot dead by paramilitary police during widening protests against the heavy military presence in the region.

The deaths brought to 11 the number of men and boys killed by police in Kashmir over the past two weeks in violent clashes between stone-pelting youths and heavily armed members of Central Reserve Police Force.

Authorities imposed a curfew and deployed thousands of troops in Kashmir’s main towns in an effort to restore order in the volatile Muslim-majority province, which is at the centre of a decades-old sovereignty dispute between India and neighbouring Pakistan.

In the town of Anantnag – where thousands of Hindus are gathering to begin an annual pilgrimage to a Himalayan cave – angry youths defied the curfew and confronted paramilitary police, who allegedly opened fire, killing three and injuring others.

On Tuesday evening, Omar Abdullah, the 40-year-old chief minister, of Jammu and Kashmir, said the violent clashes were being deliberately instigated by Kashmiri separatists, who he accused of exploiting “emotional and vulnerable youth”.

He warned that security forces would strictly enforce a curfew across the Kashmir valley, and appealed to Kashmiri parents to keep their children at home and prevent more confrontations with the security forces.

“This cycle of violence has to stop, and the best way to stop this cycle of violence is to stop protesting for the time being,” Mr Abdullah said.

“This is not a simple law and order matter. It’s a battle of wits ...

“It’s a battle of ideologies in which various anti­national forces and vested interests have come together to create trouble.”

In the 1990s, Kashmir was wracked by a Pakistan-based armed separatist insurgency, a conflict that lead to the deaths of an estimated 70,000 people, but militant violence has declined sharply in recent years.

However, India maintains nearly 500,000 troops and paramilitary police in the restive region – a intrusive presence that generates tremendous friction, and resentment, among local people.

Elected just 18 months ago, Mr Abduhallah had pledged to reduce the military’s heavy presence in the valley, and end soldiers’ immunity from prosecution for human rights abuses in Kashmir, but he ran into resistance from the armed forces.

Over the weekend, Ali Mohammad Sagar, Kashmir’s law minister, accused the CRPF forces in the state of being “out of control”.

The current cycle of violence started two weeks ago, when a Srinagar teenager was killed by a stray rubber bullet, sparking angry clashes with police that led to more fatalities.